The Skinny Scotland February 2017 by The Skinny

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CULT U R A L

J O U R N A L I S M

February 2017 Scotland Issue 137

MOVIE MANIA GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL 2017 Film John Waters Alex Kapranos Mike Mills

Music Craig David SURVIVE Allison Crutchfield Los Campesinos! Meursault LUCIA Craig Charles

Art RSA New Contemporaries

Comedy Christian Talbot Rachel Jackson

Books Kapka Kassabova David Keenan StAnza

PROUDLY SERVED IN FINE ESTABLISHMENTS AND QUESTIONABLE JOINTS EVERYWHERE. L I V E F R E E L Y. D R I N K R E S P O N S I B L Y.

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P.16 Allison Crutchfield

P.17 20th Century Women

P.31 Veganuary

February 2017 I N DEPEN DENT

CULTU R AL

JOU R NALI S M

Issue 137, February 2017 ÂŠ Radge Media Ltd. Get in touch: E: hello@theskinny.co.uk T: 0131 467 4630 P: The Skinny, 1.9 1st Floor Tower, Techcube, Summerhall, 1 Summerhall Pl, Edinburgh, EH9 1PL The Skinny is Scotland's largest independent entertainment & listings magazine, and offers a wide range of advertising packages and affordable ways to promote your business. Get in touch to find out more.

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Contents

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

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

Production Production Manager Designer

Sarah Donley Kyle McPartlin

Sales Sales Executives

General Manager Publisher

George Sully Sandy Park Victoria Brough Kyla Hall Sophie Kyle

THE SKINNY

Illustration: Jake Hollings

P.10 Alex Kapranos

Contents Chat & Opinion: In celebration of the 06 January vegan week undertaken by The Skinny’s office, Spot the Difference is transformed this month with a celebration of vegan bacon. Plus, Shot of the Month, Crystal Baws, Online Only and Jock Mooney’s regular What Are You Having For Lunch? Heads Up: Your cultural calendar for 08 the most romantic month of the year. Or the most depressing month of the year, depending on which marketers you’re talking to.

LIFESTYLE

25 Travel: Starting a new life abroad offers

an array of exciting challenges, but what happens when the dust settles? One recent arrival to Edinburgh examines the surprisingly common phenomenon of expat depression.

26 Deviance: Does the key to dating success lie in maths? Plus a plea to stop keeping track of your sexual tally.

28 Showcase: RSA New Contemporaries

return for 2017 with the cream of last year’s Scottish art school graduates.

FEATURES Film Festival’s 2017 edition lands 10 Glasgow this month. We talk to Alex Kapranos about the inimitable Glasgow music scene as Niall McCann’s 90s scene-celebrating Lost in France is released.

11 We meet life-long transgressor John

Waters as his uproariously blasphemous sophomore film Multiple Maniacs is given a rerelease and screening at GFF.

12 The slicker than average Craig David

fills us in on his re-e-wind to the job he was born to do. He’s not walking away this time.

15 Austin-based synth quartet S U R V I V E discuss success with the Stranger Things soundtrack and sophomore album RR7349.

What do you do when your band and 16 your relationship break up in one fell swoop? We ask former Swearin’ member Allison Crutchfield, as she prepares to release her debut solo album Tourist in This Town.

Thumbsucker and Beginners director Mike Mills is back mining his own life for his art with 20th Century Women. He gives us some background on his very personal approach to filmmaking.

18 We speak to Los Campesinos!' Gareth

David about life, the universe and everything as the Cardiff-formed indie band gear up to release sixth album Sick Scenes.

19 Christian Talbot chats about why he

didn’t want to talk about potatoes on his new comedy podcast Do You Remember The First Time? Scotland’s biggest poetry festival StAnza is back in St Andrews.

21 Author Kapka Kassabova’s new book

Border captures cold war history and the current refugee crisis on the blurred borders of the Balkan peninsula.

31 Food & Drink: Veganism – we tried it, it

was hard. But it’s good for the planet so you should think about it. Plus news and a guide to romance for Valentine’s Day.

REVIEW

35 Music: Live reviews from 2017’s Celtic

Connections; Meursault are back – we quiz Neil Pennycook on why he’s departed from his solo persona; meet rising star LUCIA; plus our pick of February’s album releases.

40 Clubs: Highlights for Edinburgh,

Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee nights in February, and a Guest Selector from Hannah Wants.

43 Film: Releases include Moonlight and Prevenge.

44 Books: Poetry news and book reviews. 45 Art: Reviews and highlights for the month ahead.

46 Theatre: Aunty Trash receives an email she’s very very angry about.

47 Comedy: Rachel Jackson on her BBC3

shorts for Valentine's Day, Chunks and being the former icon of Irn-Bru.

48 Listings: What’s On in Glasgow,

Edinburgh and Dundee this month? We’ll tell you.

55 Out Back: Craig Charles Guest Selector

– the 6 Music funk correspondent and former Red Dwarf star shares some of his top tunes ahead of an appearance at Groove Cairngorm.

22 David Keenan introduces This Is

Memorial Device, his hotly-tipped publishing debut celebrating the post-punk scene of 70s Airdrie.

February 2017

Contents

Editorial

n January The Skinny office decided (cos, reasons) to spend a week being vegan. The arguments for everyone going vegan are pretty comprehensive from an environmental point of view, considering self-interest before even looking at animal welfare, so we wanted to see if it was possible to live without cheese. It is possible, but it is also really hard. The only thing anyone could think or talk about was their veganhood, and everything hurt. Suddenly the whole ‘How do you tell if someone’s a vegan – they’ll tell you!’ thing made perfect sense. Food editor Pizza Simpson provides a summary of our vegan trials in the middle of the magazine – the diplomatically anonymised person complaining loudly and trying to derail everyone else’s efforts is, sadly, me. I had not realised how dependent I am on cheese and fish. I leave January with a newfound respect for people who are able to go permanently vegan. We leave the month of attempted self improvement to face up to February, the month of romance and / or unremitting environmental bleakness (if you live in Scotland). Luckily, Glasgow Film Festival is here to cheer up midwinter month three by inviting you into the cosy surrounds of the GFT for another programme fit to burst with cinematic gems old and new. We speak to Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand fame, here in his guise as an individual man to reminisce about the Glasgow music scene of the 90s ahead of the release of Chemikal Underground-celebrating doc Lost in France. Another highlight of the GFF programme for 2017 is the UK premiere of the uncut version of John Waters’ 1970 classic Multiple Maniacs. The man himself met with our Film editor to discuss his creative origin story, breaking boundaries we didn’t even know existed (rosary job anyone?) and provide a measured take on the US’s current slide into tyranny. People of Glasgow should keep an eye out in the city centre during the festival

itself for our twice-weekly mini-publication the CineSkinny, offering news, reviews and interviews from 15 February. In Music, we meet Craig David – yeah, that one. He’s back and everyone’s more excited than you would think. S U R V I V E have found a massive audience by soundtracking creepy Netflix hit Stranger Things, and now they’re releasing their sophomore album RR7349 and touring to the Art School. Allison Crutchfield calls during the fever dream of the Trump inauguration to discuss releasing her solo debut after seeing her band (Swearin’) and relationship (with another member of Swearin’) break down simultaneously. The irritatingly-punctuated Los Campesinos!’ Gareth David discusses life, the universe and everything (and sixth album Sick Scenes); Edinburgh favourites Meursault are back with the murderously titled I Will Kill Again, so we talk to mastermind Neil Pennycook to find out what happened in the hiatus; and Glasgow new blood LUCIA enthuses about the collaborative nature of that city’s creative scene. Books is particularly topical this month, with an interview with Kapka Kassabova on the subject of her new book Border. Meditating on the blurry nature of borders in the Balkans, shifting power and migration, she offers an insight into the tragic realities of lines on the map particularly pertinent at this point in history. We also meet David Keenan, whose publishing debut This Is Memorial Device, a hallucinatory tour of a post-punk Airdrie of the 70s, has already been greeted with some fanfare. Finally, Art’s February highlight is the ninth edition of RSA New Contemporaries, a now firmly established fixture in the career development of emergent artists. This year’s carefully selected curation of Scottish art school graduates arrives on the Mound mid-month. You will find an array of works to whet your appetite in the Showcase centre spread. [Rosamund West]

Crystal Balls With Mystic Mark

ARIES You’ve only eaten bog roll for two years but you’re still alive. Just goes to prove that science is bullshit.

LIBRA You’re deeply concerned your child is a pervert after they keep asking for a ‘happy ending’ at the end of their bedtime stories.

TAURUS No matter how many of the healing crystals you snort, you don’t seem to heal, just jabber on about how you want more crystals. Do you have any more crystals? I’m gonna have some more crystals. Do you want some? Do you have the number for the crystal guy?

SCORPIO You tend to get so Christian after a couple of lines of coke.

GEMINI God’s giant face comes burning through clouds this February to apologise for how violent he was back in the salad days. CANCER At mass your entire congregation gets food poisoning after Jesus’s body goes off after being left against a damp wall. LEO This month you can’t tell if that’s the sound of the fire alarm over all the loud crackling, burning noises and roaring heat blasting through your home. You get out of bed to have a look, but can’t make out whether the little red light on the alarm is flashing for all the thick, black smoke. VIRGO It’s not that you’re addicted to drugs, you just prefer to be on more drugs all the time.

SAGITTARIUS This month your application for a sainthood for Brian Harvey is accepted by the local bishop. Evidence of miracles include his ability to run over his own head with his own car. CAPRICORN When it comes to believing in yourself you’re more of an agnostic. AQUARIUS You buy a dog in order to meet other dog-owning singles in the park. Sadly the only romantic thing that happens is your dog meets another dog, falling madly in love at first bum-sniff. Looking at the two dog soulmates, so happy and together, you decide it’s time to have him put down and go back to Tinder. PISCES On holiday, while exploring a desert cave you uncover a magic lamp. Upon rubbing its dusty sides a genie puffs out and graciously grants you, his new master, three wishes! You think for a moment before reciting your wishes in order: that he, the genie, should be immortal, that he feels all sensations including pain twelve trillion times more than a normal human, and that he is tortured for all eternity in a hell built from his worst fears.

Shot Of The Month Rationale, King Tut's, 20 January, by Cameron Brisbane

By Jock Mooney 6

Chat

THE SKINNY

Spot The Difference BRINGING HOME THE BACON ...Or rather, spot the theme. Informed by the partial-Veganuary adventures at Skinny HQ recently, we’ve gathered a sextet of images, all very tenuously linked together by a crackling concept. Can you identify the godawful pun that unites them? No need to be too rash(er) with your answer; simply have a think and maybe you’ll find yourself on a hot streak. Never ones to keep our snouts in the trough,

nor to hog the good stuff, we’ve got a copy of The Automobile Club of Egypt by Alaa Al Aswany to give away to one lucky winner, courtesy of the fine folk at Canongate – simply head to theskinny/ co.uk/competitions the correct answer (or, failing that, something funny; we tried to make toasties with the wrong vegan cheese the other day and need cheering up).

Competition closes at midnight on Sun 26 Feb. Winners will be notified via email within two working days of closing and will be required to respond within 48 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. Our Ts&Cs can be found at theskinny.co.uk/about/terms

Online Only theskinny.co.uk/film Want the scoop on Glasgow Film Festival, with news, reviews and interviews direct from the festival frontline? You do? Excellent – head to theskinny.co.uk/cineskinny for the latest. Elsewhere in film, we talk to T2: Trainspotting’s leading men – Bremner, Carlyle, McGregor and Miller – about returning to their iconic characters, and we pick out a selection of films for a posttruth world. Facts? Pfft – where we’re going, we don’t need facts. theskinny.co.uk/food Tried all the winners in our Food & Drink Survey and looking for somewhere new? Our New in Food column highlights the best new bars, restaurants and cafes in Edinburgh and Glasgow, so you need never cook for yourself again. T2: Trainspotting

February 2017

theskinny.co.uk/music Manchester grime crew Virus Syndicate talk politics, their origins, and playing gigs in the Arctic Circle, and we catch up with Wild Nothing ahead of a string of tour dates with arena-botherers Kings of Leon. Oh, and reviews of the new albums from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Lupe Fiasco and more. Many, many more. theskinny.co.uk/festivals It’s the most wonderful time of the year, when all your favourite music festivals announce their 2017 line-ups. Head to the website for news on the best bills from across the UK and beyond this summer. theskinny.co.uk/clubs Get your party on consistently and thoroughly with our weekly clubbing highlights for Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Opinion

Compiled by: Kate Pasola

February's a dinky wee month, but no less busy for it. With GFF, Glad Cafe fundraisers, farewell parties and 10th birthdays galore, it's a big'un.

Thu 2 Feb

It’s absolutely baffling that Edinburgh Uni’s quick-witted clan The Improverts are only just stretching their legs into Glasgow – they’ve enjoyed soaring success during both the academic year and Fringe season for years now. If you’re on the West coast, now’s your chance to catch a bloody funny act at a bloody good venue. The Stand, Glasgow, 8.30pm, £6-7

So, we’ve established the world has turned to bollocks. What now? Well, for Brooklyn-based artist, researcher, and educator Kameelah Janan Rasheed the answer is big, witty, pissed off billboards. Her series of public aphoristic large format digital prints, entitled How To Suffer Politely (And Other Etiquette) examines the performance of the ‘angelic negro’ who in the face of routinised Black deaths must eternally repress anger. See it in Transmission’s window until mid Feb. Transmission, Glasgow, until 15 Feb, free

How to Suffer Politely (And Other Etiquette)

The Improverts

Mon 6 Feb

Tue 7 Feb

Wed 8 Feb

Right, what’s the last you heard of Kate Nash? Was it back when she released that absolutely gorgeous collection of pop rock, Girl Talk? Or even further back, a decade ago when singing about trainers and cockney affectations were cool? Doesn’t matter – the point is that Kate Nash likes to surprise, she’s back, and you don’t wanna miss what’s next. Òran Mór, Glasgow, 7pm, £14

Last month our Art editor visited GoMA to take a look at newly opened exhibition Poppies, which brings together artists Joanne Robertson and Max Brand. Giving it four stars, he reported ‘a quick and expressive abandon... making for a messier and immersive environment of expressive paintings, sound and sculpture’. While you’re there, you can also check out group exhibition Please Turn Us On, which wraps up 22 Jan. Until 11 Jun, GoMA, Glasgow, free

The Glad Cafe’s a groovy little haunt. Not only do they host Genuinely Good Events on the reg, they’re a not-for-profit social enterprise. And y’know what? Doing that sorta thing in 2017 isn’t easy. That in mind, they’re hosting a three-night fundraising party called The Glug, The Glad and The Glugly (great name), at which Kathryn Joseph, Trembling Bells, Whyte and loads of other acts will be playing. Get involved. Glad Cafe, Glasgow, 7-9 Feb, £7

Kate Nash

Spectra

Sun 12 Feb Getting a bit sick of these dark mornings, dark evenings and dark, er, days? Remedy that with Aberdeen’s Spectra festival of light. This year’s theme is ‘A New Light’ (we won’t make any ‘enlightenment’ jokes), and will combine the works of international artists and Scottish collaborators to bring a four day spectacle to Aberdeen’s public spaces and galleries. Check out spectraaberdeen.com for the deets. 9-12 Feb, various venues in Aberdeen, free

Poppies

Mon 13 Feb

Tue 14 Feb

Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale has a lot going for it; wit and wisdom, passion and the pastoral, and the relatability to be dropped right into the 21st Century with ease and elegance. And that’s exactly what director Max Webster has done, recontextualising this literary treat and giving it a Scottish identity. The Lyceum, Edinburgh, 10 Feb-4 Mar, 7.30pm (matinees Weds & Sat 2.30pm), £10-30.50

Under the (correct) assumption that Valentine’s Day is the actual worst day of the year, it’s probably a good idea to head to The Stand today for their Anti-Valentine’s Day show. Whether you’re all set or single as fuck, grab a bev and get involved with Susie McCabe, Gus Lymburn, Robin Grainger and host Liam Withnail for the night. The Stand, Edinburgh, 8.30pm, £5-6

Kathryn Joseph

The Winter's Tale

The Stand

Sat 18 Feb

Sun 19 Feb

It’s a big day today – if you’re not at the Braw Beard and Moustache Championships over at Drygate, head the Royal Scottish Academy for the 2017 edition of RSA New Contemporaries. Now in its ninth year, RSA will exhibit the cream of the art graduate crop, taking in painting, sculpture, film making, photography, printmaking, architecture and installation from 66 artists. 18 Feb-15 Mar RSA, Edinburgh, £TBC

Our foodie pick this month has to be bakery47 & Locavore Dye-It: Exploring Edible Colour. Head along in the afternoon to learn all about using natural foodstuffs to conjure up beautiful food colouring, then put your new hues to use and dye your own Pasche eggs. Bob’s your uncle – mad skills and a couple of months to nail the technique in time for Easter. Sounds smashing. Sorry. bakery47, Glasgow, 3pm, free

Thu 23 Feb

Fri 24 Feb

Sat 25 Feb

Tonight’s another busy one in Glasgow – your choices are a 10 Years of Huntleys & Palmers party at The Art School featuring Ben UFO, Lena Willikens, Sapphire Slows (11pm, £10) or a night of grime at Sub Club courtesy of Bugzy Malone, along with Shogun, Ransom FA, 2T, and Chrissey Grimes. (7pm, £18). Rest assured either options will be bangers.

We’re torn today – In Glasgow there’s the addictive sound of Pinegrove, a stupendous indie rock band whose tunes are equal parts hummable pleasure and cerebral treat. (Stereo, 7pm, £9.50). In the capital, Neu Reekie's hosting an intimate event in their HQ base, asking 'Where Are We Now?’ and promising their usual melange of poetry, music and short film, flanked by ’manifestos, provocations and a roving mic’. Summerhall, Edinburgh, 7.30pm, £5

Can’t wait til the summer to get stuck into some festival action? Embrace the chill in the air and head to Groove Cairngorm, a local(ish) resort-based snow sports and music festival on a MOUNTAIN. While you're there, you'll also catch a DJ set from Basement Jaxx, a Horse Meat Disco party and a show from Blondie. Cairngorm Mountain, 24-25 Feb, £18.90-140 (mountain-only and music-only tickets available)

Lena Willikens

Chat

Pinegrove

bakery 47

Blondie

THE SKINNY

Photo: Rita Azevedo

Heads Up

Wed 1 Feb

Fri 3 Feb

Sat 4 Feb

Sun 5 Feb

Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Good news? Bongo's global odyssey of a clubnight Four Corners turns 12 this month! Bad news? Their birthday party tonight will double up as their farewell gig. Wahhh. Go dose up on deep funk, boogie, disco reggae, latin, blues and Afrobeat with DJs Simon Hodge, Astrojazz and Johnny Cashback for the very last time. Bongo, Edinburgh, 11pm, £3-5

Luke Daniels is the first musician to create new, original music for the Polyphon in over 135 years. By mixing the analogue creations with digital elements, he creates enchanting pieces of music which make for intriguing live performances. The show makes up part of the of Celtic Connections programme, which kicked off in late Jan and continues until 5 Feb. City Halls, Glasgow, 7.30pm, £12

Whether you’re after a wee Valentine’s treat, need 2017 a wardrobe update or just fancy a mindless mooch, Hillhead’s got you sorted this month with Granny Would Be Proud’s Vintage, Craft & Design Market. There’ll be all the usual on offer – banging vintage, stacks of stuff from local designers and a whole load of inspiration. Hillhead Bookclub, Glasgow, 12pm-5pm, free

Four Corners

Hillhead Bookclub

Luke Daniels

Thu 9 Feb

Fri 10 Feb

Sat 11 Feb

Edinburgh Student Arts Festival began back in 2015 when Briana Pedago noticed an unfortunate division between the Edinburgh University and ECA student bodies. Still going strong, it returns this month from 9 Feb - 3 Mar with an abundance of performance, visual art, music, film, talks and workshops. Check out edinburghstudentartsfestival.com for the full programme. 9 Feb - 3 Mar, Various venues across Edinburgh, times and prices vary

The definition of ‘flâneur’ typically refers to a wealthy bloke who strolls around the city, observing his fellow inhabitants. Laura Elkin, author of Flâneuse: Women Walk the City believes such sauntering shouldn’t be an activity restricted to men. As part of CCA's Cities programme, she’ll be hosting a workshop to giving prospective flân-folk the tools they need to write about the places and people they encounter. CCA, Glasgow, 2pm, free

February also marks the 10th birthday of house and techno heroes Musika, who’ll mark the occasion with a two part rammy. Tonight sees part one unfold at the Liquid Room with heaving line-up of Musika’s ever-faves, including Eats Everything, Dense & Pika, Trevino, Tim Green and more. They’re waiting on word for a late license, so keep your eyes peeled to see whether you’re in for a marathon night. Liquid Room, Edinburgh, 8pm, £17.50-24.50

Edinburgh Student Arts Festival

CCA

Wed 15 Feb

Thu 16 Feb

Fri 17 Feb

The month of February is dedicated to the recognition of LGBT History, and there's no better time than the present to get involved. Literally – not only is 2017 going to be challenging for sexual and gender rights but today is legit LGBTQ+ awareness day. Head to lgbthistory. org.uk for an up-to-date calendar of events comitted to recognising, celebrating and educating on the history of sexual progression. Waheyyyy.

Keeping things filmic, we move on to National Theatre’s live screening of Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan in cinemas across the UK. Directed by Josie Rourke and featuring Gemma Arterton as the revolutionary herself, it’s set to be a striking piece enjoyed simultaneously across the country. Be part of it. Various venues across Scotland, times and prices vary – see ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk for listings

Just as you’re polishing off your Christmas boxsets wondering desperately where to turn next, Glasgow Film Festival returns to save the day. With all kinds of themed strands (there’s everything from horror to counter-culture, family flicks to warrior stories) and extra special one-off events, you can get stuck in to your heart's content. Check out theskinny.co.uk/film to get all the latest. 15-26 Feb, venues, times and prices vary

LGBT History Month

Saint Joan

Eats Everything

Lost in France

Mon 20 Feb

Tue 21 Feb

Wed 22 Feb

Indulge your moody February impulses with synth quartet S U R V I V E who’re on the bill at The Art School tonight. You might recognise their expansive, chilling soundscapes from the Stranger Things soundtrack – band members Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein were charged with composing it, after all. Have a listen to the whole band’s 2016 sophomore effort, RR7349 and find out why you need to see ‘em live. The Art School, Glasgow, 7pm, £13.50

Make time this month for Rock Against Racism at Street Level Photoworks, a collection of photographs by Syd Shelton documenting the streets of the 70s, 'when racist skinheads danced to Jamaican ska, punks embraced reggae and black kids reached out to punk'. The exhibition is named after a movement dedicated to removing the superiority from whiteness and the alienation of blackness, and Shelton is the one who devoted his time to photographing it. 11 Feb-9 Apr, Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow, free

Edinburgh’s Audacious Women festival (18-26 Feb) returns this month with a sprawling web of wicked events, including everything from exhibitions to roller derbies, lectures to performances, not to mention workshops in dance, stonemasonry, DJing, knitting, songwriting, motorcycling and crafting. Today historical novelist and perfumer Sara Sheridan gives a talk about memorialising women in scent – it’s as cool as it sounds. Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh, 6.30pm, £3.50-6

SURVIVE

Rock Against Racism

Sun 26 Feb

Mon 27 Feb

Tue 28 Feb

It’s over 18 months since Scotland's beloved The Arches was forced to close – and the effects are still being felt across Scotland. It’s not all bad news though. Multi-venue contemporary arts festival Take Me Somewhere (22 Feb-12 Mar) has sprung from the ashes, aiming to build upon the legacy of The Arches’ programming. Today, go and see Jaamil Olawale Kosoko’s performance lecture #negrophobia. Tramway, Glasgow, 8pm, £10-12

For a good five years now, Edinburgh University has been strategically garnering works of contemporary art which it considers reflective of its teachings as an institution and community. They’re pretty proud of their new acquisitions (which include everything from tattooed figurines to a set of clocks that tell the time of every planet in the solar system), exhibiting them for public consumption in an exhibition called Between poles and tides. 11 Feb-6 May, Talbot Rice, Edinburgh, free

Wrap up your February with a screening of Free Fire, Ben Wheatley's follow-up to his critically acclaimed 2015 feature High-Rise. Set in 1978 America, it tracks the pandemonium that ensues when a firearms transaction between two gangsters and two Irishmen goes awry. Followed by a Q&A with director Ben Wheatley and Sam Riley (TBC). Cameo, Edinburgh, 8.30pm, £8.50-£13.50

February 2017

#negrophobia

Jessica Harrison

Sara Sheridan

Free Fire

Chat

S RE AT U FE

Making a Scene Franz Ferdinand frontman Alex Kapranos discusses his recollections of Glasgow’s vibrant indie music scene of the 90s ahead of the release of Niall McCann’s doc Lost in France and GFF’s special concert reuniting the period’s key players on one bill

ntil now, few will have been aware that in 1997 a busload of Scottish bands made their way across the Channel to perform at a festival in the small French town of Mauron. Among them were The Delgados – founders of the trailblazing Chemikal Underground label – and their much vaunted signings Mogwai and Arab Strap. While the event made little to no impact on the public consciousness, it proved a significant watershed for all involved. Niall McCann’s charming Lost in France sees a handful of the weekend’s key players retrace their steps to the site of the event. There, they ruminate on art, success and the vibrant countercultural scene to which they once belonged. What our heroes may not have expected is quite how much interest would surround Chemikal Underground at the time of the film’s unveiling. An award-winning record by RM Hubbert has buoyed the label’s brand name, as have hugely acclaimed releases from the likes of Miaoux Miaoux and Emma Pollock. Mogwai appear to have been accepted in high art circles following their place within last year’s Edinburgh International Festival programme, while recent Arab Strap reunion dates were met with feverish excitement all over the UK. There’s a vast audience for Lost in France certain to find the film funny, vital and sobering in equal measure. A special screening featuring a rare collaborative gig has, accordingly, made for one of the hottest tickets at this year’s Glasgow Film Festival. Alex Kapranos never signed to Chemikal, but was present for both trips to Mauron. An omnipresent figure within the Scottish music scene long before he struck it big with Franz Ferdinand, the star is uniquely qualified to put McCann’s offering into context. “You have to realise the significance of Chemikal,” he begins, acknowledging the label’s growing stature. “But also, what I was doing myself when I was involved in that scene... I wasn’t thinking of the future or even three weeks ahead. We were very much of the moment and had no plans to create a legacy or anything like that. That’s what old people were into!” Two decades removed from his life in the underground, Kapranos may not yet qualify as an

Feature

old man, but is happy to look back on the mid-90s Glasgow scene, comfortably drawing parallels between Chemikal Underground and the post-punk era’s hugely influential Postcard Records. “When I read Simon Goddard’s recent book on Postcard, it felt oddly familiar,” says Kapranos. “It was a Glasgow that was totally different from the one I knew in the early to mid-90s when we were doing the same thing. Yet in the book, certain landmarks would come up. West Princes Street, Maryhill, things like that. But more than anything else, it was the characters I found repeating themselves in that period and the period I was in. I presume they’re in Glasgow today as well. It’s different people occupying those characters. Or different personalities playing out those parts. I think they’ve been in Glasgow for a long time and reckon they always will. There’s something about the place.” Indeed, aside from their resolute belief in an individualistic, DIY approach to music, what unites each of the artists featured in Lost in France is an affinity with Glasgow itself. “You talk about community and I think that ties up really nicely with the Glasgow scene,” says Kapranos. “A lot of the support has to do with the size of Glasgow. When you go to bigger cities like New York, LA or London, you tend to find that scenes are very localised. Glasgow itself allows for the right amount of interaction between people, without it being too big to splinter off into smaller scenes. It brings people together with completely different tastes in music. There’s a total contrast between bands, but people would listen. That’s how you get something new. “I’ve always been quite contrary,” he continues. “I think that’s definitely a trait of the scene in Glasgow. There isn’t a sound or single unifying aesthetic to the city. What there is is a general contrariness, not wanting to follow what’s happened before or necessarily do what your contemporaries are doing. This is really healthy!” According to Kapranos, the runaway commercial success he found with Franz Ferdinand was an accident borne largely of the group’s perverse impulses, rather than any sort of mainstream pandering. “I loved what Mogwai, Belle and Sebastian

and Teenage Fanclub had done, but when we were getting together, I felt a lot of the music kicking around was very post-rock,” Kapranos recalls. “Headnoddy stuff for blokes, with a tendency toward having fewer lyrics. There was little recognisable melody. The dance music that was around wasn’t really played by bands. We wanted to do the opposite of what was going on at the time. The most contrary thing we could do as a band was play music with a very direct melody. It was tougher than you’d think at the beginning. For us it was perverse to play pop music because we aren’t pop musicians.”

“ There isn't a sound or single unifying aesthetic to Glasgow. This is really healthy!” Alex Kapranos

Their singer may not identify as a pop musician, but Franz’s career trajectory has driven a definite wedge between the band and the scene that nurtured them. Throughout Lost in France, a modest, philosophical Kapranos seems to wrestle with a degree of guilt over his own good fortune in the face of his friends’ more modest circumstances. “Looking back on that time, I feel that while there are names from that period which made a massive impact on the rest of the world, there were other characters around then that were the most vivid bands in many ways. Sometimes I look back and am puzzled as to why people like Trout didn’t have a massive impact on the rest of the world. There were so many of these bands that were visceral and intensely exciting at the time. It felt very unpredictable. Nobody had any idea where it was going to go. Maybe that’s why I get a bittersweet feeling looking back on the period. There were great

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Interview: Lewis Porteous

minds and energies kicking around Glasgow that could’ve made a great impact but didn’t.” By his own admission, Kapranos’s stardom has cushioned him from the professional trials his friends have had to endure. Despite this, he shows no difficulty empathising with them. Perhaps the most touching moment in the film is when ex-Delgado and current Chemikal boss Stewart Henderson sheds a tear for the collapse of the music industry as he knew it. “Wouldn’t you?” Kapranos sighs. “To invest your entire life into something, only to watch it slowly decay thanks to circumstances outside your control? This isn’t his job or career, it’s his life. “I don’t get upset about it personally because when Franz Ferdinand started out I was 32 and had been playing in bands for 15 years, totally skint up until that point. The mentality that money could be made from being in a band is still essentially alien to me. When you say to me that bands don’t make money from streaming, in my head I’m still like, ‘Of course bands don’t make money!’ I’m dismayed about the impact it has on labels though, because their role isn’t just to put records or downloads out there, or to put a band in the studio. Their role is both curatorial and nurturing. They collect artists who have something in common with each other and can be seen as a whole.” Here Kapranos hits upon the beautiful poignancy of Lost in France; it’s the story of badly dressed, misfit tastemakers, vindicated by their impact on an industry which has – to some extent – left them behind. If Niall McCann accomplishes anything with his film, it should be to ensure that all involved are assigned their rightful place in history. “What I felt going over to Mauron, was a sense of being close to the people there,” says Kapranos. “I guess for me, maybe I did think about what they’d done as individuals and groups and had my appreciation focussed. I think that appreciation has got to be a good thing.” Lost in France screens at Glasgow Film Festival 21 Feb at O2 ABC, Glasgow, followed by a special gig featuring Alex Kapranos, Stuart Braithwaite, Emma Pollock, Paul Savage and RM Hubbert Lost in France also screens 22 Feb, GFT glasgowfilm.org

THE SKINNY

An Audience with the Pope (of Trash) John Waters’ little-seen sophomore feature Multiple Maniacs is getting a revival. Despite its new polish, it’s as outrageously grotesque as ever. The filmmaker takes us back to its making in the last moments of the 60s Interview: Jamie Dunn

ohn Waters has been transgressing ever since he was in short trousers. His original sin, appropriately enough, happened in a house of God. “My mother told me the first thing she remembers me rebelling against is that I refused to take the Legion of Decency pledge in church,” the 70-yearold filmmaker tells us proudly down the phone from San Francisco. The pledge was an initiative of the Catholic Church to identify and combat objectionable content in motion pictures. The young John Waters’ beef was that these were exactly the films he loved. “I wanted to see condemned movies! It inspired me to see condemned movies! And I wanted to make them!” The pint-sized revolutionary wouldn’t know it at the time, but two decades later he would make a movie so outrageously filthy that it would be described by those same Bible-thumpers as “the most disgusting film ever.” While there’s nothing explicit in the Good Book about transvestites eating dog poo, Pink Flamingos – Waters’ riotous third feature – went straight to the top of the Legion of Decency’s shit list. We can only presume they hadn’t seen Waters’ sophomore effort, Multiple Maniacs, for it contains a sex scene so uproariously blasphemous that it makes the antics in Pink Flamingo look rather quaint. “Even I look at that now and think what my father used to always say to me, ‘What were you thinking about?’” admits Waters.

“ I’ve lived through liar Nixon, AIDS, killer Reagan, dumbbell Bush, I’ll get through this idiot” John Waters

Picture the scene. Lady Divine (played by drag queen Divine, Waters’ larger-than-life muse), a fierce freak show impresario who makes a living by robbing her patrons at gunpoint, has just been raped by a man in drag and has stumbled into a church for sanctuary. Inside, she’s hit-on by Mink (played by Mink Stole, another Waters regular), a prostitute wearing a nun’s habit, and they begin to make love in the pews. In their fits of passion, Mink puts her rosary beads somewhere unmentionable. Or, as Divine describes it in her breathless inner monologue, “It was then that I realised she was using her rosary as a tool of erotic pleasure!” Just as we think this “rosary job” scene can’t get more sacrilegious, Waters cross-cuts it with a reenactment of the Stations of the Cross. How did he get away with that in 1970? “Easy,” Waters says nonchalantly. “There was no law, religious or otherwise, against a rosary job yet because who would ever want to do it? I mean, nobody has ever tried to give me a rosary job.” Multiple Maniacs, along with Waters’ other

February 2017

early films, has a delightfully freewheeling quality. It feels out of control, dangerous even. Anarchy was his ethos back then. “Maybe I didn’t know it at the time,” says Waters, “but [Multiple Maniacs] was a punk rock movie before there was punk rock.” At first glance you might assume the film was a retaliation against his middle-class, Catholic upbringing, but Waters and his friends found the late 60s counterculture to be just as square. “It was a movie made to horrify hippies, but the hippies that came to see it wanted to be horrified and probably turned into punks, you know, five to eight years later.” How did Waters and his friends self-identify back then? “Oh I was a yipee, not a hippie. We went to riots for fun. Political demonstrations were our social life. We were like a cell and what we were doing was a terrorist attack on the tyranny of good taste.” How things have changed in 45 years. A lovingly restored version of Multiple Maniacs is soon to be unleashed across the UK by Park Circus, a distributor who usually specialise in refined classics. Waters himself, meanwhile, is positively mainstream. “People looked at my early pictures and called them the most disgusting things ever,” he once lamented, “and now Hairspray is being done at every school in Britain and America.” The Baltimore-based filmmaker is as confused by the current critical ardour for Multiple Maniacs as he is by his own national treasure status. “The most shocking thing about the revival was that Criterion and Janus films even wanted to release it because they were known as the fanciest art distributors of Bergman and Godard and stuff. But they approached me with a great sense of humour about it too and that’s why I think the release has been received very well, certainly way better than when it came out. On Rotten Tomatoes we now have 100% favorable reviews, which even I think is ridiculous.” This is a first for us, a filmmaker talking down his own movie. “Well, you know, I mean, it has its flaws, God knows. I should be in jail for zoom-lens abuse for one thing.” While it’ll be great to see another John Waters film in theatres, it’s a pity fans can’t be celebrating a new feature. And the sad truth is, we may never get one. “I don’t think I even make movies any more,” he says. “I haven’t made one for ten years.” We urge him to get back in the saddle. In Trump’s America, we need disobedient filmmakers like him more than ever. When we bring up his nation’s new overlord, Waters is surprisingly laid-back. “I’ve lived through liar Nixon, AIDS, killer Reagan, dumbbell Bush, I’ll get through this idiot,” he says. While the chances of a new John Waters film in the near future are slim, we can take heart that his influence is everywhere. Filmmakers as diverse as Pedro Almodóvar, Todd Solondz and Harmony Korine all owe him a debt for smashing down cinema’s barriers of respectability. Waters reluctantly agrees to his legacy. “Let’s say I made bad taste 1% more respectable. Even that fancy Tom Ford movie [Nocturnal Animals], which I liked, when you see one of the killers taking a shit... I don’t know, without me maybe it wouldn’t have gone quite as far,” he says, cackling with delight. “I realise that’s a dubious thing to take credit for.”

10 to see at Glasgow Film Festival Elle Master provocateur Paul Verhoeven finds an actor to match his perverse sense of humour in Isabelle Huppert, who’s as statuesque and badass as ever in this challenging comic thriller about a rape victim who refuses to be labeled as such. 19 & 20 Feb, GFT Free Fire Ben Wheatley assembles a great cast (Brie Larson, Cillian Murphy, Noah Taylor, Armie Hammer), puts them in a single location (an abandoned warehouse), adds a juicy set-up (an arms deal that goes horribly wrong), and lets the wisecracks as bullets fly. 22 & 23 Feb, GFT The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki A tender boxing pic from Finland that avoids all the genre’s clichés: there’s no last-minute comeback, just delicate, humanistic filmmaking at its finest by debut director Juho Kuosmanen. 25 & 26 Feb, Cineworld

Mindhorn Julian Barratt co-writes and stars in this tale of a washed-up actor trying to kickstart his failing career by resurrecting his most famous role, the titular detective with a bionic lie-detecting eye. We’re laughing already. 20 & 21 Feb, GFT My Life As a Courgette Celine Sciamma (Girlhood) provides a witty and insightful script for Claude Barras’ gorgeously rendered stop motion animation about a troubled nine-year-old’s life in an orphanage following the death of his alcoholic mother. 17 & 18 Feb, CCA The Other Side of Hope The great Aki Kaurismäki reunites with Sakari Kuosmanen, his deadpan hero in classics like The Man Without A Past and Drifting Clouds, who plays a poker-player who crosses paths with a Syrian refugee. Expect an exquisite blend of poetry and pathos. 21 & 22 Feb, GFT

Heal the Living Katell Quillévéré’s debut film Love Like Poison was an evocative coming-of-age film bursting with the ache of adolescence. Expect similarly raw emotions in this wrenching medical drama. 19 & 21 Feb, GFT

Personal Shopper Kristen Stewart plays a supermodel’s personal shopper, who can also communicate with the dead. Sounds ridiculous, but writer-director Olivier Assayas delivers a delightfully off-beat ghost story that doubles as a fascinating study on modern identity. 18 & 19 Feb, GFT

The Levelling Reports are this is a stunning debut from Edinburgh-based filmmaker Hope Dickson Leach. The film centres on a young student who’s forced to return to her family farm in Somerset under trying circumstances. 21 & 22 Feb, GFT

A Quiet Passion Terence Davies seems to have found a new gear in the production of his meticulous and masterful films. His latest is a biopic of poet Emily Dickinson, so expect the director’s typical heady cocktail of passion and pain to be on the menu. 23 Feb, GFT Glasgow Film Festival runs 15-26 Feb

Multiple Maniacs is rereleased 17 Feb, and plays in a special screening at Glasgow Film Festival 16 Feb

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Feature

Born To Do It The one and only Craig David fills us in on his return to music, his first album in six years and his upcoming UK tour

t’s been a little over a year since Craig David’s guest appearance on KuruptFM’s #60MinutesLive Takeover for Mistajam on BBC Radio 1Xtra, ingeniously reworking Fill Me In on the fly to Jack Ü’s Where Are Ü Now: ‘Spit a 16, a sick quick 16 / I been doing this since I was 16 / Been a few years let’s call it 16 / A brand new flow for 2016.’ David’s talent is ablaze, his deceptively simple honey-toned melodies, his grassroots garage more relevant than ever. The energy in the studio palpable, with Radio 1 staff and guests alike scrambling to get in, wanting to witness the frenetic, fresh brilliance of David’s flow for themselves. “It felt (fresh) when I went into the studio with all the guys there,” he reflects. “It was the first time I met Big Narstie. Also Stormzy was in, and Shola Ama, and obviously the KuruptFM crew. I never expected that the Fill Me In / Where Are Ü Now tune would go viral. Being a song that I cut and recorded at 16, and now it’s on the new album [as 16], it was just one of those things; I was amazed. Things come together when you least expect it, but it just feels so right. It’s a really good time for the scene, I’m really happy seeing how the UK – definitely this last couple of years – has spawned some really good talent out of the garage (and) grime scene.” It’s a far cry from the dark days of post-millennium pop culture where, before the internet afforded a certain democratisation of mainstream music criticism, David was made a laughing stock by comedian Leigh Francis (now aka Keith Lemon) in a creepy, brown rubber mask. Francis’ sketch (from his preposterously successful Bo’ Selecta series) effectively erased David’s identity and artistry: a working class black Jewish garage MC/DJ, reduced to answering his critical and commercial success with a one-note, nonsensical punchline in an inexplicable Barnsley accent. After past experiences, stepping into a studio with People Just Do Nothing’s fictional crew KuruptFM, whose humour revolves around poking fun at grime, was a bold move that ultimately paid off – and who knew the show’s presenter MC Grindah (played by Allan Mustafa) could rap like that? The clip soon went viral, eliciting thinkpieces on why exactly the UK ever turned their back on the prodigal David and leading another generation to ask, “Have you heard of this Craig David guy?” “It’s seriously so crazy,” David enthuses about his cross-generational appeal. “I never expected that in a million years. I think that’s why I’m really enjoying it, because I’m seeing two generations – mums (and) dads having conversations with their sons and daughters about the music, and both having something different to say.” His 1Xtra buzz ultimately emboldened David to return from his self-imposed exile in Miami, where he’d been writing for Justin Bieber, Drake and DJ Khaled, and DJing at his infamous Miami party nights, TS5, effortlessly mixing contemporary pop with noughties R’n’B. His return to the UK and the studio resulted in the release of his MOBO-nominated top 10 hit with Big Narstie, When the Bassline Drops, plus collabs with Katy B, Major Lazer and Diplo, among others. There was also a UK number one album in 2016’s Following My Intuition and, ultimately, the MOBO award for Best Male Act, which David is characteristically humble about. “Being nominated is amazing in itself,” he says. “Whoever ends up winning the award, you’re going up there on behalf of everyone who’s nominated,

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Interview: Rachel Bowles

whether it’s best male or female, whatever the category is. On behalf of everyone who is contributing to it, as opposed to believing that all of a sudden you are ‘Best Male’. So if Skepta goes up, or I go up, I’d always be like, ‘listen, this is on behalf of everyone here,’ because there’s all these people that have made a lot of people happy this year with their music. “Garage is so synonymous with grime music anyway – back in the day, seeing the whole garage scene move into So Solid’s 21 Seconds, and now to get to the point where Skepta has such a huge record with Konnichiwa, and Stormzy in the top ten with his freestyle... I think it’s just shown that the scene is becoming [respected in the] mainstream; such a great thing for a scene that really has been hustling for so many years. It’s wicked.” The key to David’s success and continuing cultural relevance is perhaps a dedicated love of garage: “I always felt that I had to come back with a garage tune on the album. We did something between house and garage with When the Bassline Drops. Then also I felt (that nowadays) either you’re an R’n’B artist on a trap record or an R’n’B artist on a house or dance record... which is cool. I just thought, where is that pure Blackstreet – No Diggity? That good stuff? That’s why I was so happy that this album has that old school R’n’B feel about it, even though I worked with all these young 2016 producers who made it feel contemporary. It’s got that old school vibe, you know?

“ I'm seeing two generations having conversations about the music, and both having something different to say” Craig David

“When I started working with pretty much everyone, on the collaborative [tracks] – Blonde, Sigala, Big Narstie – it was all really natural and all before a lot of them had their big hits. So I was in the studio with Blonde before they released All Cried Out, with Sigala just before he had the huge Easy Love record which went to number one. Kaytranada was this hotly tipped Canadian producer who was on the up, but it was before he released 99.9%, so by the time I released my album it was almost like I was coming up with these new guys who were just about to release too. It felt very organic and real, as opposed to ‘let me try and pick all these people who are hot,’ or who are already having hits and try and work with them. So it feels natural. That’s very important to me.” David’s second favourite thing after working in the studio is performing live, a craft he has worked tirelessly to perfect. “Before I even released my first album, I was DJing on the south coast and I was just nurturing and honing my craft. I was using Technics 1210 record decks so I was proper old school with the vinyl playing out in a club. I learned what to do if the needle started jumping

on the record; the crowd’s looking at you, it’s flight or fight, so I’d end up just jumping on the microphone a capella, freestyling for a minute while I’d find another record. Afterwards people would come up to me and say, ‘Ah, man that was wicked when you did that a capella thing between your set, that was so cool!’ and I was thinking, ‘Wow, you have no idea that I had to do that.’ “All those things then led into doing live band shows over the years, and acoustic performances, and being able to incorporate TS5 and what I

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was doing when I first started bringing back my DJ sets as well. It means that when I go out and do the arena tour now, I can incorporate all those elements into one show. I’ve been doing it for 16 years now. What I love the most outside of being in the studio is being on stage – I just can’t wait to let it all out.” Catch Craig David @ The SSE Hydro, Glasgow, 3 Apr and GE Oil & Gas Arena, Aberdeen, 4 Apr craigdavid.com

THE SKINNY

February 2017

THE SKINNY

The Upside Down Best known for their Stranger Things soundtrack, we talk to S U R V I V E about synths, sophomore album RR7349 and what’s next for the four-piece ahead of their UK tour

or the most part, bands tend to follow a formulaic structure: vocals, guitars, bass and drums. In a synth band, however, roles are not strictly set – or so say Austin-based quartet S U R V I V E, who prefer to let the synths decide. “There’s no rule necessarily of ‘this is how it goes down’,” explains Kyle Dixon, jokingly referred to as ‘the conductor’ by his bandmates. “Sometimes the synthesisers themselves have limits or can excel at different things,” adds Michael Stein, ‘the best engineer and producer’ in the band and the only member based outside of Austin, in Dallas. With everyone in the band essentially playing the same instrument, their writing process is often quite different to that of a regular band. “Sometimes one person will have a song that’s 60% done and other people will add parts to it… or some people will get together and work on something,” adds Mark Donica. “It’s usually one or two people’s individual efforts that eventually becomes a group effort, and after that becomes its own thing for our live version,” agrees Adam Jones, co-founder of Holodeck Records, the label on which the band reissued their 2012 debut album HD015 at the end of last year. Riding on a wave of unexpected popularity in the latter half of 2016, following the success of Stein and Dixon’s Grammy-nominated score for Netflix’s 80s-style sci-fi thriller series Stranger Things, S U R V I V E released their much-anticipated second album RR7349, named after its catalogue number like all the band’s releases. “(RR7349) was finished for a while before (Stranger Things)… we were just looking for a place for it to come out,” says Dixon. That place turned out to be metal label Relapse Records, whose roster includes Mastodon, The Dillinger Escape

February 2017

Plan and the charmingly-named Dying Fetus. It might seem an odd fit for an electronic band, but Dixon believes it allows their music to reach a wider audience: “I think a lot of those people will like our music as well as metal,” he suggests, “but they wouldn’t know about us if we put out our album on some other more niche electronic cosmic label.” Their shared openness to and passion for all kinds of music is what brought them together as a band, with influences ranging from Italodisco to hip-hop. “If you listen to our first EP, you kind of get an idea of how it all started coming together,” continues Dixon. “There’s a little more of a disco thing, it’s pretty cosmic, there’s even a little rap kind of vibe.”

“ If we’re in a crunch or something, we’re like ‘Wait a minute, what would Eno say?’” Michael Stein

The rap influence seems to mainly stem from Stein’s time spent working in a studio in Dallas, where most of his clients were rap artists. “We did stuff kind of around the time that D-town boogie was a thing,” adds Stein. But S U R V I V E’s music is rooted in 70s and 80s electronica, with nods to krautrock, psychedelia and dark ambient music. “We all started

getting into old stuff from the 70s and the 80s, and listening to similar music,” says Donica. “But we gravitated towards the more serious-sounding... I don’t want to say ‘darker’ stuff.” The band’s 70s obsession becomes even more apparent when at one point during the conversation, Stein holds up a card which reads ‘Try faking it.’ It’s taken from Oblique Strategies: a deck of cards with a different statement printed on each one, which was released by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt in 1975 as a way of helping artists combat creative blocks. “When you weren’t sure what to do in your writing or whatever, you would just draw a card; these really obscure statements,” says Dixon. “You’re supposed to take the advice or just interpret that statement however you want to.” Do they ever use them to help with their own creative blocks though? “If somebody sees them sitting there and we’re in a crunch or something, we’re like, ‘Wait a minute, what would Eno say?’” concludes Stein. With a brief stint of UK and European shows coming up this month in support of the album, the band have started to think about transporting all the equipment needed for their live show across the pond. “We’re having to change the setups a little bit for flying everything but generally they’ll be comparable to what we would have here,” says Dixon. Although they don’t have strictly set roles during the writing and recording process, when it comes to performing live there is a little more regularity. “Kyle always has the drum machine,” Jones explains. “And I always play the keyboards that have multiple notes and all the chords, but then everything else can be anybody. “A lot of the time, when we bring a song from the studio into the live setting, we’ll just devise

Music

Interview: Nadia Younes

how it makes the most sense for us to play it. Sometimes somebody just wrote a part that they enjoy playing a lot so they want to play it live. That’s cool, they can do that if their gear allows them to.” While they’ve toyed with the idea of making music that isn’t completely synth-based, the chances of any of their upcoming work straying too far away from their blueprint is unlikely. “We’ve used samples and other weird stuff that isn’t quite synthesisers before so yeah, I would say I could see us making some music that wasn’t synth-based,” says Jones. “It might be more abstract and weird but we’re not going to whip out acoustic guitars or anything like that anytime soon, that’s for sure.” The others seem less open to the idea, however. “I can’t imagine us making a record that isn’t heavily reliant on synths,” counters Dixon. “They’re all going to be synth-based but we might have a non-synth element at some stage.” Most recently, the band curated the music for Sugar Mountain festival’s multi-dimensional Immersive Restaurant Experiment, Sensory, in Melbourne, Australia. Collaborating alongside visual artist Daniel Arsham and chef Peter Gunn, together they created a 60-minute set menu narrative bringing together food, sound and visuals. They’ve even had time to start work on a new album: “We’ve got some progress done on a new album but it’s still in the works,” explains Jones. “Over the next year, we’ll probably finish it up. But I think we might do a couple of smaller releases, like EPs or various other non-LP stuff if we can, maybe remixes or a live album,” he adds. Just don’t hold your breath for that acoustic S U R V I V E album coming out quite yet. S U R V I V E play The Art School, Glasgow on 20 Feb survive.bandcamp.com

Feature

Start at the End What do you do when your band and your relationship break up in one fell swoop? We ask Allison Crutchfield, as she prepares to release her debut solo album

Interview: Will Fitzpatrick

ful, but now that I’m in the cycle I feel like I’m a little used to it. But I didn’t really know what was gonna happen with this record; I didn’t know [North Carolina tastemaker label] Merge was gonna put it out, I didn’t know I was gonna do as much press as I was doing, I didn’t know that anybody was really hearing it. I didn’t really think about any of that.” Forgoing the lo-fi guitar sound of her previous project, Crutchfield sought to create a separate space for her solo material by working with keyboards and synthesisers – “probably pretty obvious, but I was listening to a lot of Cocteau Twins” – but the album is still resplendent with the one thing she’ll never be able to shake off: her natural affinity with melody. Essentially, it’s a synthpop record with a garage rock looseness and a folk singer’s knack for weaving tales together. These songs rise and fall gently in tandem with the drama of the subject matter – judging by opening track Broad Daylight, and its gospel-infused declaration that ‘our love is here to die’, you’d expect that to be resolutely melancholy. Indeed, as we’re taken from Philadelphia to California to Paris and beyond, a feeling of dislocation casts a dark shadow across her ruminative confusion. Luckily for anyone seeking closure (SPOILER ALERT!) it all ends happily: by the close of the album, a sense of optimism appears. From such sorrowful and intensively raked-over ashes comes an opportunity for new beginnings. ‘If I put it all together, it was really no time at all,’ she sings on Chopsticks on Pots and Pans, suggesting a wider sense of perspective. There’s a sense of regret at the way things turned out (‘More than anything, I wish I didn’t care’) but ultimately it brings the curtain down on this chapter with its head held high, perhaps suggesting the cheerier space she now inhabits in her current relationship with Radiator Hospital’s Sam Cook-Parrott. To sum it up: a good story, well told. “I’m a huge musical theatre fan,” she explains, “which is maybe something not everybody would guess about me, but I think that’s a big part of it. Allison Crutchfield I just really appreciate a narrative arc – my favourite records have a very clear story. I can almost Crutchfield duly began to play with Waxahasafely say that every record I make will probably be tchee, the project of her twin sister Katie (also something like that, that’s just the way that I write; her former bandmate in P.S. Eliot, Bad Banana, The a weird puzzle that I put together in my brain.” Ackleys and other DIY delights) and Gilbride returnWith the album title’s suggestion of feeling ed to studio and sound work. The two remained out of place, both geographically and emotionally friends – however, it was only when they both em- (Another key lyric: ‘We’re pretty far away from barked on a European tour with Waxahatchee that Philadelphia / And that’s fine ‘cause I’m really starttensions between the pair became apparent, and ing to hate you’), The Skinny wonders whether Philly it’s this period that provides the inspiration for has begun to seem like home again. Happily, it Tourist in This Town. would appear so. The level of detail in the lyrics goes beyond “When I wrote this record, I was fully convinyour typical singer-songwriter confessional; it veers ced that I was gonna move,” she says. “And then I between wry, painful and even claustrophobic. ‘You stayed, and now everything’s good. I definitely had are not as sad as you want me to think,’ goes the a lot of weird resentment and stress and isolation softly beautiful Sightseeing. ‘And I’m so narcissistic that I associated with Philly, and I had a really hard I want you to be obsessed with me.’ It’s an accurate year when I was making this record, but pretty much depiction of what happens when two people strug- all the things I’m singing about on this record are gle to cope with their own freedom from each other, resolved, and my relationships with those people particularly when thrust back into close quarters have changed and strengthened... or weakened or before scars have had chance to heal. You wonder dissolved, or whatever. Enough time has passed how comfortable this level of honesty can be for that I’ve turned over a new leaf with Philly and I’m anyone involved. definitely here to stay for at least the time being.” “I fear that this makes me sound like a really In other words, that’s the end of this particuselfish person,” she says cautiously, “and I hope it lar journey. Who’s to say where the tourist’s travels doesn’t, but I’ve always been brutally honest. When will take her next – as a writer who does most of I was writing the record, I was able to tap into this her writing on the road, it’s lucky for us that she place where I just didn’t give a shit; nothing else anticipates an upcoming year of touring will result mattered to me but these songs. I’m dealing with it in new material. She’s ready to take on new topics now that I’m talking about the record – I’ve been (“This is the time, and political and social climate” really transparent with the people who I feel I need to to do so, she says) and all we need do is look forbe transparent with, and I’ve had pretty much every- ward to it. So is this an ending or another new beginbody’s blessing, whose blessing I’ve sought out. ning? Knowing Allison Crutchfield, it’s probably both. “Writing lyrics as brutal as some of these invites Tourist in This Town is released on 3 Feb via Merge Records examination in on my life, which can be a little stress-

outfit P.S. Eliot, Swearin’ had begun to make a name for themselves thanks to a fizzing clatter of hooks, garage-pop and a subtly-developing weirdness, spread evenly across two excellent albums. When the relationship at its core came to an (as these things go) amicable end, so too did the band – not that they remembered to tell anyone, however, which is why the unveiling of solo artist Allison Crutchfield has occurred alongside (and in the context of) the announcement of Swearin’s untimely end. “Swearin’ was such a weird band,” Allison reflects. “The band had such an intense group dynamic; it was super-democratic and everybody had a say in everything that we did, so it took us a really, really long time and a lot of talking to figure out anything. “I’m a person who moves pretty quickly, at worst I’m definitely pretty impatient, so that was always a little stifling for me. Even with the break-up, we weren’t having an active conversation about it; it just kind of happened. And none of us really wanted to make an announcement ‘cause none of us really wanted to talk about it. I think people hear ‘band broke up’ and assume it was just like this explosive, dramatic, thing. It wasn’t! It was subsequent to a lot of other personal stuff that was going on between all of us.”

“ People hear ‘band broke up’ and assume it was this explosive, dramatic thing. It wasn’t!”

es’ree said it best: ‘Oh, life.’ It’s a funny old existence, sure enough – by some strange quirk of fate, our interview with Allison Crutchfield is scheduled at the same time as the Presidential inauguration ceremony of one Donald J Trump, and at both ends of the phone line, on both sides of the Atlantic, the palpable waves of shock and anger are mixed with a lingering disbelief. “It’s such a bizarre experience,” Crutchfield sighs. “I really didn’t believe that it was gonna happen; I was convinced that there’s no way this could be happening. And it is happening, literally as we speak. I don’t even know what to say about it other than I’m trying to be optimistic, but it’s really difficult.” That makes two of us. But hey, we’re not here to discuss that right now, regardless of the date and of how heavily it’s currently weighing on a great many minds worldwide. Today we’re talking to a songwriter whose appeal begins in the underground and is now starting to spread to larger stages. The

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intensely personal yet universally relatable Tourist in This Town is the Philadelphia resident’s debut solo album, but to tell her story we’re going to have to go back a couple of years and look at how its beginnings were marked by the end of another story – that of her previous project Swearin’. You’ll notice beginnings and endings provide a recurring theme. “It’s funny,” she begins. “At this point Swearin’s been broken up for a while now, so I feel like being a solo artist has been pretty natural for me to grow accustomed to. There are things about it that come really naturally to me, and things that really don’t come naturally to me at all. The nice thing is that I just get to focus on what makes me happy as a musician and writer; it’s less of a process of navigating something with other personalities.” Still, it’s other personalities that provide the fuel for this new record. Formed around the songwriting partnership of Crutchfield and then-boyfriend Kyle Gilbride, following the split of her prior

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THE SKINNY

Art Imitating Life Thumbsucker and Beginners director Mike Mills is back mining his own life for his art with 20th Century Women. He gives us some background on his very personal approach to filmmaking

t’s customary to do some research on a director prior to an interview, but with Mike Mills you don’t really need to; his life is all there in his films. Mills was working as a graphic designer when his mother passed away in 1999 and his elderly father suddenly announced that he was gay – we know this because it was dramatised in his 2010 film Beginners, which earned Christopher Plummer an Oscar for best supporting actor. Now Mills is delving even deeper into his past with 20th Century Women, digging up memories and artefacts to explore his own adolescence, and the women who helped shape it. Dorothea (Annette Bening) is a thinly veiled portrait of Mills’ own free-spirited mother, with Bening even wearing her jewellery and handling objects that she owned; Abbie (Greta Gerwig) is a photographer dealing with cervical cancer, just as Mills’ sister did in the 70s; while Julie (Elle Fanning) represents the more worldly teenage friends who helped opened his eyes to the joys and complications of sex. The whole film feels deeply personal and authentic, full of intimate details that have the ring of truth because they have been lifted directly from his own experiences. Is it easy to open up your life to the public in this way? “I’m kind of shy actually, or I used to be, and while I love movies that do this I never knew I had that in me,” Mike Mills told The Skinny on a recent visit to London. “Then my dad came out at 75 – like, holy fuck – and then all this stuff happened, and then he died. Grief can be really empowering. You feel so much and you’re on fire, and you just think, ‘Who cares?’ So I wrote Beginners in that place. Beginners taught me that I like this and maybe I can do it, and maybe it works enough. I’m obviously not the most commercial writer-director, but I felt lucky to have connected with as many people as I

February 2017

did and I felt like I could keep going on brand here.” Having overcome any initial shyness, Mills describes himself as “an open book” these days, but while accessing those memories and sharing them with an audience isn’t a problem, shaping them into a workable screenplay proved a more difficult task. He says it took him around two or three years to write 20th Century Women, and much of that time was spent simply trying to find a way into the material and into his mother’s life. “I’m not a woman, I’m not a middle-aged woman, I’m not a mom, so finding her voice was actually hard,” he says. “Then I kind of realised – oh, that’s the movie. I don’t know my mom. I’m totally interwoven with her, I love her, she’s the one who really tried with me, but her real life – her real struggles, her real inner life – she never showed me. That’s the movie. Once I figured that part out, that was huge.”

“ I’m not a middleaged woman, I’m not a mom, so finding her voice was actually hard” Mike Mills

We view the three female characters in 20th Century Women through the eyes of Mills’ teenage avatar Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann), while they regard him as a project in need of further develop-

ment. Without a stable, positive male role model in his life, Dorothea enlists Abbie and Julie to help him through these formative years and essentially teach him how to be a man; an amusing detail that, once again, is entirely true. “That’s very much my life,” Mills says. “My dad was around but my dad wasn’t really around. I never talked to my dad about anything. He was a very sweet, nice man but we just never connected like that. So I had my very strong mom and my two sisters, who were ten and seven years older, and they would share a lot with me, their boyfriend problems and their very adult problems, and they just told me everything and tried to teach me how to not be a dick, like their boyfriends were.” Part of this education comes from iconic ‘70s feminist texts like Our Bodies, Ourselves and Sisterhood is Powerful, two of the ‘found objects’ that Mills utilises in his collage-like approach to filmmaking. He includes books, music, photographs, films and even Jimmy Carter’s “crisis of confidence” speech to illuminate details about his characters and to evoke the political and cultural atmosphere of the age. “I like creating portraits with these objects, but any portrait for me has to be completely steeped in a historical context, and how certain thoughts and feelings and ideas and narratives about yourself are possible and impossible at different times,” he says. There’s also a nostalgic sense of a more innocent and liberated age gradually slipping away here, and the decision to set 20th Century Women in 1979 feels very pointed as it looks ahead to the coming 80s with a sense of foreboding. “I do feel like ‘79 is like the end of the 60s, the counter-culture, the hippies,” he explains. “It’s the beginning of the end of the middleclass, of the working-class, of post-war American

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Interview: Philip Concannon

industrial-based liberalism, and it’s the beginning of the aspirational economics of Reagan. ‘79 was also the Islamic revolution. It’s weird how relevant it is to now. There were so many things that are a big part of our structure now. I love that contradiction – it’s very now and it’s also impossibly gone.” Mills is chatty, engaging company and our time together zips by, but how long will we have to wait for his next feature? The three films he has made to date, including his 2005 debut Thumbsucker, have each taken around five years to bring to the screen, and Mills admits that this slow pace is something he’s been asked about more than once. “It is funny that it gets brought up so much, and sometimes it’s... I don’t think you’re doing this, but often it’s like I’ve failed or something,” he says. “It’s interesting that in the more typical American film industry context, it’s kind of a mistake or a failure. It’s not that I totally disagree, it’s just, ‘Why is that so bad?’” After a brief digression on Woody Allen’s prolific career and his golden 70s/80s run (“Holy shit. How did he do that?”), he settles on a happy medium. “You know, I wish I’d made a movie every three years. I’d be really happy. I love shooting, I love directing, I love it so much and it’s a real hardship that there are so many years in between. If I was making the kind of movies I make every three years, that would be perfect. “But making them every five years, that’s not so bad, and I don’t quite see what the rush is. This sounds kind of pretentious, but I think of my movies as more like novels. They hopefully have a depth or a meditative, novelistic quality.” He ponders this thought for a moment, and then laughs. “Well, then they fucking should take five years!” 20th Century Women is released 10 Feb by Entertainment One

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Quarantine the Gloom We speak to Los Campesinos!’ Gareth David about life, the universe and everything

ick Scenes, the sixth Los Campesinos record, sounds like a welcome purge. Since their last major record No Blues was released to high praise in 2013, the cult Cardiff-formed indie band released the low-key and lovely A Los Campesinos! Christmas EP 14 months later, followed by a few sporadic shows each year. Otherwise they’ve lain dormant – a big slowdown from their prolific early period between 2007-2012, with the band fresh out of university. When we ring lead vocalist and lyricist Gareth David, aka Gareth Campesinos!, at his home in North East Somerset, he’s just spent the day preparing for the band’s upcoming trip to the U.S. and Canada, their first full North American tour in over five years. It’s a prospect that comes with much excitement but also much anxiety for him, faced with covering visa applications, tax waivers, booking flights: lots of high-stakes stuff that he’s mortified of fucking up. The necessities of touring aren’t the most romantic of topics, but there’s certainly a more serious mindset at work than we previously would have associated with the band who once revelled in being impractical. It leads us to ask what Los Campesinos! have been up to over the past few years and what exactly has changed for the seven-piece. “Since No Blues, we’ve all been working proper jobs and attempting to find ourselves some careers in the real world, I suppose,” David says cheerily. “But it’s [also] been a lot of frustrating record industry nonsense: leaving our previous record label, setting up on our own and becoming as self-sufficient as possible. “[It’s been] frustrating in that it has slowed us down and hasn’t allowed us to record for a while but it’s been fulfilling in that we are now completely self-reliant and don’t need to rely on a record label or management to exist which is a really great position to be in.” LC! haven’t been living the band lifestyle for the past three years, with most of the band’s members coming into their own as freelance illustrators, account managers and tattoo artists, scattered across the country from Cardiff to Bath, Brighton to London. Only a few get their main crust from the music industry: lead guitarist Tom Bromley has been touring with Perfume Genius, while David is still figuring out what to do after leaving a job at a record label. David admits that at times it may have made sense for the band to pack it in, with some industry know-nothings even suggesting they should. Yet the break has been a spur for Los Campesinos!, heartened by knowing that their earnings are now solely theirs and buoyed by their devoted fanbase. “When you are tied in with a record label you’re releasing because you’re contractually obliged to and you get in this sort of album cycle: you release it, you promote it, you tour it, you stop for a bit and you make another record,” David explains. “We enjoyed doing that, but I think the fact that we did have to take a little time away from it meant that when we came back to writing the new record and ultimately recording it, it was with a real sense of gusto and excitement.” That awareness of needing to make up for lost time is obvious in Sick Scenes’ rumbling opening track Renato Dall Ara (2008), LC!’s snottiest song in years. While the band’s chipper flurry of whirling Casio keyboards, gang chants and nerdy football references remain, the song shows LC! on a more exasperated streak, railing against a suddenlyrealised malaise. Once Los Campesinos! were a band that paid big for PR and landed guest slots on Soccer AM; now they’re one that DIY pseuds don’t invite to all-dayers and disco DJs don’t even prioritise their requests. The song’s appreciation

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of ‘living off 2008’ is self-deprecating and funny, but one senses there’s real frustration underneath. As with previous Los Campesinos! albums, Sick Scenes was recorded abroad, this time over a month in Fridao, Portugal last summer, co-produced by long-time collaborator John Goodmanson and the blossoming Bromley. After funding the trip by selling over a thousand LC! football shirts in a week, the band’s visit coincided with Euro 2016, particularly referenced in the racing lead single I Broke Up in Amarante. The band witnessed England’s embarrassing loss to Iceland and the scenes in the streets after Portugal’s eventual victory – David marvels in describing his memories of the flares, car horns and wearing a flag as a cape. It’s made clear that the heat and isolation of their small Portuguese base made for a “really suffocating” environment, with only three band members working on Sick Scenes constantly and the others flying over for as long as their work allowed. “It was a strange month in that respect – lots of day-drinking and trying not to subsist solely on crisps, things like that,” David laughs. “It wasn’t the best time but it was conducive towards coming back with an album that we were really, really happy with.” Experiencing your own humiliating failure on the scene of your rivals’ absolute victory is perfect Los Campesinos! subject matter, but Fridao also proved to be the backdrop for the band’s experience of another monumental event: the EU referendum. David says that the referendum ended up being the inspiration for Sick Scenes’ centrepiece The Fall of Home, a twinkly and tender track written on the morning of the result after being unable to sleep. The revelation adds poignancy to the song’s

line: ‘Left your hometown for somewhere new / Don’t be surprised now it’s leaving you’. “The reactions of people I know in London [to the result] were just sneering at towns that weren’t as cosmopolitan and aren’t as with it as London supposedly is,” David says passionately, in a moral that applies to our other urban centres. “Most of these people have moved from their former towns and villages to London and don’t seem to understand that part of why their own towns are like they are is because people leave them behind … I think it’s important not to completely remove yourself from people who think differently to you.”

“ Lots of daydrinking and trying not to subsist solely on crisps” Gareth David

But one senses that Europe isn’t everything to Sick Scenes. In The Fall of Home’s wistful wonder, we also hear a litany of time: rising rent, family friends falling sick and teenage pubs boarded up. On the next track 5 Flucloxacillin, David decries depression as a ‘young man’s game’ before concluding, ‘This certainly ain’t youth no more’ on the celebratory final track Hung Empty. A decade into their career, are the eternally young Los Campesinos! becoming more aware of personal and social changes? We put this to David, and while he stres-

ses he never writes an album with a theme in mind, he accepts we may just have stumbled upon one. “I think you’re probably right there, yeah,” he says, thinking over the point. “Now, having turned 31 and having no clue what I should do with my life, [I’m] at the point now when [I’m] realising… not that the band’s going to stop being a band, but it’s never going to be a priority. It’s never going to take up more than 5% of my year anymore. Now that I’m older and I realise I’m older, [I] understand that it’s important to think about how you exist within the world rather than just within yourself.” The world may seem bleaker as our responsibilities grow but a beacon of hope in friendship lies at Sick Scenes’ core, best summed up by I Broke Up in Amarante where, after a breakneck three minutes, David tries resuming the chorus before asking his bandmates for help and getting it in rollicking force. Despite facing newfound autonomy, jobs, and mental health, Los Campesinos! have pulled each other back with as much energy as ever, and David is unequivocal about Sick Scenes’ main achievement. “Especially after the long period of time without releasing where we were fucked over a bit by elements within the music industry, to come out the other side of that and to still be able to go on stage together and perform in front of crowds that are just as big and excited as ever is a really amazing thing to share with your mates,” David concludes. “When other things are shit and you know that you’ve got that to rely on, that’s a nice feeling.” Sick Scenes is released on 24 Feb via Wichita Recordings Los Campesinos! play Stereo, Glasgow on 28 Apr loscampesinos.com

Photo: Owen Richards

Interview: Chris Ogden

Music

THE SKINNY

Love and Sex with Comedians Christian Talbot chats about his new comedy podcast Do You Remember the First Time?

“A

friend of mine said I should do a podcast on being Irish,” says Christian Talbot. “All about potato crisps, Guinness and stuff. I thought, ‘that sounds horrendous.’” Podcasts are so suited to stand-ups that it has become a crowded market. And so it is natural Talbot wanted to discuss ideas that may capture people’s interest before buying a USB mic and booking a studio. “I said, ‘Well, everyone is interested in love and sex.’ And this friend didn’t think anyone would want to hear about that.” A couple of weeks later Talbot recorded the first episode of Do You Remember the First Time? with comedian Adam Bloom. Despite what his unenthusiastic friend thought, the confessional nature of a stand-up makes for a captivating take on a universal topic. In under half an hour, Bloom discussed feelings of longing which emerge before adolescence, losing his virginity in his teens and the heartbreak of divorce as an adult. “I stopped at one point,” says Talbot. “I said, ‘Are you sure you’re okay saying this?' But he was fine. Actually, everybody I’ve interviewed so far has said they’ve really enjoyed talking about it.” Although each guest brings a another texture: “It’s good to have a different jumping off point with each guest and that has given us a different podcast each time. With Sarah Bennetto it became about online dating. She was showing me messages on her phone – some of which are absolutely horrific. With Fern Brady she didn’t want to talk too much about love, but she was very, very happy to talk about sex.” However, in the first couple of recordings Talbot felt there was a female voice missing: “I don’t mean in the sense of female guests because I knew the podcasts with Sarah and Fern were coming up.

Interview: Ben Venables

But I asked Rosie Holt to join me as co-host and it’s much better. She comes up with questions that I wouldn’t even think of and also she can ask some things that, if I did, might make me sound like a dirty old man!” Still, everyone has a unique sexual history. It’d be easy to imagine an episode taking very individual turns – is Talbot prepared it may go in directions he hadn’t anticipated? “Yes, I am. It’s not something that I want to have a mission statement about but I want to visit the whole spectrum of sexuality. I don’t want to do it in a way where there is an agenda. I want it to be conversational and for us not to talk about sex like it’s an issue.” Talbot arrives at Glasgow Comedy Festival in March to preview a new Fringe format show he and Mary Bourke have been working on titled I Want an Irish Passport. But hang on, is this all about Guinness and stuff then? Talbot reminds us of a previous show title – Shite at Being Irish – which suggests a slightly different perspective. As for the podcast, it may too make some live appearances at the Fringe in August if Talbot and Holt can find the right setting. “I’m hoping Bob Slayer will have the odd hour free on the BlundaBus.” The top deck of a double decker certainly makes an appropriate backdrop for a chat about teenage fumblings. “Exactly! But it’s a really great space to record in and it’s initimate.” He adds that this will help encourage guests to talk naturally about love and sex as “the most normal thing in the world.” Christian Talbot and Special Guest: I Want an Irish Passport, The Hug and Pint, 24 Mar, 8.30pm, £10/7 Do You Remember the First Time? is available on iTunes

Strong Words for Strange Times Our poetry columnist provides a run-down on Scotland’s international poetry festival, StAnza. Events in St Andrews feature such luminaries as Costa Prize-winner Alice Oswald, T.S Eliot prize winner Sarah Howe and our Makar Jackie Kay

art of the natural pull of StAnza for so many is that it is programmed around one or more thoughtful and mentally stimulating main themes, so that the poets attending can all share a common direction of some sort when they prepare. This brings out the best in poetry, not only as a method of displaying the most stimulating visions and movements a language has to offer, but as the most succinct vehicle by which complex, often nigh-on inexplicable trains of thought and sensation may be mapped, and by which the instinctive thematic and social links between separate minds may be shown to their best advantage. This year’s themes are ‘On the Road’ and ‘The Heights of Poetry,’ referring not only to travel and mountains, but also to the metaphorical journeys, heights and obstacles which poetry as an art form brings us up against. Considering the state of current affairs, and the emotionally draining events our world witnessed in 2016, these are frighteningly relevant themes. Furthermore, following last year’s success with an additional modern foreign language (MFL) theme – which culminated in a fantastic showcase with various poets reading translations of one another’s works and contributed much to the atmosphere of generosity, mutual

February 2017

respect and warmth – this year’s language of choice is French. At any other literary festival, this stew of focal points might seem un embarrass de richesses (staying true to theme) but something about the uniquely mixed nature of StAnza – a large festival, certainly, but consisting of a real hotch potch of smaller events spread across a wide area and through very different mediums – means all the various threads manage to work without it seeming overdone. After what can only be described as a boom period for female poets, this year sees an encouraging number of high-flying women on the bill, from all styles and walks of life. Helen Mort is giving the first workshop, Lines of Ascent (28 Feb). Then, Costa Prize-winner Alice Oswald is making one of her rare appearances to feature in two double bills on the same day (2 Mar). In the first, Past and Present, with Neil McLennan, she offers her own spellbinding take on Homer. The second, Centre Stage with Robert Crawford, will undoubtedly be an utterly thrilling combination of reading voices. Immigration is high on the agenda, not least the double-mindedness involved in loving your country but wanting to escape. In fact, To Love

A Country and Be Forced To Leave is the name Patience Agbabi has given her headline workshop for the week (4 Mar). Her effortless marriage of the best of page and stage always ensures a memorable experience, and it will be exciting to see what she conjures up this time round. Predictably, one of the other most eagerly anticipated events by far is the double bill of T.S. Eliot prize winner Sarah Howe, author of Loop of Jade, and Makar Jackie Kay (4 Mar, from 8pm) – a duo whose voices have certainly been shaped by questioning and exploring their roots. For Howe, it will be a return to her roots in more ways than one, StAnza being the first major festival she performed at in 2011. Another big voice in the mix on 4 March is writer, film/theatre maker and vocal fizzbucket Paula Varjack, who will be MC-ing the slam (10.15pm), and whose recent YouTube riff on ‘why you should never date an artist’ still has lonely creatives crying tears of laughter into their bedtime mugs. John Agard’s verse and song extravaganza, Roll Over the Atlantic, a re-take on Christopher Columbus, looks set to be great fun and a massive success on 1 March – definitely one for a group night out. The ‘Border Crossings’ events always prove a very popular choice, which will be led by a

COMEDY / BOOKS

Words: Clare Mulley

great variety of artists, including Maram Al-Massri, a Syrian-born poet whose work evokes the trauma of war experienced at a distance, and Paul Stephenson, whose latest collection The Days That Followed Paris responds to the November 2015 attacks and the resulting tension (both 2 Mar). The Translation Showcase is not to be missed (4 Mar, 1pm), teaming up with the Scottish Poetry Library and Literature Across Frontiers/Literary Europe Live to hold a residential translation workshop, bringing together two Francophone and two Scottish poets who’ll work together to translate each other and produce new work. Happily, the business of StAnza is not only to showcase but to encourage, and there are also plenty of events at which budding writers can glean new inspiration and get cracking, or else do something productive with work they have stored away. Top of the list for poets looking for pay is ‘Making a Living as a Poet’ with The Society of Authors (3 Mar.) StAnza runs from 1-5 Mar across venues in St Andrews. Tickets are now available. Simply email boxoffice@ stanzapoetry.org or call 01334 475000 stanzapoetry.org

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Illustration: Rachel Davey

THE SKINNY

“ Refugees of today are trapped between two worlds” Kapka Kassabova captures cold war history and the current refugee crisis on the blurred borders of the Balkan peninsula. The poet and travel writer’s beautiful, tragic and universal new book may just be the most important you read in this year of Brexit Interview: Alan Bett

n 1982, a young unnamed East German fled the GDR through Bulgaria, trying to make it over the Iron Curtain to freedom. He climbed through barbed wire and high into the Rhodope mountains, then, mistakenly believing that he had reached the safety of Greece, rested upon a sunny meadow to eat some apples. He was soon spotted by a local shepherd and reported, captured and tortured to death. All for the mistake of believing he had crossed a line on a map. Such moments hit like stealth bombs in Border; Kapka Kassabova’s part travelogue, part history of the borderland between Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece – rumoured to be the easiest Cold War crossing point into the West. “I was above all interested in what people’s experiences of that particular border might reveal about crossing borders, surviving borders, living with borders, protecting borders.” Kassabova tells us from a trip in Cambodia. Our conversations begin on email and end peering down a Skype camera across continents, and of course borders. But the book is even more than she suggests. Although now calling the Scottish Highlands home, Kassabova was born and raised in Soviet Bloc Bulgaria; “a homeland that was essentially hostile to its own people, all dictatorships are,” she states. “I grew up in a border state of mind, so returning to the border of my childhood, for the book, was a symbolic act for me, and intensely emotional.” A truth brought into focus when a harmless check is run against her name by a naïve young borderguard: ‘an old chill crept in. The chill of being found out, hunted down, a searchlight shone on you. A border chill.’ Kassabova’s two-year odyssey lays bare the opposing injustices of empire and nationalism which have routed these lands over centuries. The former, uncaringly washing its human debris across the continent, leaving border lines as high watermarks of influence. The latter, setting hard borders around nation states like concrete. “They [borders] instantly acquire a symbolism as the outer limits of the national body,” says Kapka. “A border can create an instant sense of us and them. It’s a very powerful political tool.” Consider the Brexit debate. Propaganda billboards warn of columns of migrants marching upon us. The message - ‘take back control of our borders’ - is later confirmed by Theresa May as the foremost priority of negotiations. “Borders serve a nationalist agenda, and often a centralist one,” says Kassabova, one who knows from experience. “I can’t think of any examples where the rise of nationalism or strengthening of national borders has made life better for a nation, in the longer run. So, I don’t expect to see the lives of people in Britain improve once we split off from the EU, and find it tragic that an avoidable path of suffering and disappointment has been taken.” “I suppose nations are a bit like individuals,” she wrote in an early email, a despondent shrug to be read somewhere between the lines. “They must travel their own journey, find their own truths, make their own mistakes, even when they are avoidable, in retrospect.” As an island, the UK has historically had little need to concentrate on borders. “Why would you?” Kapka asks. “Until you come to

February 2017

cross them with the wrong kind of passport or until they become heavily politicised and fortified in your own country, as we’ve seen in Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece and Eastern Europe lately. And of course borders are the main symbol of Brexit.” That referendum decision may herald the fading twilight of a borderless Europe. For those aged under 30, free movement feels a fundamental right. The idea you can’t cross a line on a map an alien concept. That until only recently, people were imprisoned, tortured or executed on the spot for attempting to do just that? It reads like dystopian fiction. One man’s story is testament that it is not. He left his mark on a sign years later, a record of two lives forever changed on the clifftops of the Bulgarian coast: ‘Here on 21.9.1971 two men began their Calvary’. This was Felix S. Another young East German, who alongside his friend Dominik was captured during a misjudged attempt to cross. The topography of the border was falsified on GDR made maps, to confuse such people. They were delivered to the Stasi and brutalised – Felix forced to mop up the blood of a suicidal fellow prisoner who had opened their arteries with a plastic knife. Kassabova managed to track Felix down – records at least were something the regime excelled at. He is now processing his trauma as an artist in Berlin. In many ways, this is a book of resilience. Of those like Felix whose lives were dictated by these borders, through crossing or simply living in the shadow of the wire. This reality is captured by Kassabova in the poetry of a single moment. Imagine, an elderly couple who have lived at the mercy of history, as empire nonchalantly sweeps its arm or nationalism balls its fist: ‘They had been married for 60 years, raised seven children, lost one, and to see them sitting together in the cherry dusk of this crumbling village, where they had created a world – through exile, military rule, border terror, poverty, and hard physical toil – well, it left me speechless.’

“ A border can create an instant sense of us and them. It is a very powerful political tool” Kapka Kassabova

Just one of many intimate moments Kassabova frames with lyrical beauty. “Every encounter and acquaintance affected me,” she reveals. “I was awed by what people can go through, individually and collectively, and still retain their dignity, their sense of humour, their generosity – and sometimes their illusions and prejudices too.” Some prejudices are reflected in us. Today the prevailing issue is refugees from the Middle East entering Europe. “But, actually during the Cold War half of Europe couldn’t exit.” Kassabova raises her eyebrows.

“There is an awful historical symmetry to that reversal,” she says, someone who grew up unable to cross her own country’s border. The modern border line is Turkey. The small mercy is that the journey now terminates in a refugee camp rather than at the end of a rifle. At one point Kassabova sits in a café called Ali’s, gathering stories – a ‘pressure cooker of human souls’ and gathering place for the ever-churning masses of refugees on the Turkish border. Iraqis, Syrians and Kurds are sucked through this corridor of land by the promise of a better life in Europe: ‘Istanbul was the great sieve – in the daily shake-up, some would go through, others would stay.’ Many end up in Harmanli, across the Bulgarian border – a town that does not need to travel as the world goes through it. It is home of The Chicken Shack, where, like in a mirror image of Ali’s, Kassabova hears further dead-end tales. “The refugees of today have the troubling predicament of being dispossessed by the border,” Kassabova informs, as witness. “They can neither go back to what they were at home, nor become the new souls they need to be after crossing the Styx. They are trapped between two worlds. I felt that their stories need to be told not collectively, but individually, in order to bring us closer to their experience.” They could quite easily be us. “I was astonished by the degree to which borders are fate,” Kassabova agrees. She talks of redrawn borders in the wake of the Ottoman Empire. Over generations of political campaigns, names were forcefully Islamised, Hellenised or Balkanised by

BOOKS

adding a letter or tone (a man in the book answered to Hairi-Hari-Zakhari over a single lifetime). Tribes of people were passed over the border, or remained still as the border passed over them. Customs and languages were bleached out, religion ground to dust. As if such things so easily scatter in the wind. “Do people have a strong identity?” Kapka ponders at this point. “That was one of the most interesting things for me on this journey, to realise just how blurred national identity is in that part of the world, very much subject to historical and political whims… these things are so manufactured, so artificial and so dangerous in the end. I guess that I’d like readers to feel the impact of these political vagaries, these constructed forms of nationalism that are dangerous illusions. I would love if readers connected with what nationalism means to them, in their own context.” This is what makes Border such a timely work, as nationalism raises its head once more across Europe. It forces us to consider the very concept of hard borders. “The border is a place where acts of great cruelty, suffering, endurance, ingenuity and adventure, and self-reinvention have taken place. This is the reality of hard borders everywhere, beyond the slogans,” Kassabova concludes, then leaves us with a final sad truth. “Only the politically innocent or the politically cynical can be romantic or sanguine about borders, though these groups include an awful lot of people at the moment.” Border is published by Granta Books on 2 Feb. It will be broadcast in the same month as a Radio 4 Book of the Week

Feature

Bright Lights, Small Town Author Andrew O’Hagan suggested he wouldn’t like anyone who doesn’t love it, claiming it ‘the sound of young Scotland distilled’ – This is Memorial Device, David Keenan’s hallucinatory and musical debut. The author waxes lyrical and lairy with The Skinny

“P

eople who have so much belief in what’s happening that they don’t wait for it to be validated. I admire that the most, they have my heart.” It’s a truth which sits central to David Keenan’s writing, and to his life. He’s spent his career as a critic seeking out the music being made where no-one’s listening, while also making some noise of his own as a member of various experimental bands. Over the last decade, he’s written novel after novel without seeking publication or outside appraisal, just writing and writing until the writing was right. Fittingly, the first of his works to be thrown out into the big wide world is a howling testament to this ‘art for art’s sake’ mantra and his debut has not only drawn comparisons to David Foster Wallace but, having been submitted by a first-time novelist without a literary agent, also convinced legendary publishing house Faber and Faber to take it based on nothing but the work’s own power. In short, This is Memorial Device looks set to be the first best thing you read in 2017. Sheltered from the Glasgow winter by the hipster haven of BrewDog’s Merchant City bar, Keenan sits down with The Skinny for a discussion that loops Blaise Cendrars, Herman Melville and George Best to home in on ideas about life, art and where the two intersect. The whole scene would slot neatly into his debut novel – an earnest philosophical dialogue in gruff Scottish tones against a background of clinking bottles. This is Memorial Device tells the story of a group of 70s post-punk musicians making wildly ambitious, experimental music in their hometown of Airdrie. The novel and the conversation both wander off in multiple directions but they return home time and again to the question of how to make that marriage of art and life work – how to merge the

books you read with the bars you read them in, the inner world with the outer, the Romantic with the everyday. Keenan’s novel begins with a mission statement that reads a little like a less sarcastic take on Trainspotting’s famous ‘choose life’ opening riff, with the narrator asserting all the reasons why he needed this story to be told - “I did it to stand up for Airdrie.” Keenan himself echoes this statement early into our first pint, attesting that “I wanted to rescue small working class towns from the shit that’s usually hung on them or what they ‘stand for.’ I guess that’s what I mean by standing up for Airdrie – rescuing it from fucking critical studies and saving it for art. I didn’t want to write this very clichéd ‘isn’t it hard to grow up in a working class town in Scotland’ thing. It’s so easy to play that card, especially as a Scottish writer. My experience was extremely positive and – a word you wouldn’t think of using with Airdrie – very romantic. So I wanted the book to be a romance, a romantic vision of a small town.” The harshly factual world of 70s Airdrie is used as the setting for an entirely fictitious story – that narrator is not Keenan or an autofictitious avatar and that scene did not exist, hence the book’s self-description as An Hallucinated Oral History. Rather than sticking to the facts, cutting the fat and shining them up to form a tidy version of his own upbringing in the west of Scotland, Keenan’s novel forms a fictional route towards the truth of what that time and place was for him. “I think it was truer to the arc of the times and to the place to actually be less realistic” explains Keenan, “because on the one hand the whole book is a memorial device so it’s refracted through memory, which tends to conflate and idealise and

make things more surreal or unreal, but also because it was a strange time where you felt like maybe impossible things were possible.” Growing up in a small town often comes with a heavy sense of dislocation from the wider world, a feeling that you’re cut off from the places where things are really happening, but for Keenan this sense of exile wasn’t a source of oppression or alienation but of total liberation: “It seemed impossible to succeed in the wider world. I mean, Airdrie is such a small town that Glasgow seemed impossible. London was out of the question. So you got done with those ideas very quickly and you’re kind of beyond the influence of the mainstream media.” Keenan and the characters of his novel didn’t see the rock’n’roll images beamed into their lives by the media as a glitzy wider world to desperately strive after but a realm so far from their own reality that it became a fiction they could absorb and live out on their own terms. “You outstrip possibility by hallucinating from your little cut-off position,” says Keenan. “It’s a very liberating position to be in and to act from, I think.” The young man who reads deep from the literature of his romantic heroes and tries to impose their ideals onto the everyday matter of his own life is a staple of the literary canon – Memorial Device is essentially a continuation of this tradition in a very different setting, the story of a group of young men and women who tried to live out their larger than life, punk-infused ideals in their small Scottish town. “There’s all these people in Airdrie acting like Brian Jones and Iggy Pop but in a way they were outstripping their heroes because it’s even harder to be Iggy Pop in Airdrie,” say Keenan. That ability to live beyond the world that’s put in front of you is the essence of

Interview: Ross McIndoe Illustration: Jacky Sheridan

Keenan’s novel and of his own personal philosophy. Though the book is always grounded in its highly specific Scottish geography (with the brief forays into London and Paris which no tale of aspiring Romantics could be without), Keenan admits: “Ultimately it’s not even about Airdrie any more, it’s about the experience you can bring to where you are.”

“They were outstripping their heroes because it’s even harder to be Iggy Pop in Airdrie” David Keenan

Beyond the specific desire to rescue Airdrie itself, Memorial Device is about the transformative, Romantic mindset which rescued it for Keenan and its capacity to turn almost anywhere into the place. Explaining it more lyrically, Keenan affirms: “The centre of the world is everywhere, and the circumference is nowhere. So exactly where you are is the centre. But it can be hard to see that.” The heroes of Memorial Device make Airdrie the centre of the world by pure force of will, by their complete confidence that the art they’re making is massive, the scene they’ve created monumental. “The realisation comes that there was a moment there. Some of us were able to occupy it fully, some of us weren’t able to see it until afterwards but it was there. The magic was there and, for a little bit of time for this group of players, Airdrie was the centre of the world.” In a digital age where we spend our days with one eye on devices hooked up to the free-floating, global world of the internet, it can often seem like a thing only matters if the whole world pays attention. If your views aren’t in the hundreds of thousands, if you haven’t gone viral, if Buzzfeed hasn’t made a list about you then why did you even bother? The sense that everything real is going on somewhere else gets all the more pervasive in an ever shrinking world – Keenan’s novel is a mad-eyed, dark-humoured, plain-spoken tribute to all that can be achieved and experienced if you chose instead to fully occupy where you are, wherever that is. With his emphasis on DIY art and lack of concern for commercial or critical appreciation, it might be harder for a writer like David Keenan to measure whether his debut novel goes down as a success or a failure. Asked about what he hopes it will achieve, he answers with the brazen, roughedged romance that burns through his book – “To help you to transform your own reality, to see the potential for your own hallucination. To see that your own reality is not bounded by the workaday, even if you live in one of these towns that are constantly being defined as grim, spirit-crushing reality, that it is possible to transcend that. It’s your own personal hallucination, it’s the way you see your own life. We don’t all need to be artists – God knows we don’t need a world full of artists – but people who are able to transform their own reality and feel like it’s their reality to transform, I think that’s a big thing.” This is Memorial Device is published by Faber & Faber on 2 Feb, RRP £14.99

Feature

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Who said Nothing Ever Happens Here? ummerhall has now been up and running as one of Edinburgh’s only independent arts venues for six years. Madness. It’s kind of exciting that the venue is already starting to hit mini-milestones. In February we’re starting the countdown for celebrating two years of Nothing Ever Happens Here… which launched in March 2015 to answer the call for more mid-size consistent live music spaces in Edinburgh. So, being able to set up our 450 capacity Dissection Room as an ace wee gig space, we went for it. We stuck some sound balancers on the ceiling, moved the stage from one side to the other and started getting on to promoters. Between then and now, Honeyblood, Kathryn Joseph, Shonen Knife, (actual Shonen Knife – it was as insane and magic as you’d expect from a band that inspired Nirvana), Granddaddy’s only gig in Scotland for almost a decade – have all happened in the same space as they used to dissect crocodiles.* NEHH (as we’ve fondly termed it) this February welcomes Arcade Fire’s Sarah Neufeld (3 Feb), more Mediterraneo, and in the first few days of March Tropic of Cancer take to the hallowed walls

of the Dissection Room. Mercury Nominated Wild Beasts return to Summerhall for a headline gig on 1 May. It will get loud. Over the next few months we’ll be going behind the scenes at Summerhall and letting you know what the old Veterinary College hides in its portals – or multiple Rooms of Requirement as they are known. The Skinny HQ is here, and the building houses hundreds of artists’ studios, working away on all kinds of stuff from taxidermy to photography, and businesses making things like gourmet chocolate – and we all know about the beer (Barney’s) and gin (Pickering’s)… If you’ve never been in… why? Perhaps it’s weird cos our pub is in the middle of the building and can’t be seen from the outside. But don’t let that stop you, we’ve just got a new bar manager and he has a fabulous beard. *possibly summerhall.co.uk

Crowd in Dissection Room

Credit: Peter Dibden

What’s On in Summerhall in February AUTISM ABSTRACTION AND COLOUR – SUMMERHALL ASSOCIATE EXHIBITIONS The Library Gallery, until 16 Feb, 9am-5pm, free Garvald Artists present a collection of abstract artwork by John Black, who is autistic. Combining his innate understanding of colour with intuitive active mark-making, John creates inherently beautiful, balanced works. BIRD – ALEX FLETT – SUMMERHALL ASSOCIATE EXHIBITIONS Sciennes Gallery, until 18 Feb, 11am-6pm (Tues-Sun), free With extended experience of African artistic practice, BIRD contains African elements of joy, abstracted colour and form. RECONFIGURE – LIFE DRAWING – THE EMOTIONS Anatomy Lecture Theatre, 1 Feb, 7pm, £6, 18+ How is emotion embodied? A weekly life drawing session – drop-in or book ahead, with board provided and materials available for purchase. Reconfigure provide the good tunes and themes. SHOE SWING – LINDY HOP CLASSES Main Hall, 1 Feb, Foundations: 7pm | Improvers: 8pm | Social: 9pm, £6/ £5 concession, 12A Have you always wanted to

February 2017

learn to dance like it’s 1939? Edinbop is a non-profit swing dancing organisation which offers classes, workshops and social dancing opportunities in Edinburgh. THE FRIEL SISTERS (EDINBURGH FOLK CLUB) Library Gallery, 1 Feb, 8pm (doors 7.30pm), £10/£9 concession/ £7 EFC members, U Anna, Sheila and Clare Friel bring their infectious Donegal-rooted mix of flute, fiddle and pipes and songs to Summerhall. NEHH PRESENTS SARAH NEUFELD (ARCADE FIRE) Dissection Room, 3 Feb, 8pm, £12 advance, 16+ Sarah Neufeld is a violinist and composer based in Montréal, Canada, best known as a member of Arcade Fire. CEILIDH CLUB Main Hall, 7 Feb, 8pm, £6, 14+ The Edinburgh Ceilidh Club bring you Edinburgh’s best regular ceilidhs. Every Tuesday evening we have the best of Scottish ceilidh bands at Summerhall. RECONFIGURE – LIFE DRAWING – INNER ANIMAL Anatomy Lecture Theatre, 8 Feb, 7pm, £6, 18+ Performance artist Annie Minnaar departs from conventional poses to

embody an inner animal. Drop-in or book ahead, with good tunes, boards provided and materials available for purchase. SHOE SWING – LINDY HOP CLASSES Main Hall, 8 Feb, Foundations: 7pm | Improvers: 8pm | Social: 9pm, £6/ £5 concession, 12A Have you always wanted to learn to dance like it’s 1939? Edinbop is a non-profit swing dancing organisation which offers classes, workshops and social dancing opportunities in Edinburgh. STEPHEN FEARING (EDINBURGH FOLK CLUB) Library Gallery, 8 Feb, 8pm (doors 7.30pm), £10/£9 concession/ £7 EFC members, U Eagerly awaited, the first visit of Canadian singer/ songwriter Stephen Fearing, with his brand new album Every Soul’s a Sailor (January ’17) in his travelling bag. BRAW GIGS & NEHH PRESENTS SCARED PAWS + SPINNING COIN Dissection Room, 10 Feb, 8pm, £10, 16+ Sacred Paws features members of Trashkit and Golden Grrrls, Rachel Aggs and Eilidh Rodgers create a seriously unique combo of angular post punk and African highlife stomp.

GROWN UPS Dissection Room, 11 Feb, 8pm, £8 advance/ £10 on the door, 18+ Edinburgh’s exclusive club night for the more fullyfledged music fan is back for 2017! CEILIDH CLUB Main Hall, 14 Feb, 8pm, £6, 14+ The Edinburgh Ceilidh Club bring you Edinburgh’s best regular ceilidhs. Every Tuesday evening we have the best of Scottish ceilidh bands at Summerhall. RECONFIGURE – LIFE DRAWING – GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING Anatomy Lecture Theatre, 15 Feb, 7pm, £6, 18+ A weekly life drawing session – drop-in or book ahead, with board provided and materials available for purchase. Reconfigure provide the good tunes and lightly themed set-ups in case inspiration strikes! SHOE SWING – LINDY HOP CLASSES Main Hall, 15 Feb, Foundations: 7pm | Improvers: 8pm | Social: 9pm, £6/ £5 concession, 12A Have you always wanted to learn to dance like it’s 1939? Edinbop is a non-profit swing dancing organisation which offers classes, workshops and social dancing opportunities in Edinburgh.

Sarah Neufeld

CALUM STEWART & HEIKKI BOURGAULT (EDINBURGH FOLK CLUB) Library Gallery, 15 Feb, 8pm (doors 7.30pm), £10/£9 concession/ £7 EFC members, U Calum Stewart & Heikki Bourgault explore an interceltic link; marrying old melodies together with new in an inspiring, assertive and dynamic interplay. MATTHEW JUKES AUSTRALIAN WINE SHOW (WOODWINTERS) Main Hall, 17 Feb, 6.30pm, £25, 18+ For the WoodWinters tasting at Summerhall Matthew has selected the best including sparklers, delicate Chardonnays, and a full panoply of sensational reds. MEDITERRANEO & NEHH PRESENT CARNEVALE 2017! Dissection Room, 18 Feb, 8.30pm, £10 without mask/ £9 with mask, 18+ Mediterraneo and Nothing Ever Happens Here present Carnevale 2017! A wild night of Italian Pizzica, Klezmer,

Balkan brass, Brazilian Samba, and masks… lots of masks! CEILIDH CLUB Main Hall, 21 Feb, 8pm, £6, 14+ The Edinburgh Ceilidh Club bring you Edinburgh’s best regular ceilidhs. Every Tuesday evening we have the best of Scottish ceilidh bands at Summerhall. NEHH PRESENTS.... SONG, BY TOAD’S GRANFALLOON. FEAT. MEURSAULT ALBUM LAUNCH I WILL KILL AGAIN 25 Feb, 2pm-1am, £15, 16+ Join us for an all-day event to celebrate the release of Meursault’s new album I Will Kill Again! Featuring music from Faith Eliott, Adam Stafford, Lush Purr, Now Wakes the Sea and MORE to be announced! ARCHIPELAGO – SUMMERHALL CURATED VISUAL ARTS Meadows Gallery, 21 Jan-17 Mar, 11am-6pm (Tue-Sun), free New work from David Blyth,

Derrick Guild and Alan Grieve offers different perspectives on how contemporary visual languages develop in supposedly “peripheral” Scotland. RECONFIGURE – LIFE DRAWING – SEQUENCE Anatomy Lecture Theatre 22 Feb, 7pm, £6, 18+ A weekly life drawing session – drop-in or book ahead, with board provided and materials available for purchase. Reconfigure provide the good tunes and themes. SHOE SWING – LINDY HOP CLASSES Main Hall, 22 Feb, Foundations: 7pm | Improvers: 8pm | Social: 9pm, £6/ £5 concession, 12A Have you always wanted to learn to dance like it’s 1939? Edinbop is a non-profit swing dancing organisation which offers classes, workshops and social dancing opportunities in Edinburgh. RACHEL HAIR TRIO (EDINBURGH FOLK CLUB) Library Gallery, 22 Feb, 8pm

(doors 7.30pm), £10/£9 concession/ £7 EFC members, U One of Scottish folk music’s most recognised, much-loved bands, The Rachel Hair Trio are renowned for their strong melodies, rootsy songs and majestic instrumental flair. ALLOWAY 432 – ANNE MARIE GILMOUR – SUMMERHALL ASSOCIATE EXHIBITIONS Library Gallery; the Sciennes Galleries; the War Memorial Gallery, 25 Feb-18 Mar, 10am-6pm (Tue-Sun), free Paintings, prints and drawings from Anne Marie Gilmour’s (1984 – 2006) only recently available personal archive. An expression of delight in Alloway’s nature through colour. CEILIDH CLUB Main Hall, 28 Feb, 8pm, £6, 14+ The Edinburgh Ceilidh Club bring you Edinburgh’s best regular ceilidhs. Every Tuesday evening we have the best of Scottish ceilidh bands at Summerhall.

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And rolls. People call sandwiches rolls and morning rolls rolls and when you work in a café it starts to get really confusing. I’m being a bit overdramatic, but not knowing a lot of slang caused quite a bit of embarrassment my first few months in the country and can enhance that lonely or isolated feeling so many expats seem to experience.

Drowning, not waving When I first arrived in Edinburgh from Toronto I was in awe of the city and culture around me. I loved everything about Edinburgh and Scotland and was excited to be starting afresh and reinventing myself in a new country. But after about five months I fell into a major rut. To me, life was not just becoming less exciting, but completely overwhelming and unbearable. I realized that I had made virtually no friends since I worked alone, and had an almost non-existent support system. I would wake up, cry, go to work, cry in the bathroom, cry on the bus home, and cry before going to sleep. It took me a while to realize it, but when a friend came to visit from back home and said, “Maybe you’re depressed,” I finally admitted to myself that I needed help.

Talk about it Depression is like this little goblin that lives in the deep corners of your mind who tells you you’re not good enough for friends and makes you feel insecure basically anywhere outside of your bed. When I finally decided I wanted to get past my depression I knew I’d have to find someone to speak to. I had gone to a few therapy sessions as a teenager so I knew what to expect, but it was still a bit nerve-wracking discussing my neuroses with a total stranger. After crying through the whole of my first session, I realized it was definitely what I needed: a person who could give me an objective opinion on my feelings and fears. Dealing with years of built-up issues was making it incredibly difficult to keep myself intact. I would go into my new job looking sallow and redeyed from lack of sleep and general feeling-shittiness. My next step towards recovery was booking an appointment with my doctor. I was prescribed Citalopram, a common anti-depressant, that worked wonders and helped me to stay mentally balanced while going through therapy.

Culture shock After doing a quick Google search it became clear that expat depression is incredibly common. It seems that a major contributor to depression is moving away from what we’re used to culturally and our usual emotional support system. Adjusting to a new place is bound to give you a bit of culture shock. I’m surprised talking to other Canadian expats how similar things were tough to get used to when we first got here. There are definitely a few things many of us agree on. Coming to Scotland has given me a much thicker skin for a few reasons. Scots are really, bluntly honest. If you do something to upset someone, they’ll let you know, full stop. It’s something I’ve really grown to love, but a bit unnerving for the first few months of living here, especially while working in the service industry. The general sense of humour is very different too. Scots take 'taking the piss' to a whole new level and it took me a bit of time to understand that I was in uncharted comedic territory. But now that I’ve stopped taking everything so personally, I totally get it. Pish takin’ is hilarious. Currency matters Heating here is expensive. As is everything else. But moving here as the cold, wet months start, and having no money made me get sick a lot. Sure Canada is cold, but it’s much more rare to come across flats that don’t include heating in the rent price. You can’t really live without it in -40 degree Celsius weather. But the cold back home is dry, meaning it’ll sting your skin a bit when you’re outside, but you can run in to some place heated and warm up quite quickly. The cold here is wet and makes it really tough to truly warm up. When I moved over the Canadian dollar was at an all-time low and many things in Edinburgh are almost double the price than what they are back home. The money I had saved over a period of two years lasted me just over a month. Edinburgh is expensive, and setting up a Scottish bank account was no picnic. I had to find a bank that would allow me to open an account without a permanent address but I was having trouble letting flats because agencies and private landlords usually require you have proof of income, which I had yet to start earning. Lastly, I felt incredibly disoriented with stupid little things. “Brown sauce? What the heck’s brown sauce?” Flat white and long black were new to me too. “Red sauce? It’s ketchup. Or is it tomato sauce?”

February 2017

oving abroad presents so many opportunities for personal growth and to expand your social circle, cultural knowledge and spirituality. You feel free, and open, and inspired, and like every insurmountable problem in your way can be conquered if you just push a little bit harder. Living abroad is great. Until it isn’t.

Living in a new country is a phenomenal experience. But with adjusting to new cultures can come feeling out of place and lonely. Expat depression is incredibly common; here are some tips on dealing with it

Moving Abroad? Expect Expat Depression

Words: Victoria Dudys Illustration: Johan Keslassly

“I loved everything about Edinburgh and Scotland and was excited to be starting afresh and reinventing myself in a new country. But after about five months I fell into a major rut” I’m very lucky to have moved to a country where medication is covered. I wouldn’t have been able to afford both therapy sessions and antidepressants making minimum wage. This is where it starts to get tricky for travellers or expats. Oftentimes you’ll have to evaluate how bad your depression is and what you need to resolve your issues without professional help. Depending on your situation, you may or may not be able to access the tools you really need to get better. I have a friend who moved to Australia and after dealing with depression for about five months while away, made the tough decision to come back home. Everyone is different, as are everyone’s needs and everyone’s level of depression. Never consider it a mistake to count your losses and return home if life is too much of a struggle. Expats, mind your minds If you’re thinking of moving to a new country, expect it to be challenging. I knew it might be tricky to find a job, afford to feed myself, let a flat

and set up a new life. What I didn’t expect was the mental stress of feeling so far out of my element. Anticipate your feelings of excitement to change once you settle into your new home. The initial excitement of being somewhere new will fade and you’ll be left with all the problems you thought you moved away from and new ones that come along with leaving home. When you’re getting yourself settled, make it as easy as possible to meet new friends. Try to get a job that introduces you to likeminded people, ones who will be able to spend some time with you outside of work. Moving in with a few strangers is always a good idea too. It not only offers a few people to chat to when you’re feeling low at home, but can connect you with a network of friends as well.

TRAVEL

Keep in mind that this experience–whether you move alone, with a pal, or a partner–is the perfect opportunity to get in touch with what makes you happy. Going for a swim, practising yoga, playing Quidditch or anything else that makes you smile is a great way to perk yourself up if you feel lonely or homesick. Don’t be too hard on yourself either. You need time to adjust to your new life. You’re not weak just because you’re feeling low, and these feelings will eventually pass. Remember: no matter how you have to deal with your depression, struggling through it and keeping yourself afloat already demonstrate how strong you are. You’re a bad ass, brave traveller and have come so far in finding out what you’re made of, where you want to be, and who you are.

Lifestyle

Dating by Numbers Can a mathematic formula solve the problem of finding the perfect date? As Valentine’s Day approaches, one writer finds out... Words: Chloë Maughan Illustration: Sonny Ross

have had my fair share of excruciating dates. Certainly some nights, after another less than satisfying encounter, it feels like I’ve taken the whole pie. From the guy who objected to recycling, to the man who announced ten minutes into a coffee date that his wife might join us: my experiences have made me laugh, cry and consistently brought me closer to my vibrator. And along the way I’ve definitely walked away from dates that have left me warm, but still achingly unsure. Ultimately, even when you do stumble across something woo-worthy, there’s always that question wavering in the background: is this it? In a world where dating apps make romance feel ever more accessible, it’s easy for suitors to become just another option in a never-ending aisle of possibilities. And with such a seeming bounty of matches within our reach, how are we to know when to stop swiping and start saying yes?

My theory Recently my friend told me of a mathematical theorem that boasts the answer to finding this elusive, ‘optimum’ stopping place. Perhaps this doesn’t sound like the sexiest of solutions, but I’ve been told it has the hallmarks of a good drinking challenge. Besides, I’d recently been informed by a BuzzFeed quiz that my Starbucks choice means I’m not destined to meet my match for another eight years. I was willing to try anything to speed up the process. In a theory dreamed up by mathematician Matt Parker, it’s suggested that an algorithm, designed by statistician Dennis Lindley in response to The Secretary Problem, may hold the key to locating our perfect partners. And what is this ‘Secretary Problem’, you might ask? Well, much like in the realm of exclusive monogamous dating, Lindley’s formula relies on the idea that you have to decide whether you’re prepared to settle for each candidate as they come along. In choosing both a secretary and a dinner date, there are no takesy-backsies once you’ve rejected them… you could try, but it would be pretty awkward. Many of us choose not to settle for the first person we date, because we want to know what’s out there. But equally there is that fear that if you keep hunting, you’ll pass by the best, much like in the secretary theory. According to Parker, “somewhere in the middle there must be an ideal place to stop interviewing more candidates just to see what they’re like, and hurry up and choose a good one.” The same, he suggests, should be applied to dating. With this knowledge behind me, I decided to embark upon my own experiment – to find my perfect match, using the power of maths. Sexy, right? So, down to the nitty gritty. Finding peak date material, the theory tells us, lies in sampling 37% of your possibilities, and then accepting the next best that comes along. If you’re looking for the perfect secretary, reject 37% of your hopefuls and you’ll get yourself the perfect employee. If you’re after a date, work your way through 37% of your local eligible partners and the next person who comes along might be a winner. On the basis of time constraints I capped my sample at 100 men. But quickly realising I didn’t have the time or patience to go out and date 37 people, I decided to test the theory on those early pre-date interactions instead – those preliminary flirtatious negotiations many of us have experienced via Tinder, OKCupid or whatever takes up the storage space on your phone.

Lifestyle

My sample: the men of Bumble On the dating app Bumble, once there’s a mutual match, only women are able to send the first message. This meant I could ensure each interaction was started in exactly the same way, with a simple: “Hey! How are you?” The rest was up to my companion and chemistry. A truly random sample would perhaps have relied on swiping right to every man that crossed my dash, and testing the interactions with the first 37 matches. But I wanted to mimic something closer to the human experience. After all, in dating we don’t simply sample any person that asks (thank god), but those that already satisfy our key desires. Are they the right age? Am I attracted to them? Is he a chronic mansplainer with white dreads? We’re able to determine a surprising amount of this from a small set of pictures; I know I’m a sucker for a man holding a puppy and repelled by pictures of house bros on nights out. So, I resolved only to swipe right on the guys that would usually pique my interest. To the left for men posing with rifles, perpetually obscured by sunglasses (what are you hiding, anyway?). And to the right for those with honest eyes, and a disproportionate population of bearded boys with nose piercings. What can I say, I have a type!

“ Minus points would be applied for dick pics” My method I capped each engagement at ten messages sent each way. Some guys wouldn’t reply to that first message. What did this mean? Well, they weren’t my match, obviously. They got a simple 0. For the rest I produced a delicate ranking criteria to weight the interactions against each other. These included: humour; equality of engagement (i.e. did they ask and respond to questions, or expect me to lead the conversation), and feminist credentials. Minus points would be applied for dick pics. The results Prior to this experience I’d never spent so much time on a dating app. My tolerance is pretty low, and often it takes just one dodgy message for me to hit the uninstall button. And yet here I was, swiping through the thumb cramp to find Mr Right, or at least Mr Probably Better Stop Looking Now. And that’s when I ran into a slight problem. If there is one thing that can disillusion you with internet dating altogether, it’s completing Bumble (Bristol edition) in just three days. 30% of the way into the messaging stage and I was running out of suitors. My optimum (aka Mr Stop Right Now Thank You Very Much) had only one real contender: a guy I matched with just 5% of the way into the experiment. Oh, Mr 5%. He surpassed the criteria – he was funny and sweet, and kept his clothes on in all his pics. He played music for a living, and identified openly as a feminist. I’d half decided that if the experiment didn’t work out, I’d work my way back to him and ask him out. My other interactions were somewhat disastrous. Let’s just say I learned more than I’d bar-

gained for about the kinks of virtual strangers, and seen guys less than ten messages in (and long before the first round of drinks) inviting themselves round to “warm me up”. With ever dwindling numbers and a cornucopia of dick pics from overly forward matches, I regret to admit that I gave up on reaching 37%, let

DEVIANCE

alone looking beyond it for my optimum stopping point. What was the point? The lovely Mr 5% had disappeared, and I couldn’t help but feel it was karma’s lesson, teaching me not to sacrifice people to the auto-reject pile in favour of stats. A lesson in embracing what’s in front of you, perhaps. That, or the BuzzFeed quiz was right: bring on 2025.

THE SKINNY

In Praise of Forgetting Your Sexual Tally I’m Kate, I’m almost 24, and right now I don’t know the exact number of people I’ve slept with

mean, I could easily figure it out. Gimme a minute or so to cast my mind over eight years worth of sexual history – the lovely time spent with deserving men, the emotionally traumatic run-ins with sociopathic bastards and the underwhelming chaff between, then sure, I could have my ‘number’ for you right away. But, quite frankly, I’d rather not bother. Sorry Mum, if you’re reading this. ...Although, really Mum, you should be on my side with this one. I’m not even sure why I’m apologising. You’re probably regretting having opened this article, your mouse hovering over Close Tab this very moment. But, as much as that’d be the easy option for both of us, don’t. Just put your Woke Mom hat on for a couple minutes and grit your teeth. You’ll be on my side soon. Back to the point at hand. Sex numerics. Relation calculations. Bonk tallies. Before I explain why they’re useless, arbitrary and fraught with societal pressures, I’d like to do away with one massive preconception. You might be assuming that only someone who’s slept with boatloads of people could possibly ‘forget’ their number. However, losing count (deliberately or otherwise) isn’t a phenomenon limited to frequent shaggers. And I’ve got the personal experience (and juicy psycho-mathematical theory) to prove it. Let’s break it down. The complications of counting The brain counts in a fascinating way. For very small numbers (four and below), it is able to ‘subitize’ – to make a confident, rapid judgement based on some inherent feeling about number of things to be counted. Let’s use a nacho analogy (if there’s one thing that makes maths more bearable, it’s lashings of cheese and guac). Imagine three or four tortilla chips on a plate. Hold that image in your head. As the number of objects to be counted increases beyond four, it becomes harder to judge the number without making a conscious effort to count. Imagine a handful of extra chips being chucked into the mix. Not so fast now, are you? You could tot them up pretty quickly, or even just estimate – but that’s exactly the point. You’re now consciously counting, rather than just... knowing. Intrigued (and definitely not paranoid) about where my tally stood compared to the rest of my

February 2017

generation, I checked out some recent research in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. The average Millennial has had around eight sexual partners (for Generation X-ers the number is 10, and Baby Boomers absolutely slam-dunk it with a total of 11). Now, if we can take anything away from our nacho counting exercise, it’s that keeping track of eight, 10, 11 or more partners probably requires a little more admin beyond an inherent ‘knowledge’ of one’s tally. Ergo, losing count isn’t restricted to the Tribbianis of this world. Convinced? Let’s move on. The benefits of losing count Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not about to launch into some sort of rally cry to run amok, developing sexual amnesia and shagging yourselves into a state of administrative mayhem. Nor am I suggesting you lose track of your entire sexual history, throw caution to the contraceptive wind and land yourself with a tasty cocktail of STIs. Let’s be real. Be careful. Get consent. Use a condom if there’s a penis present. Keep track of your sexual health. That’s all stuff you should be stressing over. If you’ve slept with few enough people to inherently know your number, that’s cool. Likewise, if counting brings you comfort or a sense of control, awesome. Keep doing what you’re doing. But what I mean is this: for some people, when asked about the number of people they’ve slept with, they’d have to count it on their fingers (and for some on their toes, or even with a pen and paper). Now, not only does this process cause some people anxiety due to shitty societal expectations and gender norms, but the expectation that we count and compare leads to all kinds of fights, prejudice, grudges and pressures in relationships. It begs the question: why on Earth do we bother? We don’t count much else in life ...At least not so militantly. Do you, for example, know how many phones you’ve owned in your life without a quick tot-up? Have you kept a detailed history of how many people you’ve been on holiday with, or how many first dates you’ve ever been on? How about the number of people you’ve told you miss, love, hate or need? Do you count the times you’ve been naked in front of strangers, or vomited in public, or had an orgasm? What, exactly is it

about intercourse that makes it so very necessary to count? Could it, just possibly, have anything to do with our historically repressive and moralistic attitudes to sex? Just wondering. It’s restrictive I’ve known people (mostly women) to deliberately deny themselves sexual experiences they’re keen to have, simply because they were worried about adding to their ‘number’ and the subsequent societal punishment. I’ve also known people as young as 15 engage in sexual experiences simply because they felt it necessary to lose their ‘virginity’ and keep up with their pals. WTAF, society. Sort it out. It’s subjective What’s too little according to society is probably far too much for my grandparents. What’s too vanilla to consider covering within this very Deviance section might cause lasting trauma to readers of The Telegraph’s hilariously barren Sex section (at the time of writing there’s a single panic-piece about The Sexting Youth and about fourteen million articles about midlife midriffs). When it comes to sexual behaviours, it seems you can’t do right for doing wrong. So just do whatever the hell you want. The parameters and criteria aren’t even properly defined Even if you did subscribe to the idea that a given number could determine your value as a partner and your morals as a person (ha, get a grip), it’s a pretty rudimentary system. I don’t think we’re even sure what we’re supposed to be counting. Must both a penis and a vagina be present? Are we just gonna ignore oral sex? Is handsy stuff excluded from this definition? If so, see below. It’s heteronormative as fuck Because the patriarchy has determined that the world (quite literally) revolves around the schlongs of mankind, ‘sex’ is often defined a solely penetrative act. a) That’s pretty heteronormative and transexclusionary and b) I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY I’M EXPECTED TO COUNT THE NUMBER OF DICKS I’VE SEEN IN ORDER TO BE CONSIDERED A VALID AND MORALLY SOUND HUMAN. But mostly a).

DEVIANCE

Words: Kate Pasola Illustration: Sonny Ross It’s also gendered as fuck One time, back in 2013 I told a guy I wasn’t sure of my number and that I preferred not to count. After his relentless curiosity I acceded, telling him I was certain it was under ten. He was aghast and subtly slut-shamed me for ‘losing track’. He, after all, remembered all four dozen of the encounters he’d racked up by the age of 22. Well, not exactly by name. And he was drunk a lot of the time. But it’s totally fine, because he’d COUNTED them. Yeah?

“ I just don’t understand why I’m expected to count the number of dicks I’ve seen to be considered a morally sound human” It’s also pretty SWERF-y SWERF stands for Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminist. If we’re making moral judgements based on a person’s sexual history, where does that leave people who sleep with others for their income? Does their number count? Does it make them any less of a person? Might you only count only the unpaid experiences? Why? It’s an unnecessary rabbit hole that’s just not worth following. D’you know what’s a hell of a lot easier? Chilling the fuck out. So there you go. Whether you seriously can’t be arsed with arbitrary sex norms or feel hassled by the thought of counting your experiences and justifying that number to curious, judgemental dickheads, maybe it’s time to stop counting. After all, if I can convince my own mother it’s a good idea, you might get something out of it too. theskinny.co.uk/sexuality

Lifestyle

New Royals As RSA New Contemporaries returns for its ninth year, we speak to some of the artists about their plans and what the opportunity means during the first year out of art school Words: Adam Benmakhlouf

Simona Stojanovska, 238 BSOM (2016), oil & thread on linen

Ewan Mitchell, Hierarchies (2016)

Harmony Bury, Eye (2016)

or each RSA New Contemporaries participating artist, the opportunity has meant something different. Luke Vinnicombe for one has had “a dream to be a part of it” since before art school, whereas it came as a surprise to a few of the recent graduates. “I’d never expected the interest in my work,” says Grace Woodcock, who was also selected for exhibitions in Leeds and Dundee on the strength of her ambiguously domestic/digital seeming paintings. After eight months or so out of education, the decision whether or not to submit new work is not clearcut. For Woodcock, part of the last eight months has been working in art communications internationally, before coming to the conviction to wholeheartedly pursue her art practice. Whereas Harmony Bury will show some of her degree show

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alongside new works from the same series, which see her painstakingly glue thorns and bee wings to human skin “individually, avoiding Photoshop” as she wants “the final image to be exactly how it appeared in real life.” Some of the crop are more tempered in their take on the exhibition, regretful that the RSA don’t provide any fees or financial support for making or transporting work. For Kieran Milne, this balances with the “boost” of having them show some confidence in his work, and he’ll continue conceptually from his degree show, a playful deconstruction of elements of language and colour alongside fictional spaces of textual works and as an exploration of “intimacy within public space.” Another Dundee graduate, Kristian Jack Thomassen, was not expecting to be selected. “I

don’t make very “arty” art, I just make posters!” Speaking of New Contemporaries, he is “very grateful” for the show “which has forced me to keep making.” This hasn’t been straightforward, as he’s been unable to find affordable studio space in his native Norway and has missed the “great community” of DCA. He also mentions appreciatively the difference between putting on his own show and having the support of RSA: “There’s a lot less set up work on the artist’s end working with a big gallery.” Painter Daniel Leyland has been luckier with studio spaces, and has been working solidly since graduating, developing from the large paintings in his degree show “suggestive of landscapes alongside sculptures referencing the body and Neolithic material culture.” In his new series, he responds

ART

Grace Woodcock, Untitled (2016), screenprint on PVC

to research into Fisherrow’s famed Musselburgh Fishwives, who would carry fish from the coast to Edinburgh for sale, presenting “two loosely-worked paintings, with small representational details, alongside some ceramic work and ‘soft sculpture.’” One double RSA-winner, Lily Hassioti was also provided with the RSA John Kinross Scholarship to travel to Florence for two months. For the show, she will display “an interactive work that fully reveals itself with the viewer’s involvement. The audience is called to scan the QR codes that are part of the installation in order to listen to a series of sound pieces.” Proud of this work, she says she’s “thrilled to present it in a different context along with other great artists, and share it with a fresh audience.”

THE SKINNY

Elaine Ang, Perfect Ache (2016), mixed media sound installation

Megan Rea, Turquoise 1 (2016), acrylic & oil on board

Performance will be represented at RSA by Elaine Ang, who has collected her friends making bird noises. In the space, there will be a plant box sculpture, from which will spring up a stalky microphone stand on the opening night. Emblazoned on the side, the metal will read with a conscious reference (to Douglas Gordon, and Inverleith House), ‘I Still Believe in Miracles.’ Thinking about potential narratives, Ang says, “I want the story to develop with the audience.” Also feeling heartened by the chance to show at RSA, Joseph Glover has spent the last eight months building “a trusted peer network,” immediately realising the lack of this following art school. Evidencing the importance of his artist community, he’s working collaboratively for New Contemporaries. “Photographs and Poems is the start of a

February 2017

Daniel Leyland, Things in Field I (2016), oil on linen & ceramic vessels

new collaboration with my friend and poet, Fred Spoliar. The collaboration aims to explore two different ways of seeing – seeing images in words when read, and signs, albeit not specifically text, in images when viewed.” They’ve worked together to make a book of Glover’s photographic responses to Spoilar’s poetry, as well as a selection of imagery for hanging, and a long parchment print with images arranged around Spoilar’s text. Also working in photography, Ewan Mitchell develops his series of works, Hierarchies. As a continuous project, Mitchell tracks the relationship between technology and social, political and economic stratifications and inequalities. The only element that carries over from last June is a film, Mass Production, that Mitchell made at the New Corporation factory outside of Glasgow, where

right-wing newspapers are printed. New work will come in the way of prints and collages from his series Market Data, which combines the stocks and shares information with news items and citizen journalism from the same moment. Some new work will look also to advertising, to “embrace but also challenge the aesthetic”. All the work will come away from the wall somehow, looking as though it’s floating. As a large-scale painter, Megan Rea looks forward to the scale of the RSA’s gallery. “Being chosen for the New Contemporaries exhibition has given me a lot of motivation and ambition to push my work further. It’s exciting to have the opportunity to show my paintings in such a majestic space. I have increased the scale of the boards that I frequently paint on as it’s not often that an

ART

exhibition space has such high ceilings. I’m going to present two architectural models sitting on coordinating plinths alongside oil paintings.” For RSA, Simona Stojanovska continues her richly textural, patterned, evocative and ambiguously figurative paintings. Speaking more generally she says, “I think organisations which promote young, emerging artists are vital to cultivate a rich and diverse art scene within Scotland, which allows for new and exciting talents to make their mark in the visual arts sector. Overall, New Contemporaries is very exciting for me and will be an important milestone in what I hope will be a long creative career within the arts.” RSA New Contemporaries at the Royal Scottish Academy, 18 Feb-15 Mar

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THE SKINNY PODCAST Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re launching a brand new podcast in February! Working titles include Party Chat, Skinny Bitches and Totally Wireless. Confused? Head to soundcloud.com/ theskinnymag to find out more.

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Illustration: Verbals Picks

THE SKINNY

Food News This month’s best food events, from micro beer festivals to fantasy-inspired pop-up bars

Credit: Sarah Donley

Words: Peter Simpson

Vegging Out The Skinny takes a temporary vow of veganism, and discovers a world of bad chocolate, suspicious cheese, and severely-tested willpower

“Y

ou’re only doing it for a week?” In terms of possible responses, the first outside take on our office attempt at embracing plant-based dining wasn’t a ringing endorsement. Veganism is, after all, an option taken by a not insignificant number of people on a full-time basis. More than half a million people in the UK are vegan, happily living out a plant-based existence without a care in the world. The Skinny office, however, is anything but vegan – we point you in the direction of our extensive article from just before Christmas on our favourite cheeses, and trust that it suffices as evidence. We like cakes, and burgers, and tacos; we are full-on omnivores. Still, with the growth of Veganuary as an annual start to the culinary year, and what with it being the season for trying out fad diets and unsustainable lifestyle changes, we thought we’d give it a go. Only for a week, though. First of all, the rules: no meat, no dairy, no eggs (a point which had to be reinforced with surprising frequency), and no animal byproducts – no whey, Jose. We crafted up a few on-the-fly exceptions, including a rule allowing cod liver oil on the grounds that it’s medicinal (“it staves off winter depression, and this is pretty fucking depressing”), but by and large it was all plants all the way. Seven days, three meals a day, the world is your oyster, except you can’t have any oysters. Of course, the first thing we all did on our plant-based diet was try to plod forward as before. When you’re conditioned to have a coffee and a pastry in the morning, a sandwich at lunchtime, and something with meat in it for dinner, veganism requires a complete rethink of what’s on the menu. Some changes are easy – take the milk out of the coffee, swap that pastry for a delicious orange – but when there is one sandwich in the whole supermarket that you’re permitted to have, the dietary game gets more difficult. Couple that with the proportion

February 2017

of apparently innocuous products that feature trace amounts of animal, and things get trickier still. If you’re a vegan, and you happen to be allergic to avocados, or nuts, or legumes, then you can find yourself out of options very quickly.

“ The world is your oyster, except you can’t have any oysters” Of course we know that these are the selfregarding moans of the meat-eater class, gladly deforesting the world and pumping it full of cow farts just so they can have a flat white every morning. The figures suggest that a vegan diet can do genuine good for the environment – the calculations suggest that, for each of our vegan weeks, 68kg of carbon dioxide was kept out of the atmosphere, and an area of forest the size of a large living room wasn’t chopped down. Rearing animals on an industrial scale for food can do incredible environmental damage, and for what? So we can have a bit of cheese? Mate, if you really want cheese, it’s not a problem – we can make cheese. This is what throws outsiders when they first step into the vegan dojo; veganism presents a grim utilitarianism on one hand, and outlandish invention on the other. For every lentil-based stew and ‘raw carrots are just as good as a bag of crisps’ buzzkill, there are dozens of food science experiments run amok just waiting for your approval once you start to hunt them down. From bacon-flavoured snacks that have never been anywhere near a

Words: Peter Simpson Illustration: Jake Hollings pig but still taste great, to yoghurts that wouldn’t know a cow if it kicked them in the head, vegan chefs are doing their best to keep things fun. Want vegan chocolate buttons? You’ve got it, although they do come with a rather unfortunate aftertaste that’s a lot like sugary tin foil. Vegan fried chicken? Incredibly, yes. The aforementioned vegan cheese? We tried it, and some of it was relatively convincing; some of it also dissolved on contact with heat, leaving an attempted cheese toastie looking like a puddle between two bits of bread. A mixed bag, you might say. Our results as a group were mixed too; some of us found it comparatively easy, if not a bit joyless and officious. There was a certain bureaucracy that didn’t go down well with some, who begrudged having to check every single packet for traces of milk whey. Others went into open revolt, loudly shouting that the whole thing was “bullshit” (bullshit, by the way, is not vegan), while a few gracefully took it in their stride. The folk who did the best were the most adaptable and pliable, who either relished the challenge or enjoyed the regimen; the rest of us free spirits spent much of the time complaining about how dramatically things had changed and trying to break the spirits of the die-hards. And that’s the thing – veganism is actually quite an extreme stance to take; it isn’t wrong, or right, but it is extreme. It requires genuine willpower, a scientific eye for detail and a real inventiveness that the omnivorous attitude of ‘chucking some meat in the oven and finding something to go with it’ simply doesn’t. Would any of us stick to a strictly vegan diet in the future? Honestly, no – it may be healthy, but it can be hard-going, plus we all love cheese. But would we try it again next Veganuary? Maybe... but only for a week. theskinny.co.uk/food

FOOD AND DRINK

ebruary kicks off with an Introduction to Speciality Tea from everyone’s favourite speciality tea-mongers, Eteaket, at their Rose Street shop. You’ll taste a whole host of teas, learn how to use a tea syphon without setting your jumper alight, and you’ll get a whole load of tips on new ways to prepare your cuppa. You’ll also be sent away with a set of tea tasters to help you decide which is the tea for you. If you like tea, this should be right up your street; if you want us to stop using the word ‘tea’ then fear not, there’s some other stuff coming shortly. 2 Feb, 6-7.30pm, £30 (includes taster set), tickets via Eventbrite Over in Glasgow, things kick into gear at Hippo Taproom’s Hopstars ‘micro beer festival’. ‘Is it a festival for tiny beers?’ you ask. No, it’s better than that – it’s a one-afternoon fest that offers the chance to try out a whole host of small breweries in one place, including new kids on the Glasgow brewing block Out of Town and Gallus, alongside established aces like Alechemy and Fallen. Pop down, try some great new local beers, get home in time for dinner. 5 Feb, 12.30-7pm, £5, tickets via hippotaproom.co.uk Back in Edinburgh, we have two pieces of good news to share with you! Piece one – The Pitt street food market is back! The celebration of Scottish street food culture returns to Leith after a festive break with a host of the country’s best on-the-go grub; wrap up warm, bring a full stomach, and try not to trip over anyone’s dogs and/or children. 18 Feb, from 12pm, facebook.com/pittstmarket. And piece two – Blood and Wine, the Game of Thrones-inspired pop-up bar in the New Town, will run for a second month due to everyone continuing to be incredibly excited about it. The den of swords, big tankards and Westeros-style excess runs Wednesdays and Thursdays until 23 Feb at Daylight Robbery – full details over at theskinny. co.uk/food On a less alcoholic but no less interesting tip, CCA’s Bottle of Ginger series throws up a pair of intriguing events this month. It all stems from Scots Kola, a new project aiming to create a ‘community soft drink’ while investigating the politics, ethics and economics of the soft drinks industry. Farm: Scots Kola (18 & 25 Feb, 11am) offers the chance to drop in on the micro-farming of botanicals for the drink and find out a bit more about the project, while What is Ginger? The Many Ways to Name Something (22 Feb, 7pm) will see Kathrin Böhm of Company Drinks lead a discussion on what really constitutes being local, and the politics of naming. Ever wanted to know ‘what’s in a name’? Now’s your chance to find out... All events at Manufactory, 142 Crownpoint Rd; full details at cca-glasgow.com theskinny.co.uk/food

Lifestyle

Valentine’s Day in Edinburgh & Glasgow Our guide to some of the best places to go this Valentine's, from veggie strongholds to ideal hiding spots Words: Peter Simpson

Under the Stairs

h Valentine’s Day, the most romantic day of the year, or at least that’s what it says here. Chances are you’ll be accosted, invited or otherwise guilt-tripped into doing something ‘fun’ this February 14, and when that happens you’ll need someone to advise. With that in mind, here are some Valentine’s Day food and drink selections – simply select the cultural trope you most closely define with like the sheeple you are, and baa-b’s your uncle.

For vegetarians With our newfound respect for the herbivorous, we’ll kick things off with some suggestions for the veggies. In Glasgow, you’re well-served by Stereo, The Hug and Pint and Mono, a trio of vegetarian/ vegan joints with great food and some serious cool points in the bank from their live music programmes. Meet someone in any of the three and interrogate them about their music tastes while jabbing a fork in their direction – that’ll provoke a conversation if nothing else. Over in Edinburgh, the strip of Indian restaurants along Clerk Street are well adept at catering to vegetarians, from the veggie buffet at Kalpna to the great curries and enormous dosas of Tanjore, via the explosion-in-a-haberdashery that is 10 to 10 in Delhi. What breaks the ice better than extremely filling and spicy food? Answers on a postcard, please. For lovers of meat If you ask us, if you’re actually out on Valentine’s Day you may as well throw caution to the wind and share an enormous pile of high-quality red meat. Chop House in Edinburgh offer a half-kilo Chateaubriand with half a lobster on the side, while in Glasgow Porter & Rye in Finnieston serve up a 28 ounce Porterhouse for two, The Butchershop at Kelvingrove specialise in the bone-in Tomahawk steak, and The Spanish Butcher in the Merchant City take the gold with their Valentine’s Day menu. A charcuterie board to start, a 600g sharing steak with sides, then three desserts between two to finish. Thumbs up all round. For those who like to hide Avoid prying eyes and potential run-ins by heading underground, into deep cover – it worked for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and it can work for you. Under the Stairs in Edinburgh’s Old Town is

Lifestyle

a gem of a bar with charming decor and a rock-solid drinks list, Panda and Sons serves up great cocktails hidden behind the façade of being a regular ol’ barber shop (a barber that’s open til 1am and has a doorman), and Bryant and Mack off Rose Street is so well-hidden you may legitimately walk past it a couple of times before heading in. The cocktails are ace, so we recommend you persevere. For confident couples Also known as ‘the people with no-one to impress’; the ones without fear of disgracing themselves at dinner, because their partner will either find it endearing or simply note it as the latest grievance on an ever-growing list never to be addressed. What these folk need is ramen – slobbering big bits of noodle and pork all over the place without fear of reprisal is a privilege you should make use of. Glasgow’s new RAMEN DAYO! spot off Gordon Street serves up 20-hour tonkotsu broth in a lovely setting, while Edinburgh’s Maki and Ramen offers up an amazing burnt garlic and pork number to be eaten while perusing the dozens of handdrawn odes to ramen on the walls. For those third wheeling it big time Maybe you didn’t realise it was a date, or maybe you just didn’t fancy making your own dinner on a Tuesday night. Anyway, you’re heading along with your friend and their ‘friend’, so you have two options. Option one – pick a cool environment where you can easily distract yourself. Among our top tips are Paradise Palms (lovely drinks, cool vibe, and a decor that’ll give you hours of material to work with), The Hanging Bat (an outrageous beer selection that allows plenty of pondering time at the bar), and Hillhead Bookclub (just shuffle off to the retro arcade machines with a nice cocktail and don’t say anything). Option two is to make your presence felt as much as possible. For this you’ll need a ‘small plates’ spot – whether it’s the fine dining loveliness of Ox and Finch, the Indian smorgasbord of Mother India’s Cafe or the classic Spanish tapas at Cubatas or Serrano Manchego, there are a host of great places out there at which to try an array of tasty treats all at the same time. Simply order a host of plates, create a dischord around who gets the last croquette, and watch the insults fly. theskinny.co.uk/food

The Spanish Butcher

Food Trends in 2017 2017 is off and running, so here’s a look at the things we’ll all definitely be eating and drinking this year... Words: Peter Simpson

ost people get their predictions in before the year starts, but not us. You see, the whole Christmas and New Year thing means that people are either skint, ‘aff it’ (whatever their chosen ‘it’ is) or just too tired to go Full Food in the first month of the year. No, now seems like as good a time as any to gaze upon the year ahead, and give it a good sniff. We’ll start with the stuff that looks like it might explode. Fermented food looks set to stay in vogue – who’s going to take away our kimchi and sourdough? No-one, that’s who – but it’ll be joined by a host of terrifying fermented drinks. You may already know kombucha, the fermented tea drink made using bacteria from the jellyfish-like blob of terror known as a scoby; there’s also kefir, made with fermented milk (think thin, sour yoghurt). And then there’s drinking vinegar. Vinegar, that you drink. Pro tip, kids: drinking vinegar won’t make you cool, no matter what they tell you. From the cupboard to the salad drawer, and to cauliflower. Apparently, cauliflower is leading the charge for 2017, although much of the reasoning behind its ascension seems a bit… odd. ‘It’s a blank canvas,’ they say, with ‘a comforting starchiness.’ That sounds a lot like ‘it tastes of nothing and has the texture of cardboard’ to us, but then we aren’t deep in the pockets of Big Cauli. On a similar tip are Kalettes, the brussel sprout/kale hybrid. That’s right, the dream team together at last, in a format that combines the merits of both in an easy-to-throw package. Also, it’s purple, which is very on-trend this year. Jackfruit, the enormous tropical fruit, has become a Pinterest sensation thanks to its role as alleged vegan alternative to pulled pork. It may split apart like the real deal when you cook it, but we can say from sweet, floppy experience that jack-

FOOD AND DRINK

fruit ain’t no pork. It is not good eating, but it does look nice, and is as such a perfect ‘on-trend’ food. Finally, a pair of prospective food trends that leave us feeling highly, highly sceptical. The first is the group known as adaptogens, ‘superherbs’ that are apparently able to reduce the symptoms of stress, boost your energy reserves and adapt to what your body needs at the time. Best case scenario is we’ve accidentally discovered the culinary equivalent of stem cells, although it feels more likely that we’ve discovered that herbal tea is due for a sudden and expensive rebrand. Nutritional Yeast has already had its rebrand, with some corners of the vegan internet insisting on calling it ‘nooch.’ Basically, nooch is pitched as a way to make meat and dairy-free dishes taste of something – the yeast brings out savoury, umami flavours in whatever it’s sprinkled on. It is a somewhat dark and utilitarian product that conjures up a slightly terrifying survivalist image, making it the perfect food for 2017. theskinny.co.uk/food

Cauliflower

THE SKINNY

February 2017

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Illustration: Ailsa Sutcliffe

THE SKINNY

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Live Reviews

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Hurray for the Riff Raff Drygate Brewery, 20 Jan

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Hurray for the Riff Raff

Friday 20 January is a day that will go down in infamy, having seen the inauguration of President Donald Trump. Alynda Segarra, frontwoman and creative force behind Hurray for the Riff Raff, is as outspoken a political activitist as exists in music right now, so even before she goes on stage, you know she’s going to be fired up. First, a special mention for Edinburgh’s Roseanne Reid, who opens the show. Her selfpenned country songs are full of sweetness and heartbreak, and she’s blessed with an incredibly rich, emotive voice. One to keep an eye out for. Backed by a tight R’n’B band, the soft, porchswing country of ...Riff Raff’s wonderful Small Town Heroes record is replaced by something more urgent. When playing The Body Electric, a sort of feminist revival of the murder ballad trope, the plaintive violin riff that appears on the record is swapped out for crashing drums. This

is a woman determined to have her voice heard, and she’s turning up the volume to do it. This is reflected even more in the new tracks from upcoming record The Navigator. She introduces the first single, Rican Beach, as a protest song, and she roars every word of it. Without a guitar in hand, she’s an exceptional band leader, commanding the stage like an old soul singer. Given the overall atmosphere, it’s fitting that the show ended with Segarra performing the Woody Guthrie classic This Land Is Your Land, the whole room singing along. By the final verse, she’s struggling to fight back tears. You get the feeling that this is the start of a long road for Hurray for the Riff Raff over the next four years, maybe longer, but there’s no question of whether or not Segarra will see it through. Right now, Hurray for the Riff Raff are more important than ever. [Harry Harris] Part of Celtic Connections festival 2017 hurrayfortheriffraff.com

Laura Marling & BBC SSO

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, 19 Jan

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Shining a light on female artists is very much at the forefront of this year’s Celtic Connections festival, so what better way to kick off proceedings than with a night full of incredible female performances? Scottish singer-songwriter Karine Polwart shouts out ‘female power’ during her performance on the festival’s opening night at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall, acknowledging many of the women performing at the evening’s event and throughout the festival, as well as those working behind the scenes. This follows a bill of eclectic folk-based artists from near and far, ranging from young Scottish talents Rachel Sermanni and Adam Holmes to Sahrawi singer Aziza Brahim. The evening’s headliner Laura Marling performs orchestral reworkings of tracks selected from across her five albums, arranged beautifully by Kate St. John. Accompanied by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jules Buckley, Marling begins with epic versions of the tracks that opened her 2013 album Once I Was an Eagle; Take the Night Off, and I Was an Eagle. Marling tells the audience she’s learnt a lot about Glasgow’s history during her two days in

The Yummy Fur Oran Mor, 21 Jan

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Band reunions come in many sizes. Some feel it necessary to host a full-blown press conference to announce their return. But others take a more low-key approach. The Yummy Fur split in late 1999, and it’s fair to assume few people outside of Glasgow noticed. Those that did must have felt it unlikely there would ever be demand for a comeback. Yet here they are, a fun alt-pop group headlining a show as part of the douce Celtic Connections festival. As revivals go, this has been one of the most protracted. It was announced way back in 2009 that the YF – who have always been a vehicle for Jackie McKeown’s songwriting, with a variety of supporting musicians – would reform to play some shows in the US. In the years since, they’ve averaged one or two shows, mainly in Glasgow, but always well-received. But things have stepped up a gear. A new compilation is slated for release on Rock Action later this year, and tonight’s gig must rank as the biggest of their second coming. McKeown is in ebullient form, looking barely a year older than

February 2017

Laura Marling

town, and how much she has enjoyed her time in the city, before introducing Goodbye England (Covered In Snow). It’s a slow-burner, but as more audience members begin to pick up on the joke, ripples of applause break out and eventually lead

to cheers. Patriotism is certainly alive and well at Celtic Connections. Returning to the stage for her final song, Marling performs latest single Wild Fire, from her upcoming album Semper Femina, alone with just her

acoustic guitar. The closer proves that Marling can put on a spine-tingling performance like no other, with or without the bells and whistles. [Nadia Younes]

when the YF were in their prime. Paul Thomson, Franz Ferdinand’s sticksman, is back on drums, and Dino Bardot, latterly of the 1990s, has taken on bass duties. St John of the Cross is an early-set highlight – ‘Those Roman Catholics, think they’re fantastic!’ – and offers a good summary of what the YF are all about; unique subject matter, buzzsaw riffs and a dash of glamour. They’re a better looking version of The Fall without the dour Mancunian attitude. It’s been said before that McKeown’s band were ahead of their time; if they had been touring in 2005, rather than 1995, they would have easily outshone the many lesser DIY pop bands that were showered with record label cash. Art Brut frontman Eddie Argos is one of the few musicians from that era on record admitting his love of the group. Tonight’s show isn’t perfect – precision playing isn’t really the YF’s forte – and like many cult acts, there’s a sense many in the crowd have known each other for a long time. But with songs as good as Plastic Cowboy and Roxy Girls, wider recognition of McKeown’s band is long overdue. [Chris McCall]

Pictish Trail

The swelling electro-pop of Who’s Comin’ In? is up next, then Lynch welcomes back-up singers the Rides of Christ, made up of Lost Map’s Laura, Bart from Eagleowl and half of Kid Canaveral, all impeccably bedecked in nuns’ habits. Lynch’s vocal was given deserved prominence on last year’s excellent Future Echoes LP, and tonight it’s particularly strong on Far Gone (Don’t Leave), a triphop tribute to Fargo. An ethereal Strange Sun bursts with bird song, whilst Suse Bear’s addictive ascending bass line powers a raucous encore of Afterlife, before a supercharged take on the Bronski Beat-esque Brow Beaten by Lynch’s Silver Columns project, as some of the nuns are let loose to cut the rug down the front. Despite an abundance of morbid themes, this Celtic Connections show is awash with colour and celebration. Pictish Trail is clearly touched by the crowd’s rapturous reception, but it’s the audience that’s most grateful for tonight’s shimmering musical antidote. [Susan Le May]

Oran Mor, 21 Jan

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Just hours after Donald Trump is signed in as leader of the free world, the sparkle and wit of Johnny Lynch, aka Pictish Trail, is the perfect tonic to lift the spirits. Emerging with a full band cloaked in silken robes to Gregorian chants, he opens with the celestial drift of Rhombus, revealing a tasseled poncho of pineapples, fronds and cacti set off by glittering warpaint and a twinkling beard. The rousing chorus of Lionhead sounds immense – it’s a bold, melodic anthem of erasing idols and releasing the past. Words Fail Me Now follows, one of just a few older songs in the set, along with the beautiful Winter Home Disco. Dead Connection’s energy and upbeat synths belie its black themes; similarly, Easy With Either makes full use of its additional live strings, recounting Lynch’s lucky escape from a lorry load of falling logs in one of the several car crashes he’s been lucky to escape intact.

Part of Celtic Connections festival 2017 live.lauramarling.com

Part of Celtic Connections festival 2017 pictishtrail.co.uk

Part of Celtic Connections 2017 festival

Music

Review

Death Becomes Him We catch up with Neil Pennycook to talk about the return of Meursault

and the fact that [bandmates] were starting families and moving to different cities, it just felt time to try something else.”

“ I’ve not murdered anyone!” Neil Pennycook

Pennycook admits that “performing under a different name meant I could humour my more eccentric qualities.” In short, it seems he needed to rediscover what Meursault actually was to him, and after some much needed time out for reflection, is now fully committed to Meursault as a solo project with an ever-evolving line-up of contributors: “If everyone that’s involved is on board and happy with that as the deal then it’s fine and it’s harmonious and we can all just have fun!” says Pennycook.

Do Not Miss

Preview

Credit: Samuel J Davidson

Carla dal Forno

Carla dal Forno, The Hug & Pint, Glasgow, 7 Feb. Paradise Palms, Edinburgh, 8 Feb

Credit: Paul Wilkie

Pronto Mama

Meursault play The Hug & Pint in Glasgow, 3 Feb for Celtic Connections and Summerhall for Song, by Toad’s Granfalloon all-dayer on 25 Feb I Will Kill Again is out 27 Feb via Song, by Toad facebook.com/meursaultmusic

Sacred Paws Summerhall, Edinburgh, 10 Feb

Pronto Mama / The Vegan Leather Òran Mór, Glasgow, 3 Feb As Celtic Connections nears the finish line, Glasgow’s Pronto Mama celebrate the occasion with the launch of their new single, Arabesque. The show should be a good indicator of what we can expect from their upcoming debut album Any Joy due for release this May. And Paisley art-pop quartet The Vegan Leather promise to get things off to a triumphant start with their LCD Soundsysteminfluenced dance music. Winner.

Tracks such as Ode to Gremlin actually appeared on Oh, Supermoon… and listening to the utter vulnerability in Pennycook’s voice on that recording compared to the finished I Will Kill Again version is remarkable. It’s undeniable that his confidence has returned in full force and it feels genuinely exciting to have Meursault back. “[I Will Kill Again] very much started off as the fourth album by Meursault,” admits Pennycook. “We recorded it and everything, and for various reasons that’s [not] the version people are gonna hear, which is a good thing ‘cause the songs have been re-worked and I’m far happier with how they’re presented.” Pennycook gives us some insight on the album’s ferocious title: “I love that character you’re not necessarily rooting for but whose story is interesting so you engage with it, and you end up being sympathetic to it regardless of the horrible shit that person’s saying they’ve done. So obviously I Will Kill Again is an exaggeration. I’ve not murdered anyone! “I talk [a lot] about there being a narrative in this album but the narrative’s not complete unless you’re listening to it and creating the scenery in your head,” continues Pennycook. ”And that is wanky as fuck, but if you’re gonna write that kind of song that’s what you have to require of your listener; to fill in the blanks.” I Will Kill Again was recorded at The Happiness Hotel with help from Reuben Taylor, Liam Chapman, Alex Livingstone and Faith Eliott, and for their upcoming live shows will feature Sam Mallalieu, Fraser Hughes, Robyn Dawson and Reuben Taylor. With plans already in place to tour the UK and Europe this year, along with many festival dates to be confirmed, we’re delighted to have Meursault fully back in the fold. Pennycook enthusiastically concludes: “Meursault look like they’re gonna have a busy year!”

Glasgow/London duo Sacred Paws formed in 2014 when guitarist and vocalist Rachel Aggs and drummer Eilidh Rogers’ former band Golden Grrrls called it a day. Together as Sacred Paws they create a unique combo of angular post-punk and African highlife stomp. Celebrating the release of their debut album Strike a Match on Rock Action, NEHH and Braw Gigs bring them to Edinburgh this month with support from Spinning Coin and The Doozer. Thanks!

This month the lovely Berlin-based Australian singer and multi-instrumentalist Carla dal Forno (F ingers / Tarcar) is heading our way to play us some lovely music. Having just released her debut solo album You Know What It’s Like via Blackest Ever Black towards the end of last year, we’re excited to catch her haunting experimental music in a live setting. The Paradise Palms show is free, so if you’re heading to that best get down sharpish.

MUSIC

Sacred Paws

Kid Canaveral

Kid Canaveral’s Lumber Party II Stereo, Glasgow, 11 Feb Kid Canaveral’s Lumber Party returns this February to Glasgow’s Stereo with the imaginatively titled Lumber Party II. A Valentine’s Day party of sorts where you can ‘listen to music with a loved one, or dance in a non-intrusive manner that (...) will secure you a winch.’ Featuring live sets from Kid Canaveral, Kathryn Joseph, HQFU, The Drink and nun-cabaret-supergroup Rides of Christ with DJ sets from Papi Falso and Lost Map. What’s not to love?!

THE SKINNY

Credit: Stephanie Gibson

n 2014 Neil Pennycook called time on muchlauded Edinburgh band Meursault, instead favouring life as a solo artist going by the name of Supermoon. With such a distinctive voice, it was a bit of an odd move to most, especially as they’d just received Kickstarter funding for mini-album The Organ Grinder’s Monkey – enabling the band to play SxSW – and had not long released their most well received album to date in 2012’s Something for the Weakened. Everything appeared to be going well. So what happened? “It’s kind of a long story,” begins Pennycook. “Effectively Meursault became more and more of a band as opposed to [a solo project]. It was never really defined at the start, but it was always my project with whoever was there to help out and it was never really defined as a band. “When the third record got made, you really started to see it as a band and as time went on – as anyone that’s been in more than a three-piece rock band will know – it gets really difficult to make that work. With the combination of that

It seems Supermoon was just the palate cleanser needed for this state of realisation: “I don’t think it was anything that conscious to be honest, but what I got out of doing the Supermoon thing, whatever it is I was doing,” Pennycook jokingly recalls. “It made me feel comfortable working on my own again; writing whole arrangements for songs and presenting them to other players. “Once I got that confidence back I started to realise that there were more similarities between what I was doing now and what I was doing on the first couple of Meursault records, so it was starting to feel a little bit redundant calling it anything other than Meursault. It just took me a while to figure out it was one and the same.” On 26 July 2016 several updates appeared on the Meursault Facebook page including a post which simply said ‘Hi.’ 116 likes later and a further post, this time linking to Meursault’s Soundcloud page, materialised accompanied by the words: ‘The first track from the new album…’ Pennycook confesses to putting the post up the morning he went on holiday: “I’d been thinking about it for months, don’t get me wrong, but when I actually did it, it was like a proper '3 o’clock in the morning, go to bed, go to Australia, come back three weeks later and see if anyone wanted to be in my band.' “I got lots of messages from Matthew [Young, Song, by Toad] being like, ‘What?! What now?’” Pennycook laughs. “I’d maybe floated the idea with him, but as with all of my big important discussions with Matthew, they’re always done at stupid o’clock in the morning after drinking gin.” You can understand Young’s questioning as Song, by Toad had not long put out Oh, Supermoon Volume 1 including the track Death to Meursault; a seemingly definitive nail in the Meursault coffin. But here we are, a few short months later with Meursault’s Simple is Good EP already in the bag and fourth album (the murderously titled I Will Kill Again) so close you can practically touch it. “[I’ve] been writing it for about three and a half years,” says Pennycook. “The lyrics have been pretty consistent and there’s a narrative that has always been there, but the music has changed.”

Credit: David Pollock

Interview: Tallah Brash

Making Bedroom Music We chat to rising star LUCIA on a winter’s day in Glasgow to find out what inspires her music and what we can expect from her in 2017

usic like Blondie, Phil Spector, Richard Hell, Patti Smith, things like that. Best Coast as well – all their songs are so catchy, but all their lyrics are so simple. You can write a great song without it having to be really complicated.” Lucia Fontaine, aka LUCIA, speaks with an endearing frankness when it comes to her influences, an attitude which typifies her approach to her recordings. With her husky vocals filtered through a haze of lo-fi garage noise, Fontaine exudes cool-girl attitude in spades. After first picking up a guitar in her mid-teens, the Glasgow-based artist went on to busk on the likes of Buchanan Street and Sauchiehall Street before coming to the attention of a rather highprofile act: “I was recording with Gordy Goudie,

who plays in Echo and The Bunnymen, when I was about 16.” she explains. “I had a guitar teacher when I was younger – I say ‘guitar teacher’ but really he was like a mentor to me. He knew Gordy, and he thought that my songs were really good so he was like, ‘I’m going to get you in to record these songs!’ “[My style was] more ‘singer-songwriter’ when I was younger,” she continues, “and I wasn’t really sure what kind of persona or genre I was going to go for, but I always, always liked the idea of playing an electric guitar in a rock band! That’s more me, but I just wasn’t sure how to get there at the time.” Since then, the 20-year-old has well and truly found her sound. She made her T in the Park debut last year, and has already notched up some im-

pressive support slots for further well-known groups including Maxïmo Park and (somewhat incongruously, she agrees with a laugh) The Bay City Rollers, plus local bands Honeyblood and The Van T’s. Now, speaking excitedly about her newly released EP Best Boy, she explains: “It’s four tracks and I’ve been releasing them as singles throughout the year. The first one I released was Lose My Mind – that one is a lot of people’s favourite. I think it’s one of the ones that sticks in people’s heads because it was the first one that I released as Lucia Fontaine.” The songs were recorded “as demos,” she continues, “and then over the time period of last year when I was mixing them they were all bedroom

Nadia Reid

Nadia Reid Broadcast, Glasgow, 12 Feb Hailing all the way from New Zealand, Nadia Reid is setting off on a European tour this February, dropping in to Glasgow’s Broadcast only a few dates in. Reid is set to release Preservation, the follow-up album to her 2014 debut this March via relatively new label Basin Rock. With one of those voices, reminiscent of Laura Marling or Julia Jacklin, that really makes you stop and take notice, it sounds clichéd but we think Nadia Reid is one to watch.

February 2017

Bugzy Malone

soundcloud.com/luciamusicx

Undo, The Hug & Pint, Glasgow, 24 Feb. Leith Depot, Edinburgh, 25 Feb. Fireflys, Dundee, 26 Feb

Bugzy Malone Sub Club, Glasgow, 23 Feb Manchester’s Bugzy Malone has been hailed as one of the key grime MCs instigating a revival in the genre. Joining him at Sub Club will be a few heavyweights of the Scottish grime scene: Polonis, Chrissy Grimes, FA Ransom and our November cover star, the mighty Shogun. All of this on one night. You have the J-Bone Collective to thank for that, who celebrate one year of putting on events that very same night.

recordings. It was Hamish, who plays in my band, who actually produced them all, along with my friend Connor, who owns a record label called Dead Beet Records. I also filmed two videos, one of them was for Lose My Mind and one of them for Best Boy, and they were kind of DIY videos as well.” Of this collaborative ethos, she enthuses “Glasgow right now has a really big music scene. It’s actually really amazing how there’s no competition at all. We all record each other’s music, help each other with music videos… It saves you a lot of money when you’re at this stage, just trying to get to that point where [you] can eventually make a living out of what [you] love doing!” Discussing the video for When I Think Of You, a track that she describes as “all imagery and quite dreamy, like you’re thinking about someone… I wanted it to be as if you’re in a kind of dream,” she reveals that she “bought all these roof hangings of flowers, and I got pink satin bed covers and material, and I put them all over my bedroom, and hung all these flowers from my bedroom wall.” Was she tempted to keep her bedroom set up like that? “I did for a while, but the bed covers were too slippy. They were so uncomfortable!” she laughs. For now, keep your eyes peeled for LUCIA – she has a 7" (to be distributed through monthly vinyl subscription company, Flying Vinyl) due soon and her EP launch party is just around the corner: “I’m having [the record] released on 10" vinyl, so I’m hoping to have the launch in March. I’ve got a really cool idea for where I’m going to have it, so hopefully that turns out alright and they have the availability to have me. I really like all the bars in Glasgow, but I think the idea I’ve got up my sleeve is a bit different.” Summing up the LUCIA mindset with her trademark candor, she muses, “You have to just do what you want to do, and not care about what anyone else is telling you to do. That’s the way it’s going to turn out best – because then you’re going to be different, and people are going to be interested in it.”

47SOUL

47SOUL Studio 24, Edinburgh, 24 Feb

Glasgow four-piece Undo combine post-punk influenced drums, intelligent basslines and hook-laden, destructive guitars with introspective, multi-layered, thoughtful lyrics. Last August they released a split 7” with Jutland Songs, and on 24 Feb they’re self-releasing their self-titled debut album, so are touring to celebrate the occasion. Hurrah! Catch them in Glasgow, Edinburgh or Dundee. Options.

47SOUL is an electro Arabic dabke band who formed in Amman, Jordan in 2013. They’ve created their own sound, and although reminiscent of dabke King Omar Souleyman, it’s still very much their own, self-dubbed as ‘shamstep’. Thanks to Knockengorroch World Ceilidh festival 47SOUL play their first ever show in the capital this month alongside favourites Samedia Shebeen, trad band Awry and the Beltane Beastie Drummers.

MUSIC

Undo

Preview

Credit: Ann-Christin Heinrich

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Interview: Claire Francis

Album of the Month Sampha

Process [Young Turks, 3 Feb]

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the album is an amalgamation of his influences. He darts between R’n’B, soul and melancholic pop with ease, while his penchant for electronic production came with the territory growing up in the London grime scene; on heavier cut Blood On Me a trip-hop beat clatters beneath echoes of heavy breathing, while he howls about being hunted by faceless shadows. More unassuming is quietly poignant No One Knows Me (Like The Piano). Stripped back and pensive, just a few repeating chords accompany fragile vocals that remain on the brink of lachrymose. Serving as a metaphor for his late mother, Sampha reminisces about the piano at his childhood home as an escape from reality, while his voice resonates over wistful keys, before eventually soothing into the sound of birds singing. On album closer What Shouldn’t I Be? too, he looks home, but now with guilt. Telling himself he should have spent more time with his mother while she was alive, or his brother now, instead of focus-

Sampha

ing on his career, he argues that he ‘needed to grow’ though remains conflicted. The song – the whole album – only works because of this heart-breaking sincerity. Process is an exercise in catharsis, a deep breath in that lays Sampha’s soul bare through

Allison Crutchfield Tourist in This Town [Merge, 3 Feb]

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Dutch Uncles

Jens Lekman

Crystal Fairy

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Big Balloon [Memphis Industries, 17 Feb] Dutch Uncles are an odd bunch. The four-piece communicate in their own hyper-colourful, idiosyncratic language, and just trying to parse their dense and wildly inventive music can be equal parts thrilling and exhausting. As ever, time signatures are a fluid thing on this fifth record, and there’s much to like – Hiccup and Oh Yeah are great fun, while the tension between the wonky agitated bassline and chilled-out guitar on Streetlight is total ear candy. The lyrics, however, are their own mystery, reaching peak absurdity with: ‘Leave it all for potato lands / When you’re getting upset, getting upset about sand’. Like everything else on Big Balloon though, you’d never call them boring. [Andrew Gordon]

Listen to: Streetlight, Hiccup, Oh Yeah

Review

Life Will See You Now [Secretly Canadian, 17 Feb] If you’re familiar with Swedish pop veteran Jens Lekman there’s little about Life Will See You Now that’ll surprise you. His songs are still endearingly garish with painstakingly specific lyrics, but this blunt approach works – partly because, as he himself says on the spellbinding opener To Know Your Mission, he usually has his tongue pressed firmly in his cheek. His gift for arrangement remains particularly impressive. Every track is brimming with character, from the disco-inspired How We Met to the Balearic What’s That Perfume That You Wear? There were signs that Life Will See You Now mightn’t feel fresh, but the finished product is articulate and bubbling with energy and positivity – much like Lekman himself. [Jonathan Rimmer] Listen to: To Know Your Mission, What’s That Perfume That You Wear?

Crystal Fairy [Ipecac Recordings, 24 Feb] “Written and recorded over pho while watching cannibal movies” is how Omar Rodríguez-López explains supergroup Crystal Fairy’s self-titled debut LP, a fitting juxtaposition of the comfortable and the gruesome. Few know this sort of sludgetastic rifferama better than Melvins’ King Buzzo and Dale Crover, but here their familiar schlock gets a splattercore makeover courtesy of Terri Gender-Bender’s punchin-the-teeth presence. In fact, it’s the Le Butcherettes vocalist’s sheer power that makes Crystal Fairy, particularly on the grinding chug of Moth Tongue. Add the intense bubblegum of Vampire X-Mass and the title track’s rollicking immediacy and you’ve got a surefire winner: a scintillating punkfuelled opus that delivers on all counts and doesn’t let up. [Will Fitzpatrick] Listen to: Crystal Fairy, Vampire X-Mass

The Crutchfield twins have taken lightly diverging paths since their joint venture P.S. Eliot ended in 2011. While Katie’s solo project Waxahatchee has been making waves, Allison has taken a more reserved approach, sharing song-writing duties in her punkier venture Swearin’ and popping up as a member of her sister’s live band. Allison’s debut Tourist in This Town shows she certainly has the potential to go it alone too, provided it’s on her own terms. With its soulful acappella opening and early-80s synthesisers, Tourist in This Town sees Crutchfield aided by the energetic Joey Doubek

Lawrence English Cruel Optimism [Room40, 17 Feb]

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Brisbane-based Lawrence English is a staggeringly prolific artist. His work as musician, curator and artist is often cerebral and conceptual and his latest release, Cruel Optimism, is an obliquely political album, based upon the presence or absence of power as evoked in the work of theorist Lauren Berlant. This transposition results in an album of staggering sonic heft and a listening experience akin to being drenched in dolorous fog with only temporary moments of visibility. But it’s invigorating and profound, mapping a sonic current which traverses moments of gently unfolding beauty (The Quietest Shore) and even brassy grandiosity

RECORDS

gorgeous vignettes of his life. He worries, he regrets, he aches. He’s human. [Alexander Smail] Listen to: No One Knows Me (Like The Piano), Plastic 100°C, What Shouldn’t I Be?

on drums and Radio Hospital’s Sam Cook-Parrott. While the Alabama lilt and ramshackle guitars are inescapably present, particularly on the sunny I Don’t Ever Wanna Leave California and the minute-long punk-along The Marriage, the album’s centre-piece Sightseeing makes clear that Crutchfield’s approach is more honest and airy; a little less compact. She’s capable of a corking line too, such as in her acoustic love song Charlie where protagonists ‘sleep in the same bed at the opposite times’. There’s no earworm quite like Waxahatchee’s La Loose, but she comes mightily close with Dean’s Song, which combines Swearin’s rambunctious energy with Disintegration-era Cure synth and guitar. One Crutchfield sister is wonderful enough; we’re lucky that both are just as good. [Chris Ogden] Listen to: Dean’s Town, Sightseeing, Miles Away (particularly on the widescreen projections of Exquisite Human Microphone). Coming across like a traumatised Stars of the Lid, the album excels in transmitting the human condition through impressionist saturations of tone and texture, turning minimalism into maxamilism, cruelty into optimism. Crucially, English’s collaborators on the album are well versed in creating their own musical distress signals – co-conspirators include The Necks’ Chris Abrahams and Tony Buck along with long-time Swans acolytes Thor Harris and Norman Westberg. Indeed, it is within the brief but furious Hammering a Screw where the Swans-like stabs of feral intensity threaten to overwhelm the entire listening process. But natural (dis)order is soon resumed and Cruel Optimism stands tall as a worthy chronicle of hope amid life in grievous times. [Colm McAuliffe] Listen to: Exquisite Human Microphone

THE SKINNY

Photo: Jamie-James Medina

‘I didn’t really know what that lump was,’ Sampha recalls on Process opener Plastic 100°C, referring to a literal lump in his throat. Even after numerous tests the doctors couldn’t find anything but, still, he worries. Some say it’s therapeutic to break the silence of your insecurities, which is what he’s counting on. Known for his work with producer SBTRKT, Sampha’s name has been drifting around since at least as far back as 2010. Since then he’s released two eclectic EPs and collaborated with Drake, FKA Twigs and, more recently, Solange and Frank Ocean. Given this pedigree of talent Sampha could have drafted anyone for Process but, aside from a Kanye West writing credit, it’s his own beast. Much of the album finds him meditating over his regrets and sorrows, calling out to deaf ears for guidance; a supporting voice would ring false. As intimate as Process is, though, it’s ultimately a product of Sampha’s environment. Exposed to an enviable variety of music from a young age,

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Tsutro

Tsutro [Position Music, 10 Feb]

On the one hand, Jacob Montague is the canonical hipster – plaid shirts, strong beard, enjoys “San Francisco’s finest iced coffee” on his Facebook bio. And there’s something achingly twee about his indie-folk troupe Branches; all tambourines and banjos as if the brothers Mumford never happened. But fair play to the man, he’s a prolific and adroit producer, with many strings to his bow (and many bows to his armory). As a soloist, he takes after Son Lux’s polymathic omniproduction, rivalling Mr. Lott in textural variety and quantity of output. As Tsutro, he’s creating sturdy electronic alt-pop, and this self-titled debut harbours such a raft of guest vocalists that to call it another solo project would be to downplay their contributions. Tsutro is a curious beast: a genre salad, drawing on folk, house, pop and electronica, with each track geared around – or in deliberate contrast to – its ‘feat.’ persona. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t. Oklahoman singer Sunday Lane lends Back to You and In My Head a dreamy veil, while Sonny Cleveland’s soul vocal adds a punch to Run’s muted steel drums. In Between is a beaming highlight, its darkly resonant marimba serving as both a fierce hook and a playful counterpoint to the track’s whistling melodies, future bass synths and the diced vocal of Steff Koeppen. It’s one of the few occasions that the smushed-together elements really zing. Later efforts are less successful. Say Something feels diluted and over-produced; So Low and Angkor feature members of Ohio blues band Welshly Arms and the voices sound out of place over those electronic beats. There’s ambition here, but the result is a little soulless, each vocalist sounding at arm’s length from their host tracks. The album’s sonic miscellany – pitched as a strength – becomes its kryptonite. [George Sully] Listen to: In Between

Meursault

I Will Kill Again [Song, by Toad, 27 Feb]

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When main protagonist Neil Pennycook called time on Meursault in 2014 after three albums proper, fans hoped it wouldn’t be the last they’d hear from him. Transforming into Supermoon, Pennycook carried on, but the unexpected resurrection of his former guise has yielded beautiful results. The reclamation of Meursault with I Will Kill Again feels like a glimpse of hope amidst

Alasdair Roberts

Los Campesinos!

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Pangs [Drag City, 24 Feb]

Almost two decades into an entertainingly spasmodic career, Alasdair Roberts shows no sign of settling into the well-worn groove of anything approaching a trademark sound. Ostensibly the Scottish troubadour is as folk as they come: his keening burr remains a rich and effective calling card, but it’s his willingness to fly the flag for centuries of tradition which has made him a unique bridge between the old and the new. Pangs sees Roberts make another left turn as he rejects the acoustic austerity of his self-titled 2015 release and reconvenes a band, self-deprecatingly referred to as a “power trio” in the album’s publicity. The results are certainly a departure for an artist who seems to relish the chance to collaborate and while each of these ten songs is a Roberts original, the lush song craft recalls the golden age of electric folksters like Fairport Convention and Trees, ensuring Roberts’ ongoing connection with the past. Long-time musical partners Alex Neilson and Stevie Jones, along with guests Debbie Armour, Tom Crossley, Rafe Fitzpatrick and Jessica Kerr, contribute some startling and playful arrangements on the likes of The Downward Road and the tile track. A special word too for Julie McLarnon’s wonderful production which seems to tease out every hidden melody and weave it wonderfully around Roberts’ typically lugubrious vocals. [Jamie Bowman] Listen to: Pangs, The Downward Road

February 2017

Los Campesinos!

heartbreak, or rather a story of sufferance coupled with an emerging determination to carry on. The Mill is delicate keys and drifting guitars that cradle an acceptance of the everyday. ‘We’ve seen it all before / I know now what must be done,’ proclaims Pennycook with his distinct anguish. With the humdrum comes realisation and resignation, and another dip into disappointment. Ode to Gremlin is a gorgeous ode to the futility of figuring out heartbreak as he sings, ‘The last thing the world needs now / Is another song about the fucking sea.’ Written originally as a rock album, the dissolution of Meursault’s former live line-up led to the arrangements of the tracks changing over time, and there’s a gentle elegance to the songs. Oh, Sarah is a succinct sea shanty-esque ded-

ication to a fictional ghost, with Pennycook’s vocal taking on a distant quality, singing far from the mic with wild intent, while Belle Amie slows the pace before his trademark wail is unable to be contained as the track builds. I Will Kill Again has a soaring, filmic quality as its narrator recounts how time changed and dulled affection, while closer A Walk in the Park is a glimmer of tainted, restrained optimism. I Will Kill Again is a strong first release of the year for Song, By Toad records, from the artist that properly launched the label back in 2008. Filled with majestic, sorrowful beauty and touches of light, it’s a welcome return for one of Edinburgh’s most treasured acts. [Susan Le May] Listen to: The Mill, I Will Kill Again

Sick Scenes [Wichita Recordings, 24 Feb]

Sick Scenes sees Los Campesinos! offering up a liberating set of songs about odious city hipsters, youthful nostalgia and future anxiety, wrapped up in the seven-piece’s usual glorious flurry of chipper riffs and witty lyricisms. Witnessing others triumph in the wake of your own abject failure is an embarassing context for writing a record, but also a historically great motivator for lead vocalist Gareth David, who finds catharsis here. When rumbling opener Renato Dall’Ara (2008) lands with its infectious vocal hook and a withering takedown of a local scenester who’s ‘a part-time grass but a full-time asshole’, it’s a joyous return for LC! and a clear release of pent-up frustration. That emotional urgency sticks throughout Sick Scenes, never more than in the double-time pace of I Broke Up in Amarante and the album’s poignant centrepiece The Fall of Home, a twinkling acoustic song lamenting closing pubs and newfound responsibility. LC!’s enduring strength is that no matter how maudlin their subject matter (see: 5 Flucloxacillin), they never fail to be self-deprecating and spirited, also finding room for experimentation. A more fraught record than predecessor No Blues, Sick Scenes is a testament to coming to terms with adulthood and the power of friends to keep you going. [Chris Ogden] Listen to: Renato Dall’Ara

Rag’n’Bone Man

Undo

Campfires in Winter

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Human [Columbia, 10 Feb]

Oh lordy, his trouble so hard. Rory Graham has got the blues: blessed with a rich yet gritty voice, allied with tastefully spacious hip-hop production, he’s been ‘hotly tipped’ for some time now – rarely is his name mentioned without reference to the certainty of his star’s ascension. Maybe this relentless hyperbole is the problem. Sure, Graham’s voice is powerful, but it’s a shame that even its most melismatic hints of adventure feel slickly produced beyond any sense of risk or catharsis. If he’s happy to turn in this sort of pleasantenough coffee table pop, then good for him; Human will almost certainly shift units. That voice deserves better, however, and so do we. [Will Fitzpatrick] Listen to: Human

RECORDS

Undo [Self Released, 24 Feb] On first listen, Glasgow four-piece Undo make quite the racket. Give them a second listen and a third, and you’ll quickly discern that actually these boys might be a force to be reckoned with. Hollow Hands kicks things off and you think, this could be early Idlewild. Then you get a Hooky-esque bassline and a scratchy winding guitar and you think, maybe these boys aren’t just angry. There is intent here. Paint Me bursts out of the gate and it could be Pale Saints. But the best thing about Undo’s debut is that they still feel like a secret, so you get the added benefit of discovering a top new band and lording it up over your mates. Bonus. [Pete Wild]

Listen to: Paint Me, Invisible, Murder

Ischaemia [Olive Grove Records, 24 Feb]

Campfires in Winter continue to invite comparison with the likes of Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad, as much for their sonic landscapes as they do for Robert Canavan’s vocals. The influence of the latter is especially prescient on Janus and Free Me from the Howl, both exercises in nervy atmospherics, and both standout moments on an otherwise uneven album. By the midpoint, Ischaemia is already beginning to feel like much of a muchness where you can see most of the twists before they actually happen. Compositionally, these are not bad songs. Ischaemia is not a bad record, but it probably needed to be better than OK. [Joe Goggins]

Listen to: Janus, Free Me from the Howl

Review

Photo: Owen Richards

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Clubbing Highlights February may have a deficit of days, but there’s no shortage of quality club picks on offer this month

FEEL MY BICEP SWG3, Glasgow, 3 Feb With a mega line-up that features Northern Irish tastemakers Bicep, plus the likes of Job Jobse, Tim Sweeney, Ryan Elliott, Shed, Hammer, Jane Fitz and Thunder Disco, it’s little wonder that tickets for this huge Friday night show are scarcer than hen’s teeth. Our advice: keep an eye on Resident Advisor’s resale page. This is one five-hour banger you really don’t want to miss. SuperMAX presents A History of Disco The Berkeley Suite, Glasgow, 4 Feb The annual SuperMAX History of Disco extravaganza returns this month, and as anyone who’s been in attendance before knows, this one ain’t for the faint hearted. DJ Billy Woods, aka Glasgow’s King of Disco, will be presenting a storm of disco hits past, present & future. As always, remember the SuperMAX rules to ensure optimal DISCO: the party reaches capacity quick, so get down early (doors are 11pm sharp) and the club gets HOT, so come dance-ready. All Good presents Tom Findlay (Groove Armada) DJ Set The Reading Rooms, Dundee, 4 Feb Groove Armada’s Tom Findlay hits Dundee for a very special DJ set with the ALL GOOD Dundee crew. All advance tickets have predictably sold out, but there will be 50 tickets available on the door from 10pm. Groove Armada’s importance to dance music needs no explanation – the iconic duo have two decades worth of solid productions under their belt. Following their acclaimed Fabriclive 87 release in May last year, 2016 also saw the British dance music legends return to Edinburgh for their first club show in almost eight years; headline Annie Mac’s All Day Rave in Leeds, and drop a special Bonfire Night show in Glasgow. Arrive early to beat the queue.

Review

Words: Claire Francis Illustration: Yvette Earl

Phonik presents Solardo Sessions Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, 8 Feb Phonik enter 2017 with a bang this month, bringing rising UK stars Solardo to the capital for their Scottish debut. Manchester-based pair Mark Richards (MRK1) and James Elliot broke through in 2015 with their Ibiza anthem It's a New Jam, and the duo have since received support from the likes of Jamie Jones, Richy Ahmed, Skream, Paco Osuna, Steve Lawler and Jackmaster. Having previously had a long history in other music genres, Solardo are now one of the most hotly tipped DJ/production duos in the house and techno scene. La Cheetah Club x Kunst: Veronica Vasicka La Cheetah Club, Glasgow, 10 Feb La Cheetah and Kunst combine once again for their first show of 2017 to bring Minimal Wave and Cititrax boss Veronica Vasicka to Glasgow. Whether unearthing and reissuing lost and forgotten electronic music inspired by new wave, disco and post punk and cassette material from the 80s, or unveiling a host of exceptional dance floor focused tracks, Vasicka has a truly exciting and very unique ear. Dom D’Sylva and Kris Bell will be on warm up duties, so expect quality tunes from start to finish. FLY 4th Birthday Party with Jasper James Cabaret Volataire, Edinburgh, 10 Feb In case you missed the news, Glasgow hot property Denis Sulta has joined fellow local talents Theo Kottis and Jasper James to make up FLY Club’s 2017 killer resident rota. Sulta kicked things off in January with an all-night set; now, Jasper James takes his turn behind the decks to mark FLY’s 4th birthday from start to finish, fresh from his year-long Phonox residency in London. Kottis will also step up to the plate to continue the celebrations on 24 February.

Nightvision presents Musika x Part 1 – Eats Everything The Liquid Room, Edinburgh, 11 Feb Few producers in the history of dance music have made such a rapid and far-reaching impact on the electronic music scene as Eats Everything, aka Daniel Pearce. For his date in the capital, the beat maker from Bristol will play a special extended set. He’s joined by an illustrious support cast including Dense & Pika, Trevino, Tim Green, Lauren Lane and Izzy Demzky. The night will be kicking off at 8pm to accommodate all those bangin’ beats. I AM – Denis Sulta Sub Club, Glasgow, 14 Feb Ditch the crappy Hallmark cards and cheesy dinner dates – true love is found on the dancefloor, people. Sulta, aka our own Hector Barbour, gives us a good reason to head out this Valentine’s Day, with support from Beta & Kappa. Substance: 10 Years of Ilian Tape The Bongo Club, Edinburgh, 17 Feb Ilian Tape is consistently rated by Resident Advisor as one of the best labels in the world, reaching number 13 in RA’s end of 2016 poll. The current tour takes in all the best clubs in Europe (Berghain, Concrete, Nitsa, Fabric, Robert Johnson) and this stop in the capital is their only Scottish date. The Munich-based Zenker Brothers will play an extended three-hour set, with Skee Mask also making his Scottish debut (his album Shred featured in loads of end of the year lists too). Raving Iran Barras Art and Design, Glasgow, 19 Feb This one-off film event is presented in association

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with Sub Hub, an ongoing programme of cultural events that expand outside the walls of Sub Club’s 22 Jamaica Street basement venue. Raving Iran explores the lives of Anoosh and Arash, who risk their freedom in order to share music in their home of Tehran, where Western music is banned and sharing it is a punishable offence. The screening will be accompanied by Iranian street food inspired by some of the best Persian chefs working in Scotland. H+Px10 The Art School, Glasgow, 23 Feb UK promoter Huntleys & Palmers have championed many brand new and unknown DJs and producers who have grown to become hugely renowned artists. To mark the occasion of their 10th birthday, H+P will be releasing some exciting records and hosting special events over the course of their anniversary year. The celebrations kick off at The Art School with DJ royalty Ben UFO making his H+P debut, alongside long time friend and associate Lena Willikens and a special live set from Japan’s Sapphire Slows. Groove Cairngorm, Cairngorm Mountains (Badaguish Outdoor Centre, Aviemore), 24-26 Feb If you fancy getting away from it all, you could do much worse than the annual Groove Cairngorm, the UK’s first and only snowsports festival. This fabulous, well-organised festival is perfectly sized, with no queues, good music, and lovely people. Spend the day on the slopes at the Cairngorm Mountains before joining the apres-ski set with world class artists and DJs including the inimitable Basement Jaxx, Mike Skinner (DJ set), Horse Meat Disco, and more. theskinnny.co.uk/clubs

THE SKINNY

THE CINESKINNY FREE OFFICIAL GFF GUIDE

THESKINNY.CO.UK / CINESKINNY

15-26 FEB 2017

This February, be sure to pick up our free biweekly guide to the Glasgow Film Festival (15-26 Feb) in venues throughout Glasgow’s city centre. We publish four issues of news, reviews and exclusive interviews on the dates below, and you’ll find even more content online. Issue 1: Wed 15 Feb Issue 2: Sat 18 Feb Issuefrom 3: Tue the 21 Feb Tales Deep Issue 4: Fri 24 Feb this ingenious director to discuss Évolution’s strange There’s something lurking in the depths in Évolution. Director Lucile Hadžihalilović shines a light on its mysteries

Jungian nightmare. Despite the critical and commercial success of her 2004 debut, Innocence, Hadžihalilovi explains that she found the pre-production of Évolution to be an arduous process. “It was very difficult to get finance,” she recalls, “so that was the reason for this long production time.” The film was ten years in the making. One of her biggest hurdles was simply getting across to the money people what the project was. “All the time it was, ‘we don’t get it.’ Even if we worked a lot on the script to try to make it more understandable, more acceptable, and in narrative terms, to explain more, it was still very hard. Sometimes the film

theskinny.co.uk/cineskinny

ucile Hadžihalilovi ’s much-anticipated sophomore film, Évolution, follows Nic (Max Brebant), a prepubescent boy living a simple shoreside life in a mysterious, austere village populated by uniform mother-son pairings. In this seemingly idyllic setting, Nic can’t help but indulge his existential curiosity, despite his mother’s warnings to conform. During last year’s London Film Festival, we met with

February 2017

Illustration: Elena Boils

THE

Sat 20 Feb, GFT, 8.15pm | Sun 21 Feb, GFT, 11am

INTERVIEW:

Rachel Bowles

@theskinnymag @theskinnymag /Theskinnymag

seemed impossible to make.” Hadžihalilovi prevailed, and getting the film out in the world is something that clearly excites her. “I’m so surprised that people react so well to the film – people seem to understand it and don’t find it so bizarre!” She’s particularly pleased at how well Évolution seems to have gone down with UK audiences. “It is a very big pleasure and honour,” she says of the response at London Film Festival. “A lot of [nonindustry] people go to see the films here, so it is not like it’s separate from its intended audience. That’s important to me.” In fact, Hadžihalilovi reckons the film might be even more resonant with audiences in the UK than in continues…

Guest Selector: Hannah Wants The DJ, producer and former pro footballer gives us the lowdown on some of her favourite cuts as we look to her upcoming Glasgow headline set

Interview: Claire Francis Octave One – Blackwater [Black Water 12", 2000] “I heard this track sitting by my hotel pool the first time I ever visited Ibiza as a raver (a long time ago!) and it’ll forever remind me of my love for house music and the white isle.” Double 99 – RIP groove [Ripgroove 12", 1997] “A classic speed garage track from 1997 that I still play in some sets today. Two decades old and it still bangs! I started out DJ’ing speed garage about 15 years ago and it most definitely developed my love for a bassline.”

annah Wants has been riding high of late. 2014’s breakthrough track Rhymes saw the Birmingham-bred DJ crowned both DJ Mag and Mixmag’s Best Breakthrough DJ as well as Star of the Year for the latter publication. Since then she has launched her own headline series of DJ sets, entitled What Hannah Wants, and last summer she joined an illustrious opening party line-up for Amnesia Ibiza alongside the likes of Apollonia, Pan-Pot, and Amine Edge & Dance. For 2017, Hannah Wants has a new tour concept lined up for her fans: PLAY. The upcoming series – which stops in at Glasgow’s SWG3 on 10

Review

February – sees the acclaimed DJ incorporate her passion for the UK’s original underground raves with a unique, contemporary twist. Ahead of the show, she picks out ten of her favourite party tracks. Subb-an – This Place (Nic Fanciulli Remix) [This Place 10", 2011] “What a sexy ass tuuuuuuuuune! Released in 2011; I used to play this in my sets when I spent my second season out in Ibiza, with a goal to make it as a DJ. I still sometimes drop it in my sets today when the vibe is right – such fond memories of this remix. Every element to this beat is top quality!”

Reflekt feat. Delline Bass – Need To Feel Loved (Adam K & Soha Vocal Mix) [Need to Feel Loved 12", 2009] “Another absolute gem, this track is guaranteed to be played at high volume every time I visit Ibiza. One of the most euphoric breakdowns I’ve ever heard, it gets me on some next level.” Stush – Dollar Sign [Dollar Sign 12", 2002] “As well as spinning speed garage, I started out on the UK garage scene in the early 2000s. Old skool UKG was massive in Birmingham back in the day and this has gotta be one of my fave tracks from that era.” MJ Cole – Sincere [Sincere, 2000] “Staying on a UKG tip, Sincere was another massively influential record for me. I used to rinse MJ Cole’s

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Sincere album back in 2000 and to this day Sincere remains my favourite production of his.” Raze – Break 4 Love [Album 88, 1988] “Legendary house track from the 80s. I just fucking love this tune! If there was such a thing as a time machine I’d choose to go to a 1980s house rave when the parties were underground and it was all about the music.” La Roux – In For The Kill (Skreams Let’s Get Ravey Remix) [Quicksand EP, 2009] “I don’t think there’s a better dubstep remix out there – that bassline!!! What an iconic track. I’ve actually just made a remix of the remix to play in my sets because I love it so much, it does good things to the dance floor!” Matt Sassari – Alyhaa [Excelsior EP, 2016] “Matt Sassari is on fire at the moment and this is one of my faves of his! Great creativity in his productions, I always look forward to playing his records out. Ruthless on a big sound system!” Wade – They Know [Snatch! Meets Moan compilation, 2016] “Another producer who’s work I’m really feeling at the moment! Always excited when I see a promo of his in my inbox. They Know is again one of my favourites. Absolutely killa bass riff and the vocal is catchy and sits perfectly within the vibe!” Hannah Wants, SWG3, Fri 10 Feb, 9pm, £23

THE SKINNY

In Cinemas Moonlight

20th Century Women

Director: Barry Jenkins Starring: Trevante Rhodes, Naomie Harris, Mahershala Ali, Janelle Monáe, André Holland, Ashton Sanders, Jaden Piner, Jharrel Jerome, Patrick Decile Released: 17 Feb Certificate: 15

Director: Mike Mills Starring: Annette Bening, Greta Gerwig, Elle Fanning, Lucas Jade Zumann, Billy Crudup Released: Out now Certificate: 15

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Moonlight is a film that consistently upends expectations. With coming-of-age dramas, which is the easiest subgenre to slot Jenkins’ film into, too many filmmakers seem to view the maturation from child to adult as a self-contained journey with a defined point of conclusion. And this journey usually takes place in relatively little time, all things considered; in many of these films, a single event will come to define the characters’ transition, be it stumbling upon a dead body or befriending fellow misfits in detention. Writer-director Barry Jenkins understands that forming one’s identity is not as simple as that. As such, his heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself is told across three defining chapters in his life, each named after the moniker this ever-changing person is going by at the relevant time: child Little (Alex Hibbert), teen Chiron (Ashton Sanders) and 20-something Black (Trevante Rhodes). Three beautifully intuitive, disarmingly intimate performances come to-

Moonlight

gether to form a cumulative portrayal of a life’s experience – a wounded soul saddled with too much to bear. In its decade-hopping portrait of strained relationships and vibrant, lyrical visual and aural flourishes, Moonlight recalls the work of Asian filmmakers Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Wong Kar-wai more than one might expect from a film set in Miami. But then, part of what makes Moonlight so special is how it shakes up preconceptions of what American cinema can address and how.

Loving

Director: Jeff Nichols Starring: Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga, Michael Shannon Released: 3 Feb Certificate: 15

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The marriage of Richard and Mildred Loving in 1958 was a revolutionary act with far-reaching political consequences, but Richard and Mildred were not revolutionaries. They simply wanted to live together like any other couple, and Jeff Nichols’ Loving takes its lead from their quiet dignity. There are no emotional outbursts, no dramatic twists, and instead of building to the rousing Supreme Court speechifying that we might expect, the Lovings’ historically seismic victory is expressed in the most understated terms. It’s an admirable approach, but it also leaves the film lacking in dramatic thrust and emotional heft, and it sometimes seems that director Jeff Nichols is so burdened by the weight of doing justice to this story he’s wary of introducing any kind of artistic flourish. Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga both deliver modest, internalised performances – with Negga’s expressive eyes being one of Loving’s biggest virtues – and the film has some tender moments of intimacy, but the steady pace and unwavering tone grows stultifying. These are good people and it’s an important story, but that in itself is not quite enough. [Philip Concannon]

Released by Altitude

The Fits

Director: Anna Rose Holmer Starring: Royalty Hightower, Alexis Neblett, Da’Sean Minor, Lauren Gibson, Makyla Burnam, Inayah Rodgers, Antonio A.B. Grant Jr., Q-Kidz Dance Team Released: 24 Feb Certificate: 15

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Anna Rose Holmer’s atmospheric debut follows the journey of 11-year-old Toni, a lonely tomboy boxer who becomes a member of the Lionesses, a fiercely competitive dance troupe, out of a desire to fit in with the older, more worldly girls on the team. When those girls start to experience unexplained seizures and other forms of ‘fits’ one by one, it naturally causes a panic. It’s probably obvious that The Fits is in no way a traditional ‘sports movie’ – there’s no focus on winning the big championship or fostering team spirit through adversity. The sparse dialogue, even sparser exposition, and economical yet stylish cinematography lend it the feeling of an audio-visual tone poem. It’s tempting to compare Holmer’s film to 2014’s The Falling (also concerned with mysterious seizures within an all-girl social circle), but while Carol Morley’s film offers plenty of subtext from which to draw conclusions, The Fits is mostly interested in creating haunting sense impressions. Holmer’s principle lyrical tool is her young star, whose luminous, almond-shaped eyes veritably burn with an intense clarity of purpose. [Michelle Devereaux]

Released by Universal

Released by Lionsgate

Prevenge

Toni Erdmann

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Director: Alice Lowe Starring: Alice Lowe, Jo Hartley, Katie Dickie, Gemma Whelan, Kayvan Novak Released: 10 Feb Certificate: 15

It’s not only a rare portrait of black homosexuality, but also an authentic, complex, operatic, boldly expressive meditation on the circularity of time, alongside identity and love in all their forms. Few movies are as empathetic and openhearted as this one, and it’s the rare production where a single glance, emanating all of a life’s repressed ecstasy and pain, is able to convey more than the whole screenplays of most other films. [Josh Slater-Williams]

Released by Lionsgate

Director: Maren Ade Starring: Sandra Hüller, Peter Simonischek, Ingrid Bisu, Trystan Pütter Released: 3 Feb Certificate: 15

“You’ll have no control over your mind or body anymore,” a midwife (Hartley) says while explaining to the pregnant Ruth (Lowe) that a high-pitched noise could cause milk to fire out of her nipples like a water canon. Little does she know that mum-to-be has already murdered someone at the behest of the malevolent foetus gestating inside her. Best known for her role in Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers, Lowe directs herself in Prevenge, a serial killer film that wears its influences on its sleeve. Combining genre thrills with pitch-black humor, the mood of the film suggests a 70s slasher as filtered through Lowe’s own brand of excruciating comedy. By subverting pregnancy horror tropes, Prevenge roots its genre clichés in something more authentic. Lowe, who was seven months pregnant at the time of shooting, draws from her own experiences, and behind all the gore and lacerating humour there’s a tenderness that speaks about grief, prepartum depression and societal expectations surrounding motherhood. Lowe’s directing career might be in the embryonic stage, but with Prevenge she’s created a bold and devilishly enjoyable debut. [Patrick Gamble]

Maren Ade’s eccentric comedy-drama centres on elderly German prankster Winfried (Simonischek), who pays a surprise visit to his daughter Ines (Sandra Hüller), a joyless management consultant planning an outsourcing drive in Bucharest. Winfried insists on surprising Ines with a series of stitch-ups designed to lighten her up, and finally ingratiates himself into her business community by pretending to be a life coach. It’s a set-up straight out of a high-concept Hollywood comedy. There have been countless previous plots about uptight yuppies trying to impress their bosses, embarrassing parents trying to be kooky and families needing to come together and embrace life. In some ways, Toni Erdmann doesn’t improve on them – the humorous situations are so artificial that they distance the drab, handheld visuals from feeling like reality. In other ways, however, Toni Erdmann does rise above: the performances are fragile, gaining emotional momentum over the expanded running time. And just as the film seems primed for a self-pitying, cheap-shot conclusion, there’s a liberating extended set-piece of fumbling group adventure, and an incarnation of Winfried that achieves a mythic, cathartic quality. [Ian Mantgani]

Released by Kaleidoscope Entertainment

Released by Soda Pictures

February 2017

Mike Mills’ 2010 film Beginners was largely focused on his father’s late-in-life revelation of homosexuality, but his mother (a sardonic, scene-stealing Mary Page Keller) was an intriguing background presence, and she takes centre stage in 20th Century Women. Played now by Annette Bening, Dorothea is one of the three female protagonists, along with Abbie (Gerwig) and Julie (Fanning), embodying the crucial feminist influence that shaped Mills’ teenage years. “Whatever you imagine your life is going to be like, know your life is not going to be anything like that,” Jamie (Zumann) is told, which is both good advice and a line that could neatly sum up Mills’ central theme; the complex messiness of families and the curveballs that life frequently pitches our way. Mills pulls off a delicate balancing act here. 20th Century Women is packed with details that illuminate our understanding of the characters and evoke the spirit of 1979, with cinema, photographs, music, literature and his family’s own personal effects coming into play through his collage-like construction. The film never feels overstuffed or hermetic, though; instead it possesses a loose, freewheeling vibe that allows us to spend ample time in the company of these people and explore a fully realised world. Mills directs with affection and curiosity, and he clearly loves his actors, inspiring all of them to work that ranks among their very best. 20th Century Women is an ensemble movie, but really this film belongs to Annette Bening. Her funny, shrewd and touching performance presents us with a complicated and fascinating woman, torn between the desire to give her son his independence and her protective maternal instinct. It’s hard to imagine any other actress pulling this off with such wit and flair, and if Mike Mills’ mother really was as interesting as Dorothea, it’s little wonder he felt she deserved her own movie. [Philip Concannon]

FILM

20th Century Women

Review

Bard is a Four-Letter Word Words: Clare Mulley

tAnza 2017 returns in March, and, if possible, the programmers have outdone themselves yet again. Punters can look forward in particular to a rock-solid line-up of female poets including Paula Varjack and Sarah Howe, and a delicious mixing pot of different roots (see the festival run-down elsewhere in the magazine). For the full programme, go stanzapoetry.org. Submissions are also open for anyone looking to get involved in The Woman Scream International Poetry and Arts Festival 2017, a confidence and awareness boosting event for feminists which showcases various themes and issues for women everywhere, and this year bears the motto ‘A Scream of Freedom’. For more information, go to womanscream.blogspot.co.uk In Print: First on the list this month is T.S. Eliot Prize-winner Jacob Polley’s new collection, Jackself, the basis of which sounds rather vague on the blurb but, when read, proves a pleasure. Dark, delicately grim and full of the grimy corners of nature we don’t always look into, Polley lifts the overused name ‘Jack’ from popular fairytale, rhyme, saying and legend in order to draw what seems to be a biography of aspects of the everyman and the nobody simultaneously. Elements of little boy lost, thug in the making and mischievous sprite, all combine with an earthy folk narrative style to make this a fascinating journey through the back meadows, forests and graveyards at the fringes of the collective mind. One of the longer monster poems – The Misery, with its combined echoes of the Devil, witches and legendary water sprites like Jenny Greenteeth, and a surprising twist in the tale, is particularly enjoyable. Void Studies by Rachel Boast is similarly gorgeous, although for slightly different reasons. Based as it was on an unfinished project by Rimbaud, involving poems composed more for musicality

and an underlying sense of emotion or theme than tangible statements, it is not one for people who enjoy unravelling a poem to find the ‘message’. The imagery is delicate and glowing, but some of the works are tricky to read aloud naturally, as the line length and complex use of syntax make them slippery. This is definitely one which should be read in a more detached mood, so as to enjoy the colours without trying too hard to pin them down. On a very different note is Settle by Theresa Muñoz – a more upbeat, prosaic voice overall, sometimes with a conversational narrative style, at others a more misty, contemplative way of capturing the unspoken. The collection is divided in two, covering both the themes of immigration and the world of the internet. Whether accidentally or not, this rather interestingly highlights the ironies of having a prejudiced ‘real world’ juxtaposed with the unquestioned common nationality The Web affords us. An especially resonant poem is Wait, depicting the desolation of waiting for a message and only getting an empty inbox. Finally, Luke Wright’s The Toll is, again, a whole new ball game, and added a spark to what started out as a gloomy day. Sharp, gritty and warm by turns, it is about a vast array of people and ideas, but is most accurately described as an overview of the mingled corruptions, humour and blessings of living in a small locality in modern Britain. His ‘univocal lipograms’, so full of assonance that they bounce, are a joy to read aloud, as is the gloriously sweary Essex Lion.

Review

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By Wioletta Greg

One of Scotland’s most popular literary genres, Helen Fields’ new novel, Perfect Remains, brings new possibilities for narrative style and plot to the crime-thriller franchise, with the first in hopefully a long line of D. I. Callanach books. The novel is fast paced and exciting from the beginning, with Fields skilfully using her personal background in criminal law to ground the text. Masterfully intertwining a high intensity narrative with believably likable, and unlikable characters, Perfect Remains covers a lot of ground – from Edinburgh to the Cairngorms, kidnap to murder, and from accusations of rape to a religiously orchestrated conspiracy. The dual nationality of the protagonist is complemented with a dual narrative structure that at times bleeds out into three, even four storylines, adding to the momentum. Weaving this plot together in what seems effortless fashion, the book takes the readers on a psychological journey into the mind of a killer, and of the man trying to catch him. The energy created in the first few pages mounts without a wasted word, image or full stop. This is not just a book about an intelligent psychopath who kidnaps women. This is a book about truth and lies, enemies and allies, and strengths and weaknesses. A must read for any fans of the crime-thriller genre, and, perhaps, even more so if you are not. Perfect Remains is the definition of a page turner. [Rosie Barron]

Wioletta Greg’s Swallowing Mercury (beautifully translated by Eliza Marciniak) captures the almost dreamlike quality of childhood memories. Following the life of Wiola, a young girl growing up as the communist Polish state crumbles in the background, the novella is quietly but constantly sensual. Each chapter offers a distinct moment in Wiola’s life over the course of a decade: a visit to the fairground, a disastrous attempt to win an art competition, a disturbing encounter with the local doctor. These moments are firmly anchored through sight, sound and smell to a particular season or weather, whether the sky spins ‘candyfloss out of the clouds’ or the wind whistles off-key. Unsurprisingly for a writer primarily known as a poet, Greg is a master of the unsaid. This adds to the novella’s gentle surreal feel, but can leave the reader somewhat disorientated; we rarely know exactly what age Wiola is, or how much time has passed between chapters. While Greg’s subtle political references can add to this disorientation (although a translator’s note at the end offers a helpful guide), her send-ups of political language and officious bureaucrats are comedy gold. Not quite novel, not quite short story, the novella can be in danger of becoming a forgotten form. In a publishing landscape of heavy tomes and never-ending series, it’s refreshing to come across gems like this elegant, sparse book. [Annie Rutherford]

Out now, published by Harper Collins, RRP £7.99

Out now, published by Granta Books, RRP £12.99

This is How it Always is

A Line Made By Walking

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Claude Walsh-Adams was born a boy… but she isn’t entirely comfortable with the arrangement. Her four brothers and two loving, liberal parents embrace Claude’s choice and accept her for who she is, but as she and her unwelcome masculine body begin to develop, it’s soon clear that society might struggle to do so. This Is How It Always Is, the third novel from Laurie Frankel, is a touching exploration of identity, gender and acceptance in contemporary America. Frankel imbues her characters with wit, pathos and heart, and her capacity for imagination never ceases to delight. Capable of some charming turns of phrase, it’s somewhat surprising that Frankel’s prose seems grammatically askew at times. In particular, the author enjoys a complex relationship with the comma (popping up in places it shouldn’t be and not bothering to appear in others of importance), which threatens to distract from her obvious talent as a storyteller. These quibbles about her writing style might make the work difficult to access in the opening chapters. However, once she has warmed to her theme and the reader has warmed to her characters (as they undoubtedly will), the weight of her message wins through and in the end we’re left with a heartfelt, illuminating insight into the world of gender confusion. A difficult but important topic tackled with humour, humility and above all, humanity. [Jonny Sweet]

Finding only anxiety and unhappiness in the city, Frankie moves to her late grandmother’s bungalow in the country. There she will find the healing powers of nature and solitude – or, at least, that’s the plan. This is not a book about how wonderful nature is: most of the nature Frankie is interested in is dead. The chapters are arranged around the dead animals she finds and photographs, from robin and rat to hedgehog and badger. The focus instead is on the mind, as Baume traces the line from mental chatter to mental illness and back again, buttressed with frequent discussions of works of art. ‘Works about deprivation, I test myself,’ goes the refrain, and art becomes a way to structure and contextualise her experiences and emotional patterns. It’s a refreshing take on the genre, a semiautobiographical retreat novel about finding something to live for not in nature but in art. And there are moments of brilliance in which Baume dissects the minutiae of daily life, like cooking, and how depression and anxiety make those routines impossible. “Structure and maintenance and pattern, and broccoli, are what sanity consists of,” says Frankie. The discussion of artworks and the roadkill photographs give the book structure – but they work hard to carry the piece. A stronger plot, or even just a little less openness from Frankie, would have given the novel more drive. [Galen O’Hanlon]

Out 9 Feb, published by Headline, RRP £16.99

Out 23 Feb, published by Cornerstone, RRP £12.99

By Laurie Frankel

womanscream.blogspot.co.uk Jackself and Void Studies are both published by Picador Poetry at RRP £9.99 Settle is published by Vagabond Voices, RRP £8.99

By Sara Baume

The Toll is published by Penned in the Margins, RRP £9.99 stanzapoetry.org

Paula Varjack

Swallowing Mercury

By Helen Fields

Our poetry columnist lips her hat to StAnza and Woman Scream, then offers some insight on the best page poetry around at the moment

Perfect Remains: A D. I. Callanach Thriller

BOOKS

THE SKINNY

This Month in Scottish Art February brings with it the Glasgow Film Festival, the Royal Scottish Academy’s New Contemporaries exhibition, as well as the second part of one of the Cooper Gallery’s most ambitious exhibitions, and new shows from Telfer Gallery, Talbot Rice and Tramway Words: Adam Benmakhlouf DCA Thomson, install view

Dundee Contemporary Arts

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Beginning with original items from the archive, the DCA Thomson show brings out forgotten excitement and mixes it up with surprising responses from Beano / Dandy / Dennis the Menace fans who also happen to be accomplished contemporary artists. Making some strangeness amongst the familiarity of DC Thomson, Japanese artist Hideyuki Katsumata intricately paints over characters like Dennis the Menace with round furry monster heads. Also working with layers over the original visuals, Glasgow-based artist Rob Churm takes the titular first plates of the Jonah comic, sets them together and on overlaid tracing paper delves into the graphic abstractions that suggest form, making slimey organic looking knobbles and poetic text that curl around the grid of drawings. Receiving a makeover of a different kind, Craig Coulthard begins with the Commando

Oliver Laric Tramway

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Searching for cures for insomnia can lead you to niche edges of the internet. On YouTube, channels are dedicated to Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, a relaxed mental state that gives you tingles on your scalp. There are videos showing towels being folded to a whispered soundtrack, flight attendants deliver safety demonstrations, and make-up tutorials are often lauded as unintentionally replicating this phenomenon. Oliver Laric’s latest video installation seems derived from this subculture. His animated film shows a frog smoothly morph into a bedside cabinet, masculine becomes feminine, and anime girls become furries before returning to their original state. Parts are accompanied by an ambient piano soundtrack that wouldn’t feel out of place in one of those time-lapse videos of a stranger’s ageing face. The success of Laric’s latest video derives

February 2017

comics, then uses subversive textual insertions to change the tone from riproaring adventure into a poetic and clanging protest. Text from the official army website for Trauma Risk Management draws out the evocative potential of the Commando’s dramatic tableaux. As well as the hung artworks, there’s a moment for sitting and reading Malcy Duff ’s no-text surreal take on the materials, in The Pineapple Reading Room. And through the power of Twitter, Sofia Sita includes Broons-inspired and brightly coloured illustrations of the visitors who took a selfie at her mural outside the gallery. Rabiya Choudhry makes two abstracted images of the head filled with characters like the Beano’s Numskulls. One, open and funny, a little nutty figure reads a fax ‘go to disco,’ the other has teary eyes and is bricked up, between them negotiating ideas of interaction, and retreating into the mind. Not so much transforming the source material, each of the artists celebrates the strength of the imagery, humour and sharp narratives throughout the DC Thomson archive. [Adam Benmakhlouf] Dundee Contemporary Arts, until 19 Feb

n Dundee, the events for Of Other Spaces: Where Does Gesture Become Event? Chapter Two begins with a screening of Sally Potter’s black and white experimental cinematic meditation on gold and the woman movie star, The Gold Diggers (1983) on 8 February 6.30-8.30pm. All events draw on the gallery exhibition of a huge variety of feminist art practices, documentation and artworks from the 1970s to present. On 10 February (5.30-7pm), there’s a dance workshop led by Glasgow-based choreographer, performer, teacher and director, Melanie Forbes-Broomes. Then next Wednesday, Nightcleaners (1975) will be shown from 5.307.30pm, centring around attempts to unionise the underpaid women who cleaned office blocks at night. On 22 February, St Andrews Art History lecturer Dr Catherine Spencer will lead a workshop and screening from 6-8pm. Previewing 10 February from 6-8pm, Kate V Robertson presents a changing exhibition in Talbot Rice Gallery. With a run until 8 April, each week will see complete change around a new object (‘a brain coral, a Gandharan sculpture fragment, a large mannequin head cast by Eduardo Paolozzi, an anatomical eye model…’) from Edinburgh University’s collection, built around a large sculpture cabinet that emanates moving-images and spoken word. On the same evening in Glasgow from 7-9pm, there’s a new exhibition from Glasgow-based artist Claire Barclay in Tramway, whose thoughtful installations and sculptures will respond to the industrial setting of the former tram depot, through her sensuous and poetic arrgangement of materials. Opening 11 February, Telfer Gallery presents Circuits of Bad Conscience by artist Kimberley O’Neill. For this exhibition, O’Neill will conclude her period of residency with Telfer with a new video work built around a science fiction scenario where characters are formed from the cross-fertilisation of personal experiences, historical figures and commercial materials. This provides O’Neill with a means of considering the perpetuation of domi-

nant ideologies by mainstream media, and the stymying of female energy by these circuits. From 18 February, see Royal Scottish Academy’s New Contemporaries in the RSA building. They’ve curated 66 of 2016's graduates into a showcase of the previous year’s degree shows from across Scotland. (£5/3) Also on 18 February, from 8pm-midnight at The Pipe Factory there is Love Remains, a fundraising event by France-Lise Mcgurn, Urara Tsuchiya and Zoe Williams for a forthcoming exhibition and event series in late spring 2017. For £20, you’ll be treated to a ‘sumptious meal’ and have ‘love potions’ on hand, BYOB. As part of Glasgow Film Festival, on 19 February at The Glue Factory, two of the most renowned experimental filmmakers David Lynch and Chris Marker’s work will receive sonic responses from contemporary sound artists and composers. One of the most anticipated events on the Glasgow film and art calendars, the winner of the annual Margaret Tait Award Kate Davis will screen the film she has developed since receiving the prize last year. The release states, ‘Davis’ new film questions how the essential, but largely invisible and unpaid, processes we employ to care for others and ourselves could be reimagined.’ Tickets will be available on the day from GFT, and the film will begin at 6.45pm. This month also brings the first exhibitor of Collective Gallery’s Satellites mentorship programme, by artist and curator Grace Johnston. Working across a collaborative and multimedia practice, Johnston assembles exhibitions around art objects, writing, prints and documentary research. From 24 February in Aberdeen, Peacock Visual Arts mount a show of prints in The Barn, Bacnhory, AB31 5QA. Titled Slow Motion, they’ve put together a selection of prints from their studio made between 2010-2016 from a range of established contemporary artists. Join Peacock for the opening on Thursday 23 February 4-7pm.

from making mental states visual, and written on his figures’ bodies. There’s a moment in his film when the hands of an animated figure transfigure into gnarled branches of a tree, accurately performing a feeling of bodily estrangement. The film deals well with bodies resisting binary categorisation, and gives them space: as animations transition across gender, age and species, Laric exhibits the ambiguity of being in-between. Laric’s previous work has dealt intelligently with representation in the age of the internet. In 2012, the artist began making 3D scans of ancient objects and published the data for free. This new work continues his shrewd commentary on the subject matter. But while his previous work had a real, concrete, referent, his new material makes a point of questioning boundaries between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ things. Strange objects are rendered lifelike before our eyes, as if we are witnessing a Photoshop tutorial. Once finished, we observe the lifelike detail and wonder if these objects exist. His work has become pure simulacrum, and it’s all the better for it. [Figgy Guyver] Love Remains

Tramway, Glasgow, until 19 Mar

ART

Review

Credit: Zoe Williams, Urara Tsuchiya And France-Lise Rose Mcgurn

DCA Thomson

Ask Auntie Trash:

R U Gettin’ Enough Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Auntie Trash gets an email from a fuckboi. She mad Illustration: Stephanie Hoffmann

Picnic at Hanging Rock The Lyceum, Edinburgh

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J Hi Auntie Trash, I’m not an actor, I’m not really involved with theatre in any way, but recently I’ve been wondering: just how incestuous is the theatre world? I know that actors and other creative types get together, but what about critics? Do critics get to have sex with actors and creative types, too? I guess what I’m getting at, is, are YOU getting enough, Trash? Much love, Your Future Husband xxx

ear Future Corpse, Oh gawd. Oh Lord. There’s a lot to unpack here. Too much. Dude, seriously, whoa. I liked your email, because it demonstrates everything I hate about the human race at the moment. Your words read like some of the worst press releases I’ve ever received; even worse than the ones who claim we have met, more horrific than the ones that try so hard to act like we’re friends when we’ve never spoken before. From start to finish, the words you vomited on the screen irritated me, more than that time that comedian emailed to ask if I would please interview his penis. This was, from what I could gather, a real request, and not a plea for the critic lady to be nice to the sad comedian. From the cutesy ‘I’ve been wondering’ to the main course, where you ask me just how often I have sex, to your sign-off, where you tell me that we are going to be married in an oh-so-adorable way. Marriage is bullshit, and so is your email. You want to know about sex, try not to sound like a 13-year-old boy by asking, ‘Oh, do actors have sex with other actors? I’ve always wanted to know, oh man, check me, so #RANDOM.’

Review

You are not #random. You are, from what I can tell, an actual grown man with actual life experience, who judging by this email hasn’t been laid enough and just wants to see where the boundaries are. I am happy to oblige. Yes, of course, the theatre world is incestuous; it’s a village. Errbody knows errbody, and if they work together, you can be sure as hell that actors will also have sex with each other. And directors, and writers and designers and whoever else. It happens, sex is good, let’s move on from this, and quickly. The thing is, we don’t automatically have a right to know just who is balls-deep in who, and whether it’s just a casual fling, or, maybe even, the real thing. You have no right to this information, and crucially, neither do I. This also applies to your question about me. Am I getting enough? Well, sunshine, just this once I will humour you, because I have a deadline and Christ knows we all need a little bit of joy right now. I am a theatre critic, what the fuck do you think? Do I have people queuing around the corner from The Skinny office, just waiting to service me? Do I have to throw them food and blankets on the nights when it gets a little too chilly, and they’ve been waiting oh so long just to be in my, uh, presence? I’m not near a window so I can’t tell. Are they there? Will they ever be there? If you’re not picking up on the subtext here, the answer is NO. NO I AM NOT GETTING ENOUGH AND LOL. This isn’t your business, stay in your lane, go out and make a happy life with another human and stop sending creepy messages to people that you don’t know on the internet. Go away, Auntie Trash

oan Lindsay’s novel Picnic at Hanging Rock, originally published in 1967 and later immortalised by Peter Weir’s 1975 film of the same name, has become something of a fascination for artists across various disciplines. Detailing the sudden and unexplained disappearance of three teenage schoolgirls and their teacher on Valentine’s Day 1900, Matthew Lutton’s production delves deep into the unknowns of the supposedly-true story. Just what happened to the girls and their teacher that afternoon at Hanging Rock? The new stage adaptation by Tom Wright, a co-production between Australia’s Malthouse Theatre and Black Swan State Theatre Company, retains the sinister edge of the novel and film, transporting the action from the remote Australian outback to a dark minimalist set, upon which the disappearances (and their aftermath) create a world of intrigue and sinister forces.

THEATRE

Lutton’s production is sublimely unsettling; scenes of the schoolgirls are punctuated with blackouts, an eerie soundscape, and a mix of contemporary and period costume. The cast of five begin as narrators but slowly become the key characters: the schoolgirls themselves, teachers, police, and the last people to see the missing foursome on that fateful day. There is also a sixth character that dominates proceedings, however: that of the Australian landscape itself. Never sighted on stage, but reimaged through sounds, words and lighting, the outback is a battleground for the traditional, imperial values of the British settlers and the silent, mysterious nature of the aboriginal landscape. In a sense, it’s as if the disappearances are the consequence, the terrible price paid for colonisation. Picnic at Hanging Rock is a rich, dark theatrical tapestry that explores the horror of loss, yet never loses the powerful ambiguity or dread of the original text. This is an unforgettable, if not utterly disturbing piece of work. [Amy Taylor] Until 28 Jan 2017

THE SKINNY

Fatal Attraction Rachel Jackson on her BBC3 shorts for Valentine’s Day, Chunks and being the former icon of Irn-Bru

Interview: Ben Venables Illustration: Stella Murphy

Her 2015 Fringe show, Memoirs of a Bunny Boiler, inspired a mini-series of six vlogs for the channel, with Jackson in persona as the cheerful but intense Cassandra. As Cassandra makes a foray into online dating she wonders if she should be on a more exclusive site than Tinder, while also recounting stories like how she seductively nibbled her dentist’s fingers. “I do like to toy with people,” says Jackson. “I think there are some people who think it’s a real vlog. I like to tread that line of surreal and normal.” The Edinburgh show ran for 45 minutes each day on the Free Fringe and could have gone completely undetected amid thousands of shows. “When you’re at these little venues you think nobody is coming to see you,” she says. “It was eight months later that BBC3 got in touch and said they’d seen the show in Edinburgh.”

“ I’m thinking of playing a character that can’t let go of the ‘dizzying heights of the Irn-Bru times!’” Rachel Jackson

n unstoppable force, Rachel Jackson is going places in a literal sense as well as in her career: “I’m in a taxi,” she says, as she’s whisked away to an afternoon’s filming. Over the phone and in the back of a cab, Jackson is natural and breezy in conversation – she mentions the buildings she can see out the window – though she be-

comes focussed when we get onto comedy and performance. With her current schedule there’s a lot to talk about. Her live show arrives at Glasgow Comedy Festival in March – it’s no accident and an apt description that it is titled Force of Nature – but right now she is the face of Valentine’s Day for BBC3.

She’s no stranger to the screen with her background as a trained actor, but she has enough comedy credentials to shake off any cynical tar from the ‘actor tries comedy’ brush. Separate to the vlog, Jackson won a place on Fast and Funny – an initiative between BBC Writersroom and BBC Scotland – for emerging comedic writers. Then, she’s also part of the insurrection that is the comedy collective Chunks.

“I feel like I’m in a family, it’s amazing and we’re a bunch of freaks. I try to go as often as I can because you just get to try anything.” At Chunks, each act is allotted only a short burst of stage time and there’s barely a pause, giving the regular Glasgow night the pace of a Catherine Wheel and an immunity to the drag of a sketch that doesn’t fly. “When something doesn’t work it becomes part of the joke. It’s a night where anything can happen and there’s no judgement.” Another of Jackson’s characters, Janight, had a first live run-out at Chunks. Developed with fellow comedian Susan Riddell, Janight has found love of a different kind to Cassandra: an obsession for Nicola Sturgeon. “I had an ex-boyfriend who worked in the kitchens at the Scottish parliament,” says Jackson, “and he thought he was this big shot rubbing shoulders with politicians. I thought it’d be funny to have somebody who really loved Nicola Sturgeon while serving the burgers at lunchtime. “Then Susan – who is a great comedy writer and who I met at Fast and Funny – fell in love with the character and we wrote the web series. “People say play to your strengths and I’ve always been an obsessive person, in that I like it to be extreme and put myself in the thick of it. I don’t want to pigeonhole myself but it is good to do what you know and develop that way sometimes.” It’s a theme that looks set to continue beyond the vlog and Glasgow Comedy Festival. Jackson is contemplating plans for the Edinburgh Fringe in which she’ll lift the lid on her time as the face of Irn-Bru. “It was in 2011,” she says. “At the time it was a job, but a funny one to tell people about. I was in an advert and they used my face on the bottles and buses. I’m still developing the idea but I’m thinking of playing a character that can’t let go of the ‘dizzying heights of the Irn-Bru times!’” Rachel Jackson: Force of Nature, Wild Cabaret, 15 Mar, 8pm, £8 Bunny Boiler is currently streaming on BBC3

Win tickets to the Win tickets to see Scottish Cycling, 47SOUL and more! Running and Outdoor W Pursuits Show! T

he Scottish Cycling, Running and Outdoor Pursuits Show returns to Glasgow next month – taking place at the SECC over three fun-packed days, the show features a host of interactive attractions, including a mini-velodrome, e-mountain bike track and indoor running track. This year the festival will also introduce a brand new marathon challenge, giving you the chance to win an all-expenses-paid place in the New York marathon. With big cycle brands like Canyon, Cube, Merida, Alpine, Santa Cruz, Cervelo and B'TWIN bringing along their ranges for you to test and try, plus special offers from running brands such as Newton, On, Altra, Ronhill, Hilly, Craft, Kalenji and CEP Sportswear, it’s a must-attend event for outdoor spoors enthusiasts and novices alike. The show takes place between 10-12 March,

and we’ve got a pair of tickets to give away! To be in with a chance of winning, simply head to theskinny.co.uk/competitions with the correct answer to the following question: In which city is the Scottish Cycling, Running and Outdoor Pursuits show held? a) Edinburgh b) Glasgow c) New York scottishcyclingrunningoutdoorpursuitsshow.co.uk Competition closes midnight Sun 26 Feb. The winner will be notified via email within two working days of closing and will be required to respond within 48 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. Our Ts&Cs can be found at theskinny.co.uk/about/terms

orld Ceilidh favourites in the Scottish capital? Sounds like the work of the folks behind Knockengorroch festival – sure enough, they’re bringing Palestinian supergroup 47SOUL to town with their combination of trad folk sounds and future-focussed synth experimentation. They’re huge in their home nation, and now here’s your chance to witness their phenomenal live show. As if that wasn’t enough, they’ll be joined by the fiddle-driven frenzy of Awry, mutant beats from the Beltane Beastie Drummers and cutting-edge basslines from across the globe, courtesy of the Samedia Soundsystem. Taking place on 24 February at Edinburgh’s Studio 24 this is a typically Knockengorroch event that you won’t want to miss ahead of the full festival between 25-28 May. Tickets are £10 in advance or £13 on the door, with all monies going to the World Ceilidh festival in May, but we’ve got a pair of tickets to be won! For your chance to win, head to theskinny.co.uk/competitions with the correct answer to the following question: Which Palestinian group will headline the show on 24 Feb? a) 47SOUL b) Soul II Soul c) David Soul knockengorroch.org.uk/tickets/winter-club-tickets

Competition closes midnight Sun 19 Feb. Entrants must be 18 or over. The winner will be notified via email within two working days of closing and will be required to respond within 24 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. Our Ts&Cs can be found at theskinny.co.uk/about/terms

February 2017

COMEDY / COMPETITIONS

Review

Glasgow Music Wed 01 Feb

KEVIN DEVINE AND THE GODDAM BAND + LAURA STEVENSON

STEREO, FROM 18:30, £10

Brooklyn songwriter best known for his melodic tunesmithery built on alternately introspective, political lyrics. DAMIEN DEMPSEY (HERMITAGE GREEN)

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £18

Ireland’s preeminent singersongwriter is joined by Hermitage Green, a band borne of a spontaneous jam session. JOSEPH (OLD SEA BRIDAGE)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £9

Portland sister trio, heading to the UK armed with new album I’m Alone, No You’re Not. BOYD

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:30, FREE

Boyd brings her spiralling, rulebreaking piano adventures to Glad Cafe as she launches new EP Young Womanhood.

Thu 02 Feb TOM WALKER

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £7

An evening of acoustic music with Tom Walker and friends. THE ALBATROSS (THE DEADLINE SHAKES + SUNNY SENSE)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £9

A headliner show from Gary Deveney and Kenneth Wilson’s collaborative project. Their tunes are melodic and prime fodder for a decent night of dancing.

JAMES MCMURTRY & NATHAN BELL (ALICE DRINKS THE KOOL AID) ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £16

A double bill of American songwriting talent. LOYLE CARNER

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £7

The MC from South London stops off with more stirring, confessional hip-hop. ELIZA CARTHY & THE WAYWARD BAND

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £18

The award-winning Scottish folkie, currently breathing new life into the genre, fronts her own 12-piece supergroup. THE ANIMAL MOTHERS

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £2

Punk surf rock with a dash of garage rock from Glasgow. MANDOLIN ORANGE

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £12

North Carolina duo laced with bluegrass, country and folk. TARTINE DE CLOUS (ALASDAIR ROBERTS + NEIL MCDERMOTT)

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:30, £12.50

Singing trio originally from Charente, France who’re bringing in local fiddle player Neil McDermott and guitarist Alasdair Roberts for a little extra oomph.

Fri 03 Feb

TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB

BARROWLANDS, FROM 19:00, £21

Bangor indie-rock outfit comprised of Alex Trimble, Kevin Baird and Sam Halliday, built on a bed of angular guitar pop with electro undertones. IBG (THE VANITIES + VOODOOS)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £9

Glaswegian four-piece indie rock band formed in late 2014. PRONTO MAMA (THE VEGAN LEATHER)

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £10

Upbeat tunes from the Glasgow polyrhythmic indie-rockers/super cool dudes. THE HAGGIS HORNS

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £12

The UK horn section return with their two-decade strong discography.

PROMISED LAND SOUND (MCKELLAR + JACK COOPER DJ) MONO, FROM 19:30, £8

Nashville purveyors of febrile root-work psychedelia. Un-selfconscious classicists eager to anchor their songs in traditional forms while tearing at the edges of the vernacular.

Listings

MARTHA WAINWRIGHT (ED HARCOURT) O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £16.50

The American-Canadian singer (aka sprog of Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III, and sister to Rufus) does her fiery folk-rock thing. UNION J

O2 ABC, FROM 19:30, £20 - £75

The X-Factor boy band grace us with their presence. Joys. SOUL REMOVER (MAGIC TRIK)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £7

Rock from Glasgow – hard and heavy. BOXED IN

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £8

Musical brainchild of Oli Bayston, formerly of indie outfit Keith, taking his name from a Francis Bacon painting.

Sat 04 Feb THE WONDER YEARS

QUEEN MARGARET UNION, FROM 18:30, £15

Philly-born pop punk sextet. TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB

BARROWLANDS, FROM 19:00, £21

Bangor indie-rock outfit comprising Alex Trimble, Kevin Baird and Sam Halliday, built on a bed of angular guitar pop with electro undertones. ESPERANZA (DOGTOOTH)

CLASSIC GRAND, FROM 19:00, £10

More ska-filled frolics from the highly-lauded nine-piece. Fundraiser in recognition of World Cancer Day. FABIO AND GROOVERIDER

CLASSIC GRAND, FROM 21:00, £6 - £14

Drum and bass bash celebrating 25 years of Fabio and Grooverider.

TURNPIKE TROUBADOURS (AMYTHYST KIAH) ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £14

Muskogee folksters making it big, with support from Tennessee native Amythyst Kiah. A CERTAIN RATIO

STEREO, FROM 19:30, £15

Veteran former Factory Records signees among the forebears of post-punk.

TREACHEROUS ORCHESTRA (EZZA)

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £16

Vibrant Glasgow folk collective mixing traditional rootsy Scottish tunes with contemporary influences, all bagpipes and whistles and loveliness. ANNA MEREDITH

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, FROM 19:30, £12.50

Composer, singer and clarinettist Anna Meredith engineers a kaleidoscopic collision between individual and organic sound; her live line-up also features electronics, cello, tuba, guitar and drums. THE BREW

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £10

Brit rock trio with a rare father/ son line-up that seems to work for ‘em. KEVIN MCGUIRE

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £8

Young pop hopeful playing a local show following the release of his sucessful single 3AM. ISSHO DRUMMERS

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:30, £12.50

From Taiko to Txalaparta, an explorational journey through rhythm and sound.

Sun 05 Feb PAUL CARRACK

CLYDE AUDITORIUM, FROM 19:30, £30 - £38.50

Sheffield-born singer, songwriter and former frontman of Ace, Squeeze, and Mike and The Mechanics. VAULTS

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £12

A trio who describe themselves as introspective electronica, whose single One Last Night hit the big time after featuring on the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack.

A DAY OVERDUE (FINDING ARGYLE + LOST IN STEREO + LAYAWAY)

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £8

Hooky and energetic Edinburghborn rock band.

AJ TRACEY (SHOGUN + LVLZ SYNDICATE + MULLEN & DECLAN) SUB CLUB, FROM 19:00, £12

J-Bone & West Coast Ends combine to bring AJ Tracey to Glasgow on his much-anticipated Lil Tracey Tour. Live support from ya boi Shogun. DEATH VALLEY GIRLS (SHREDD + THE CROSSMAKERS)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £7

Detroit garage revival sounds mixed with LA’s serial psych, cult killing, riffing insanity. RANDOLPH’S LEAP

THE PINEAPPLE THIEF

KID CANAVERAL’S LUMBER PARTY

SLØTFACE

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £18

STEREO, FROM 20:00, £10

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £7

Progressive indie rockers formed by mainman Bruce Soord back in 1999.

KC snag the closest Saturday to Valentine’s at Stereo for a night of music designed for loving, grooving and make-a-move-ing.

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 20:00, £7

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, FROM 19:45, £12

NORTH OF THE WALL FESTIVAL (COLTSBLOOD + BAST)

Non-profit, one-day festival celebrating Scottish metal bands.

MIAMI MONROE (BETTER DAYS + ONE WAY STREET + DOUBLE STANDARDS)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, TBC

A triple-heider pop-punk show featuring three bands from Glasgow, Newcastle and York who’re touring their home cities.

THE GLOOD, THE GLAD & THE GLUGLY (WHYTE + MAIRI MORRISON + ALASDAIR ROBERTS) THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:30, £7

Glasgow folk-pop melody merchants Randolph’s Leap return.

A three-night fundraising party enlisting The Glad’s musically adept pals to help put a little dollar in the money pot for 2017.

Mon 06 Feb

THE ART SCHOOL, 19:00–23:00, £14

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £8

KATE NASH

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £14

Ms Nash keeps it reliably chirpy with her vocally-loose melodic ramblings. MATTHEW AND THE ATLAS

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £9.50

British singer-songwriter Matthew Hagerty tours his latest album, Temple.

Tue 07 Feb SAINT MOTEL

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £10

Los Angeles indie-rockers who do a good line in dreamy pop soundscapes.

CARLA DAL FORNO (HAUSFRAU + ROXY AGOGO)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 20:00, £7

Synthy echoes, rattling rhythms and minimalist vocals are on the bill for tonight with Carla dal Forno. RAPID TAN (DECENT SWEETS + MARY COLUMN + COMMIE CARS)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £4

Four-part rock band from local turf. J.C. SATÀN

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £6

Rulebook-burning garage band, FFO Pixies and Moldy Peaches.

THE GLOOD, THE GLAD & THE GLUGLY (TREMBLING BELLS + MARCUS DOO) THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:30, £7

A three-night fundraising party enlisting The Glad’s musically adept pals to help put a little dollar in the money pot for 2017. EARTHS

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, FROM 20:00, £5

A shoegazey sound with post-rock and indie pop elements. JAMIE RAVEN

THEATRE ROYAL, 7:30PM, £25.15 - £40.15

The latest export of the SyCo stables; Britain’s Got Talent magician Jamie Raven.

Wed 08 Feb ONE BIG FUSE

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £5

One Big Fuse hail from the Outer Hebrides and specialise in alt rock. See ‘em launch their EP The Ocean On Your Own tonight at the H&P. CHELSEA GRIN (BETRAYING THE MARTYRS + MAKE THEM SUFFER + VOID OF VISION)

CATHOUSE, FROM 18:30, £12

Rise Records-signed deathcore band from Salt Lake City. QUEER THEORY

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £5

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

HIGH VALLEY (AMERICAN YOUNG)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £10

Nashville outfit blending folk, pop and country.

Thu 09 Feb

KATHRYN WILLIAMS & ANTHONY KERR

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £12

Mercury nominated folk genius Kathryn Williams joins forces with vibraphone player and jazz artist Anthony Kerr for a night of reworked classics.

SWEENEY STRADDLES THE SUN (THE HECTOR COLLECTORS + KIDD) STEREO, FROM 19:00, £5 - £11

Glaswegian synth-pop artist launching his new record Tarantula. CIAN NUGENT

MONO, FROM 19:30, £7

Dublin guitar hero last seen in Steve Gunn’s band. For fans of Television, Neil Young and the Velvet Underground.

LADYHAWKE (ISLE)

Ladyhawke grew up listening to the likes of Stevie Nicks, Deep Purple and Joan Jett and creates a bright and infectious palette of songs heavily influenced by synth-pop, new wave, and AOR in equal measures.

Fri 10 Feb DUKE GARWOOD

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £12

London-based multi-instrumentalist of the distinctly bluesy persuasion. DAVE ARCARI

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £8

Talented blues rocker playing a mix of guitar-driven blues and trash country. EUROTRIP ALTERN 8

CLASSIC GRAND, FROM 21:00, £15

Eurotrip limber up for their first party of 2017, with a turno sound system, lasers and a light show.

RETURN TO MONO (MILTON BRADLEY + QUAIL) SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £8

Returning for a second instalment of cutting edge house and techno. THE MASTERSONS

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, FROM 19:30, £14

The Austin, TX-based duo’s lilting songcraft and charismatic chemistry have already won over listeners around the world. The Mastersons play CCA as part of a European tour. JAMES EDAN

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £6

Singer-songwriter who’s toured with the likes of T-Swift and Bryan Adams. POP!SOUTH WEEKENDER (THE ORCHIDS + THE POOCHES + BODYHEAT + BLOOD OF THE BULL)

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:00, £8 - £22

The fourth (and final :() Pop!South Weekender, bringing a roster of delicious giggery to see you through the middle of Feb. HANNAH WANTS

SWG3 GLASGOW, FROM 21:00, £18 - £23

British DJ and producer hailing from Birmingham with serio credentials. For 2017, she’s bringing ‘dark and raw raves’ to her partiers.

HOSTEL FREAKS + MC ALMOND MILK + JAY ROLEX THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS , FROM 20:00, £4 - £5

Edinburgh cosmic synth hero launches his debut EP with support from two members of Glasgow’s excellent Save As Collective.

Sat 11 Feb BRY

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £10

Irish singer-songwriter with a unique approach to life and a goal is to travel to (and perform in) every single country in the world. JESSE RAE

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £10

St Boswells singer best known for his 1982 hit single Inside Out.

SUNDAY MORNING ELVIS (RHINOPLAST + APERTURE + THE LAST GASP) KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £9

To celebrate forthcoming single White Flag, Glasgow three-piece Sunday Morning Elvis play King Tuts.

CEOL ‘S CRAIC: NA H-OGANAICH

Trailblazing folk group Na h-Òganaich have been a major influence on contemporary Gaelic music. For this event they revisit the works created in collaboration with “Melbost Bard” Murdo MacFarlane.

JAH WOBBLE AND THE INVADERS OF THE HEART

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, TBC

The PiL man is joined by sometime Stone Roses guitarist Aziz Ibrahim to celebrate his illustrious career as a musician. THIS FEELING: BIG IN 2017 (THE PHANTOMS + VIDA + MOONLIGHT ZOO + SAHARA + THE SHAMBOLICS)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £5

An independently curated night of musical tip-offs for the coming year. For a FIVER.

POP!SOUTH WEEKENDER (THE SPOOK SCHOOL + BALLBOY + WOLF GIRL + BOOHOOHOO + LIFE MODEL + SODA FOUNTAIN RAG + MARBLE GODS) THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 16:00, £12 - £22

The fourth (and final :() Pop!South Weekender, bringing a roster of delicious giggery to see you through the middle of Feb.

Sun 12 Feb HARVEY

CLASSIC GRAND, FROM 14:00, £15

Young R'n'B / pop act from London. GALACTIC EMPIRE (SITHU AYE)

O2 ABC, FROM 18:30, £10

Galactic Empire perform classic pieces from the iconic soundtrack of the Star Wars films written by John Williams. NADIA REID

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £8

With a richness of voice, a depth of emotion and wisdom beyond her years, New Zealand native Nadia Reid returns to UK shores. POP!SOUTH WEEKENDER

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 17:00, £9 - £22

The fourth (and final :() Pop!South Weekender, bringing a roster of delicious giggery to see you through the middle of Feb.

Mon 13 Feb

YOUNG LEGIONNAIRE (NARCS)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £9

British band formed in 2009, ft. members of Bloc Party and The Automatic.

Tue 14 Feb TAKING BACK SUNDAY

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £20

American rock unit formed by guitarist Eddie Reyes in Long Island back in 1999. MENACE BEACH

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £7.50

The quite super Leeds grunge pop unit head out to air their new studio album, Lemon Memory, released on Memphis Industries. WORRIEDABOUTSATAN (SUNSET GRAVES)

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:30, £6

An evening of ambient electronica and techno from Yorkshire and Winchester. SCOTTISH OPERA: OPERA HIGHLIGHTS

PLATFORM, FROM 19:30, £5 - £12

An evening of opera music featuring a cast of new talent, including two Scottish Opera Emerging Artists and two recent graduates of the National Opera Studio.

Wed 15 Feb ANTHRAX

BARROWLANDS, 7PM, £27.50

Thrash metal lot from NYC. DAFT PUNK | DISCOVERY

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 20:00, TBC

A live band’s interpretation of Daft Punk’s sophomore 2001 album ‘Discovery’, played in full from Start to End. Features musicians from Pronto Mama, Fat Suit, Admiral Fallow and more. CHUCK PROPHET & THE MISSION EXPRESS

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £15 - £17.50

American singer/songwriter, guitarist and producer who hit the road straight outta high school in the 80s with psychedelic roots band Green on Red.

Pop rock tastiness from the Propeller singed four-piece straight off the back of their single release Take Me Dancing.

Thu 16 Feb BAND OF HORSES

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £22.50

Ben Bridwell and his Band of Horses hold true to their whooping country-rock formula, touring in support of 2016 album, Why Are You OK. TRIVIUM

BARROWLANDS, FROM 19:00, £20

Florida’s finest bring the mayhem. LITTLE COMETS

SAINT LUKE’S, FROM 20:00, £14

Kitchen sink-styled indie-rock quartet led by the dynamic Robert Coles. ALPINES

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8

The London-based duo tour tunes from their forthcoming second album, Another River. MIC LOWRY

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £15

Liverpool R'n'B heroes fast on the rise. THE CAUSE OF THUNDER

TRON THEATRE, FROM 19:45, £10 - £16

David Hayman plays Bob Cunningham, a raconteur sharing his musings on early retirement; politics, the No vote, Brexit, Corbyn, refugees…and having seen a man spontaneously ascend into heaven... WHERE FIRES ARE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £4

Adrenaline-fuelled, emotionally charged alternative rock. L.A. WITCH (SWEATY PALMS + UVA URSA)

Sat 18 Feb DEAF HAVANA

O2 ABC, FROM 18:00, £16.50

Four East Coast Village lads making a rammy of rock sounds. TOM GRENNAN

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £7

Bedford singer and Chase & Status collaborator. NEONWAVES (THE BAR KEYS + SALVADOR)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £9

Alty indie rock five-piece. DEAF HAVANA

O2 ABC, FROM 18:00, £16.50

Four East Coast Village lads making a rammy of rock sounds. JERSEY BUDD (THE HOLLOWS + SCOTT PEDEN + THE RAGMAN)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £6

Leicester-born Jersey whips up a mix of rock’n’roll ‘with vintage soul’, and has toured the UK extensively with his band.

THE TREND (CAULDER + THE LABEL)

BROADCAST, 19:30–23:00, £6

The Trend take inspiration from the Halcyon days of Britpop. See them play a headline show at Broadcast. KEVIN MONTGOMERY

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:30, £14 - £16

Country, folk and rock-styled acoustic US singer-songwriter.

LOST IN FRANCE (ALEX KAPRANOS + STUART BRAITHWAITE + RM HUBBERT + EMMA POLLOCK + PAUL SAVAGE) O2 ABC, FROM 19:15, £14 - £16

A screening of Niall McCann’s 90s indie music scene film, followed by a live gig.

Wed 22 Feb LEANN RIMES

GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL, FROM 18:30, £25 - £45

The American country popstress hits the road to fight the moonlight, or summat. THE SADANISTAS (THE MIRROR TRAP + SAHARA)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £6 - £8

Punk and new wave rock’n’roll, straight outta the Valleys.

Thu 23 Feb

RYAN HAMILTON + CHRISSY BARNACLE

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £10

An acoustic evening with Ryan Hamilton and friends. Featuring stories and songs from the critically acclaimed Hell of a Day, and the highly anticipated new album from Ryan Hamilton & The Traitors. HELLIONS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 18:30, £7

KEEP ON MOVIN’ (BILL BREWSTER) (REBECCA VASMANT + PISTOLS AT DAWN)

Aussie hardcore band from Sydney.

JOYTOWN GRAND ELECTRIC THEATRE, FROM 21:00, £8

Headliner show from US horror band Wednesday 13.

A disco and house night – part of Glasgow Film Festival.

Sun 19 Feb HOPSIN

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £17.50

LA-based hip-hop rapper, producer, director and actor, aka Marcus Jamal Hopson to his mammy.

WEDNESDAY 13 (BOURBON CROW)

CATHOUSE, 19:00–22:00, £12.50 - £14

BUGZY MALONE (POLONIS + 2T + CHRISSY GRIMEZ + RANSOM FA + SHOGUN)

SUB CLUB, FROM 19:00, £18

The 24-year-old rapper continues his rise as one of the UK’s most promising new artists. WATCHFIRES (GHOST WRITER + HOWLING HOME)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:30, £7

JULIAN COPE

MODERN BASEBALL

English rock musician, author, antiquary, musicologist, poet and cultural commentator.

A band of rogues from Aberdeenshire who share a preference for loud rock with lucid melodies and a pop core.

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £6

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £10

L.A. trio comprising the achingly cool Sade, Irtita and Ellie. Punky rock on reverb overdrive. SWG3 GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £14

Witty emo-pop from the Philadelphia-based four-piece. NOVEMBER LIGHTS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £6.50

Bleeding elements of American pop and Americana, November Lights launch their debut EP ‘Talk’.

Fri 17 Feb AMBER RUN

QUEEN MARGARET UNION, FROM 19:00, £11

Rising young Nottingham quintet of the soft folk-rock variety. SUNDARA KARMA

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £11

Sundara means ‘beautiful’ in Sanskrit, and this quartet live up to their blissful name with some epic and anthemic indie rock, gaining comparisons from Arcade Fire to Bruce Springsteen. TEGAN AND SARA

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £22.50

Canadian indie rock duo keeping it in the family (they’re identical twin sisters) touring with their eighth studio album, Love You to Death. FUFANU

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 20:00, £6

Icelandic rock’n’roll with roots reaching out into techno, for your auditory pleasure. SLOTH METROPOLIS (CHRISSY BARNACLE + BIG HOGG)

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £23.50

POLO

Sounds like the result of putting Newton Faulkner, José González and OneRepublic in a blender. Make of that what you will.

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, TBC

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 20:30, £5 - £7

THE VIEW

The Dundee indie-pop scamps do their thing. Sold out.

WINTER SPRINGS (OLD BOHEMIA + GREGOR COLEMAN)

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:30, £5 - £7

A harmony-rich folk pop collective of singer-songwriters who formed back in 2012. DAVID LYNCH’S FACTORY PHOTOGRAPHS/LA JETEE

THE GLUE FACTORY, FROM 19:00, £12 - £14

Two of the most renowned experimental filmmakers David Lynch and Chris Marker’s work receive sonic responses from contemporary sound artists and composers. Part of GFF.

Mon 20 Feb

CHRISTY SCOTT (GREGOR KEACHIE)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £5

Indie-folk musician and vocalist hailing from Buckie, NE Scotland launches her new EP Amaranthine. TOUCHE AMORE

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £14

LA-based post-hardcore rock quintet, led by vocalist Jeremy Bolm.

MICHAEL CASSIDY (JAMIE MCAULAY + SINNY)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £5

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £10

YOU KNOW THE DRILL (JUNIOR)

Monday night pop punk party. SURVIVE

Paisley musician Michael Cassidy swings by for an eve of contemporary pop-folk.

Analog electro quartet

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £15

PET SHOP BOYS

ELISA

Multi-platinum Italian singer touring a new batch of songs. BURL (WENONOAH + CUCINA POVERA + AUTOBITCH + DOMESTIC EXILE)

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–00:00, £5

A combo show from three top Bristolian acts, local project Cucina Povera and Flying Duck’s fave label on the ones and twos. THE NEW FABIAN SOCIETY (ASIAN BABES + BLUEBIRDS + ANIMAL MOTHERS)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, TBC

Glaswegian post-industrial punk duo trading in loud, shambolic and frantic notes, balanced with the odd slow and euphoric moment.

BEN MONTEITH (CASEY LOWRY)

Trio comprising singer Kat Mchugh, synth player Luke Lount and drummer Dan Edgell, offering pop with hints of R'n'B and ethereal soundscapes.

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £5

Story-driven indie-folky-jazzy excellence hailing from our own fine shores.

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £6

THE ART SCHOOL, 19:00, £13.50

Tue 21 Feb CLYDE AUDITORIUM, FROM 18:30, £35 - £75

The electro-pop wonders play songs from their latest album, Super, and likely a gaggle of other hits from their 20+ year career. MARRY WATERSON & DAVID A JAYCOCK

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:30, £10

The acclaimed music of Marry Waterson is steeped in the English tradition. She’s teamed up with singer and guitarist David A. Jaycock to release a new record, Two Wolves on One Little Indian last year.

CEILIDH NIGHTS 3 (NATHANIAL GOW’S DANCE BAND)

Another installation in The Glad’s Ceilidh Nights, featuring dances and music from the first wave of Scottish country dancing in the late 1700s. Tonight, featuring Nathanial Gow’s Dance Band.

Fri 24 Feb

UNDO (CODIST + TERRAFRAID + KAPIL SESHASAYEE)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:00, £5

Glaswegian indie-punks releasing their debut album with support from poppy emo band Terrafraid. PINEGROVE

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £9.50

American indie group from New Jersey, whose debut LP, Cardinal, was released last year. HOME$LICE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, TBC

Melodic garage band playing a local show. THE LUCI BAINES BAND

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £8

Flushed with the success of a Christmas number 1 single in the UK vinyl 7” chart, The Luci Baines band play their first live show of 2017. RAINBROTHER

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:30, £5 - £7

Electronic folk-rock outfit featuring frontman Bjarke Bendtsen of The Migrant. SECRETARY

SWG3 GLASGOW, FROM 19:30, £14

A super-special GFF screening of The Secretary with Torture Garden performers and dancers, with a specially selected playlist. FEROCIOUS DOG

ST LUKE’S, FROM 19:00, £12.50

Have a jig to the punky folk and ska beats of Ferocious Dog.

Sat 25 Feb CABBAGE

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £10

Manchester-based five-piece serving up discordant post-punk. MAN & THE ECHO (SUGARMEN + PACTAMOS)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £9.50

Warrington group based around a vocalist who sounds not unlike Jarvis Cocker or Paul Heaton.

THE SKINNY

TELEMAN ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £14

Indie pop band Teleman embark on a February tour of the UK. PHOENE (LO KINDRE + MORKELBA + CUCINA POVERA)

Edinburgh Music

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 20:00, £6

Following her EP launch in October, French electro producer PHOENE returns to The Glad.

Wed 01 Feb

Sun 26 Feb

SUMMERHALL, 19:30–22:30, £7 - £10

BUSTED

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £29.50

Now that prodigal son Simpson’s returned, the pop-punk trio tour their new album, Night Driver. LADY LESHURR

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £12.50

Ultra bad ass rapper who quotes Adele and raps insults like “your lips looks like crispy bacon” in her tracks. Make of that what you will. POLAROID PEOPLE (OOKY + DOPESICKFLY)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £9

Badass Scottish R'n'B/grime with samples and trappy inclinations. SUNNY SENSE (JIM ORTON)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £4

Glasgow-based duo who fuse krautrock, experimental jazz, classical and a wee bit of pop to create a rich, multigenre sound.

DANIEL CAMPBELL (ERIN PONSONBY + GREGOR DOW) BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, TBC

The Glaswegian electronic producer who’s created a 30-track album at the age of 18 celebrates with pals playing a range of genres.

Mon 27 Feb KINGS OF LEON

THE SSE HYDRO, FROM 18:30, £45 - £65

Tennessee-hailing quartet made up of three brothers and a cousin, out and touring their latest LP offering of suitably stadium-sized and chantable choruses. JULIA JACKLIN

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.50

Aussie singer-songwriter crafting rich Americana. TOOTHLESS

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £8

Bombay Bicycle Club bassist, aka Ed Nash. YOUNGR (SONG OF KONG)

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £10

Rising producer, aka Dario Darnell. DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS (EYELIDS OR)

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £22.50

Alabama ass-whuppin’ southern rockers, traversing the line between juke joint stompers and soulful ballads. SO BELOW

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £6

New Zealand’s reigning queen of goth pop.

Tue 28 Feb LUKAS GRAHAM

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £20

Danish ghetto-pop group with Lukas Graham Forchhammer at the helm. SUM 41

BARROWLANDS, FROM 19:00, £22.50

The Canadian pop-punk group return with new album, 13 Voices. NOVELLA

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £8.50

UK quartet hit stages with new album Change of State. ST PROVIDENCE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £5

Three-piece from Glasgow, bringing the blues rock sounds.

COSMONAUTS (THE BELLYBUTTONS + LUSH PURR) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS , FROM 19:30, £8

Orange County band debit in Scotland, for lovers of lo-fi, adorers of the atmospheric and dream pop-loving spirits. JOSEFIN ÖHRN + THE LIBERATION

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £7

Swedish Grammy-nominated experimental and melodic pop.

EDINBURGH FOLK CLUB (THE FRIEL SISTERS)

Anna, Sheila and Clare Friel bring their infectious Donegal-rooted mix of flute, fiddle and pipes and songs to Summerhall.

Thu 02 Feb THE HAGGIS HORNS

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £15

The UK horn section return with their two-decade strong discography. DAVE ARCARI

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 20:00–23:00, £8

Talented blues rocker playing a mix of guitar-driven blues and trash country.

WHERE FIRES ARE (ATLAS EMPIRE + METRO MAFIA)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £5

Adrenaline-fuelled, emotionally charged alternative rock. A DAY OVERDUE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £5

Hooky and energetic Edinburghborn rock band. UNION J

LA BELLE ANGELE, 18:30–22:00, £22 - £55

The X-Factor boy band grace us with their presence. Joys. GEEK MAGGOT BINGO (LINES OF ZAHN + DR VZX MOIST)

TEVIOT UNDERGROUND, 21:00–00:15, FREE

High-energy, three-piece garage rock ‘n’ roll band with a thunderous sound and a reputation for wild, intense live performances.

Fri 03 Feb SKINDRED

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 19:00, £20

Longstanding Welsh rockers mixing heavy metal, alternative rock, punk rock and reggae into their mash-up mix. SARAH NEUFELD

SUMMERHALL, 20:00–23:00, £12

Sarah Neufeld is a violinist and composer based in Montréal, Canada, best known as a member of Arcade Fire and as a founding member of the acclaimed contemporary instrumental ensemble Bell Orchestre. THE EASTERN SWELL + STOOR + ST. CHRISTOPHER MEDAL

WEE RED BAR, FROM 19:00, £8

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £8 - £10

Musical brainchild of Oli Bayston, formerly of indie outfit Keith, taking his name from a Francis Bacon painting. CARLA DAL FORNO (NICK HERD)

PARADISE PALMS, 20:00–22:30, FREE

Synthy echoes, rattling rhythms and minimalist vocals are on the bill for tonight with Carla dal Forno. Support DJ set from Nick Herd of Braw Gigs. MERRIES (MIN DIESEL + FAITH ELIOTT + JARGO)

THE BANSHEE LABYRINTH, FROM 19:30, £5 - £6

Finnish indie-poppers playing Scotland for the first time. PAUL CARRACK

FESTIVAL THEATRE, FROM 19:30, £32.50 - £41

Sheffield-born singer, songwriter and former frontman of Ace, Squeeze, and Mike and The Mechanics.

Sun 05 Feb BIG THIEF (MEGA BOG)

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 19:30, £10.50

Acoustic folk-pop music with meat on its bones. THE SHERLOCKS (VIDA)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £9 - £11

Thu 09 Feb MARIO BIONDI

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £35

Italian soul and jazz singer who first came to worldwide attention in 2004 with This Is What You Are. ORANGE CLAW HAMMER

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 20:00–23:00, £3

The Scottish Captain Beefheartinspired band launch their first CD, entitled Cooks the Beef. SUSAN TOMES

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:30, £5 - £20

Multi award-winning pianist Susan Tomes indulges Queen’s Hall audiences in an evening of Debussy, Schubert and Beethoven.

THE CRUEL INTENTIONS (PSYCHOLIS + TANTRUM) BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £8 - £10

Uk debut for the ex-Vains Of Jenna frontman’s new sleaze outfit. STRANGE BONES+ BLACKWATERS)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £6

Heavy, down-tuned rock’n’roll. Like QOTSA swinging hard, or Band Of Skulls trashing their gear. Support from BlackWaters – snotty, angst-riddled indie punk. EARTHS

TEVIOT UNDERGROUND, FROM 20:00, FREE

A shoegazey sound with post-rock and indie pop elements.

Sheffield indie-rock unit made up of two sets of brothers.

Fri 10 Feb

LE MONDE, FROM 19:00, £8

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:30, £23.50 - £33.50

ROSIE SINGS: FACTS ABOUT ME!

An evening of song, stories and all round comedic banter from cabaret and musical theatre actress Rosie Houlton as she tells us about growing up in the circus, her journey from London to Edinburgh and why haggis feels so good in her mouth.

Tue 07 Feb

CHARLIE CUNNINGHAM, HAMISH HAWK (HAMISH HAWK)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £7.50

A class act singer-songwriter. The popularity of Charlie’s music is highlighted in over 4.7million Spotify plays across his three EPs and tens of thousands of views for his online sessions. CYMBALS EAT GUITARS (THE MINK STOLES + ANNIE BOOTH)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £9 - £11

THE CLASSIC ROCK SHOW

A live jukebox of classic rock sounds, from Eric Clapton and The Eagles to Led Zeppelin and ZZ Top. MARIO BIONDI

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, FREE

Italian soul and jazz singer who first came to worldwide attention in 2004 with This Is What You Are. SACRED PAWS (SPINNING COIN)

SUMMERHALL, FROM 20:00, £10

Glasgow/London-straddling duo with a capriciously rough-edged take on Afrobeat, tiger-striped with spidery guitar hooks and overlapping vocal shouts. RSNO TCHAIKOVSKY FOUR

USHER HALL, FROM 19:30, £12.50 - £39

Cornelius Meister conducts the RSNO in a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 4, along with works by Rachmaninov and Smetana.

A memorial concert in honour of Sir Alexander Gibson featuring a performance of Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending.

Band comprising singer and guitarist Joseph D’Agostino, bassist Whipple, keyboardist Brian Hamilton, and drummer Andy Dole, who’ve just crafted their most sonically enigmatic and rewarding album to date.

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:00, £25

Wed 08 Feb

Sat 11 Feb

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £17

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:00, £23.50 - £35

A triple heider at the Wee Red. RSNO THE LARK ASCENDING

USHER HALL, FROM 19:30, £12.50 - £39

CONOR OBERST

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

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £12 - £14

Brit rock trio with a rare father/ son line-up that seems to work for ‘em. KOBA PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £5

Pop / R'n'B act from Edinburgh aiming for Miguel’s crown.

Sat 04 Feb FUN LOVIN CRIMINALS

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:00, £28.50

Huey Lewis and his NYC hip-hop/ rock ensemble descend, hopefully minus the mug-smashing.

BEN WATT WITH REX HORAN

Ben Watt returns with a new stripped-back approach, performing on guitar and piano, accompanied only by doublebassist, Rex Horan. Expect songs and stories from Fever Dream and its award-winning predecessor Hendra and more. EDINBURGH FOLK CLUB (STEPHEN FEARING)

SUMMERHALL, 19:30–22:30, £7 - £10

Eagerly awaited, the first visit of Canadian singer-songwriter Stephen Fearing, with his brand new album Every Soul’s a Sailor in his travelling bag. ME FOR QUEEN

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:30, £10

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, TBC

Me for Queen, the piano based project of Mary Erskine is inspired by people and their stories, and the result of years of classical training and blues experience.

PROMISED LAND SOUND

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £12 - £15

CONTROL (RIOTS + HATEFUL + PANIC ATTAK)

Bit of Oi punk for ya.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £8

Nashville purveyors of febrile root-work psychedelia. Un-selfconscious classicists eager to anchor their songs in traditional forms while tearing at the edges of the vernacular. LOYLE CARNER

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £17.25

The MC from South London stops off with more stirring, confessional hip-hop.

February 2017

BOXED IN

MARCO MENDOZA

Legendary bass player of Whitesnake and Dead Daises returns for full solo show. EMME WOODS

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £5 - £7

Clackmannshire-based singersongwriter stops off in Edinburgh on her current UK tour. Support from Hinks & Lyre.

HIDDEN CHARMS (THE BAY RAYS)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £7

Strained, distinctive vocals that could be likened to any of rock and roll’s legends – a welcome breath of whiskeyed cigarette smoke. MADELEINE PEYROUX

The acclaimed American jazz singer, songwriter and guitarist takes to a live setting for a set of her reworked and contemporary classics. AYAKARA

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £7

Adrenaline groove for the soul – Ayakara bring passionate 21st century rock’n’roll to the stage. SERTRALINE

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £6 - £8

The melodic metal band return to promote new album, Thesis Lives. COLOUR CARNIVAL (THE DAN COLLINS BAND + CUTTINGS + BURNING BRIDGES)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £6

Good old local bill, headlined by Edinburghian alt rock outfit Colour Carnival. MONSTERS ON MOVIE POSTERS

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £5 - £7

Edinburgh-based alt indie rock, with support from Gus Harrower, the Number 9s and Metro Mafia.

DOPESICKFLY (DEVIL’S IN SKIRTS + POLAROID PEOPLE)

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, FROM 19:00, £5

Band formed in Glasgow in the summer of 2015, specialising in lyrically explosive fuck rock.

HEAVY SCOTLAND M I N D BATTLE 2017 STUDIO 24, FROM 18:30, £7 - £16

Studio 24 keeps things heavy with another battle of the bands heat.

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

ACE ELEMENTARY + RØME + LE BOMB LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, £5

Melodic Americana indie rock for fans of Weezer, Guided By Voices and Cheap Trick.

Sun 12 Feb BRY

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, FROM 19:00, £10

Irish singer-songwriter with a unique approach to life and a goal is to travel to (and perform in) every single country in the world. MADELEINE PEYROUX

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:00, £23.50 - £35

The acclaimed American jazz singer, songwriter and guitarist takes to a live setting for a set of her reworked and contemporary classics. THE NAKED AND FAMOUS

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 19:00, £17

Alternative fivesome hailing from New Zealand, who do a good line in getting NME’s pants in a twist. INDIGO VELVET

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £10

Young Tropical-pop quartet from Edinburgh who’re riding the wave of a breakthrough year. NAKED AND FAMOUS

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

Fri 17 Feb

EDINBURGH BLUES CLUB (INA FORSMAN) (DANIEL SMITH BLUES BAND)

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £13

Edinburgh Blues Club is a Social Enterprise established to harness popular support for a regular blues events in Edinburgh to ensure that the city, bringing in a roster of quality touring blues acts. RSNO:JÄRVI’S 80TH BIRTHDAY

USHER HALL, FROM 19:30, £12.50 - £39

Conductor Laureate Neeme Järvi is an RSNO icon with a global reputation. Tonight he celebrates his 80th birthday at Usher Hall. TIM KLIPHUIS SEXTET

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 20:00, £18.50

Acclaimed violinist Tim Kliphuis and his pals improvise on themes by Vivaldi, Bartok, Elligton, John McLaughlin and more.

TYLA’S DOGS D’AMOUR (WARRIOR SOUL + THE WANKERS +LOWDRIVE + PAPER BEATS ROCK)

JEFF SCOTT SOTO (BIGFOOT)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £15 - £18

The ex-Journey and Talisman forntman brings full band show to Bannerman’s.

Wed 15 Feb

FROGBELLY & SYMPHONY (SNIDE RHYTHMS + KAPIL)

WEE RED BAR, FROM 19:00, £5

International band comprising the many musical influences of members Thomas Hanley, Liz Hanley, Ben Trott, and Ray Rizzo. Expect a folky, rock’n’roll shindig. EDINBURGH FOLK CLUB (CALUM STEWART & HEIKKI BOURGAULT)

SUMMERHALL, 19:30–22:30, £7 - £10

Formed through an existing musical friendship and rooted in their respective traditions, Calum Stewart and Heikki Bourgault explore an interceltic link; marrying old melodies together with new in an inspiring, assertive and dynamic interplay. MENACE BEACH

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £7.50

The quite super Leeds grunge pop unit head out to air their new studio album, Lemon Memory, released on Memphis Industries. SERENDIPITY

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £5 - £7

Art and music mash-up night seeing LBA go back to its artistic roots. THE CHAINSMOKERS

CORN EXCHANGE, FROM 19:00, £16

American DJ duo who shot to stardom thanks to their selfiepositive attitude.

Thu 16 Feb

DODGY (WEIRD GUY AT THE BAR + THE ELLIES)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £15 - £18

The britpop trio play intimate show. LOU MCLEAN

SCOTTISH STORYTELLING CENTRE, 19:00–20:00, £5

Singer-songwriter who writes dream - pop with razor-sharp lyrics. Expect songs from her debut EP September to December.

SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:00, £20

Murder On The Dancefloor informant Ellis-Bextor returns with new album Familia. SOUNDHOUSE: THE FURROW COLLECTIVE

TRAVERSE THEATRE, FROM 20:00, £11

Alasdair Roberts, Emily Portman, Lucy Farrell and Rachel Newton are four fine soloists sharing a mutual love of traditional songs, from both sides of the English and Scottish borders, with playful, boundary-defying musicianship. SCOTT SORRY (ROLE MODELS + BILLY LIAR)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £8 - £10

Wed 22 Feb

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £6

THE EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE, FROM 19:00, £35 - £75

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £16.50

Tue 14 Feb

Mon 20 Feb

NOVEMBER LIGHTS (THE CARVELLES + TINYLITTLEROBOTS)

Mon 13 Feb

Continuing its weekly gig residency at Trav, Soundhouse welcomes The Society Syncopators Dance Orchestra, an 11 piece band who specialise in British and American dancing music from the twenties and thirties.

A feminist band who write song about their own experiences dealing with emotional abuse, unwanted groping and societal injustice.

Bass player of The Wildhearts, Sorry and The Sinatras makes a solo outing.

Bleeding elements of American pop and Americana, November Lights launch their debut EP ‘Talk’.

TRAVERSE THEATRE, FROM 20:00, £11

OI POLLOI LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £5 - £7

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £10 - £15

Two fine cult rock acts share the stage in an exclusive Bannerman’s event.

Kiwi five-piece who play thumping rocked-up synth-pop that distils the sound of MGMT at their most popular. SOUNDHOUSE: THE SOCIETY SYNCOPATORS

FISTYMUFFS SCOTTISH STORYTELLING CENTRE, 19:15–19:45, £3 - £5

KRS-ONE

KRS-One (born Kris Parker) was the leader of Boogie Down Productions, one of the most influential hardcore hip-hop outfits of the ‘80s. At the height of his career he was known for his furiously political raps, earning him the nickname The Teacher.

Sat 18 Feb JULIAN COPE

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 19:00, £23.50

English rock musician, author, antiquary, musicologist, poet and cultural commentator. JEFF FINLIN

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £12

US singer-songwriter with a distinctive gravelly voice.

LOVE EYED FACES (MOOJI BAND + FAT LIKE BUDDAH + ALEX MAXWELL) SNEAKY PETE’S, 20:00–23:00, £6

More local talent in a showcase at Sneaky’s. JULIAN COPE

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £26.25 - £29

English rock musician, author, antiquary, musicologist, poet and cultural commentator. THE DEAD SETTLERS

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, FROM 19:00, £5

Four piece indie-rock band based in Glasgow, influenced by the likes of Oasis, Kasabian, Arctic Monkeys and The Fratellis. BE CHARLOTTE

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £7.50 - £9.50

Be Charlotte’s songwriting prowess is beyond her 18 years and has taken her on several Transatlantic journeys from her hometown of Dundee, Scotland. Her singing voice is delightful, but she’s also rapper, beatboxer and general badass.

Sun 19 Feb JESSARAE

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, FROM 19:00, £12

London-based singer-songwriter from LA, who’s shared stages with the likes of Plain White Ts, Matt Corby and others.

PET SHOP BOYS

The electro-pop wonders play songs from their latest album, Super, and likely a gaggle of other hits from their 20+ year career. THE CHAINSMOKERS

CORN EXCHANGE, FROM 19:00, £16

American DJ duo who shot to stardom thanks to their selfiepositive attitude. EDINBURGH FOLK CLUB (RACHEL HAIR TRIO)

SUMMERHALL, 19:30–22:30, £7 - £10

Much-loved Scottish folk band The Rachel Hair Trio are renowned for their strong melodies, rootsy songs and majestic instrumental flair. DERELLAS

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £6 - £8

Punky, glitz-glam rockers make an overdue return to Bannermans.

Thu 23 Feb

SCO: RICHARD EGARR CONDUCTS MOZART

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:30, £11 - £32.50

An exploration of how Beethoven and Mozart were indivicually inspired by the keys of C major and C minor.

COURTESANS (PAINTING ROCKETS)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £8 - £10

The female twisted rock outfit return with their unique sound and show. START STATIC

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £5 - £7

Blend of indie, pop and rock hailing from Glasgow.

Fri 24 Feb

THE HANDSOME FAMILY

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00, £15

Musical collaboration between husband and wife duo Brett and Rennie Sparks – still making lovely Americana-styled alternative folk tunes after some 20 years together. RSNO JOHN WILLIAMS AND FRIENDS

USHER HALL, FROM 19:30, £17 - £35

The RSNO pay tribute to composer John Williams – y’know, he of the 21 Grammys, seven BAFTAs, five Oscars, four Golden Globes and three Emmys... and the Jaws theme tune!

Veteren anarcho punks bring their ‘anti-fascist, post-oi and progressive anarcho-streetcrust’ to LBA. THE HUNGRY GHOSTS (FIGHT ROBOTS! FIGHT + DRAW CREATURES MASK)

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, 19:00–22:00, £6

The Hungry Ghosts make slaughterhouse blues and trash country, music from the other side of the fence. 47SOUL (SAMEDIA + AWRY + BEASTIE DRUMMERS) STUDIO 24, FROM 22:00, £9 - £13

Knockengorroch presents a top bill of World Ceildh festival favourites. MONTICULE

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £5

Edinburgh born trio Monticule can’t really be pinned down, but if you were to say ‘soulful-bluesycountry-rock’ you wouldn’t be wrong. Their unique style has drawn comparisons to the likes of The Black Keys and Alabama Shakes.

Sat 25 Feb BUSTED

USHER HALL, FROM 19:00, £29.50

Now that prodigal son Simpson's returned, the pop-punk trio tour their new album, Night Driver. CATHOLIC ACTION

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 19:00, £7

After sauntering round the UK’s festivals, Catholic Action swing by for a performance of new material released on Luv Luv Luv records. SCOTTISH NATIONAL JAZZ ORCHESTRA: MANCINI & MANDEL

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:30, £5 - £23

SNJO enlist award-winning vibraphonist Joe Locke to perform the songbooks of Mancini and Mandel. VINCE RIPPER & THE RODENT SHOW

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £7 - £9

Ex-Alien Sex Fiend man Ratty is back with his horror punk/new wave sound. WILLE & THE BANDITS (WILLE & THE BANDITS)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £10

Having toured their unique brand of roots rock with the likes of Deep Purple, Joe Bonamassa, The John Butler Trio and Status Quo, Wille and the Bandits are now proudly touring their brand new, critically acclaimed album Breakfree.

MR MCFALL’S CHAMBER (MCFALLS + DOMINIC WAXING LYRICAL + ABERFELDY)

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

Guests Peter Whelan, Alec FrankGemmill and Graeme McNaught, play with cult rock bands Aberfeldy and Dominic Waxing Lyrical. Programme opened by duo The Jellyman’s Daughter.

HEAVY SCOTLAND M I N D BATTLE 2017 STUDIO 24, FROM 18:30, £7 - £16

Studio 24 keeps things heavy with another battle of the bands heat. STEVIE PARKER (SKJØR + SCREAMIN’ WHISPER)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £6 - £8

Within the stunning voice of Stevie Parker’s are echoes of Channy Leaneagh and the xx. Her music is stark, atmospheric pop. UNDO (TERRAFRAID)

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, FROM 19:30, £4 - £5

Glaswegian indie-punks releasing their debut album with support from poppy emo band Terrafraid.

SIOBHAN MILLER (LOUIS ABBOTT + KRIS DEVER + AARON JONES + EUAN BARTON + TOM GIBBS + MEGAN HENDERSON)

Sun 26 Feb

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 17:00, £11.50 - £16.50

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 20:00, £17

KOSSOFF: THE BAND PLAYS ON

Double Scots Trad Award-winning vocalist Siobhan Miller launches her second album, with help from pals.

Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin and conductor Ilan Volkov join forces with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra for a performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.2.

VARSITY VOCALS

A load of vocalist hopefuls assemble in the quarter finals of an international a capella championships.

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £15 - £18

Terry Slesser pays homage to his former Back Street Crawler bandmate Paul Kossoff. INDIGO SIXTEEN, (THE MAWB + GRACEFELL)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £5

Indigo Sixteen have been making serious waves with a string of attention-grabbing live shows featuring their sparky mix of cranked-up indie rock. Think Joy Division, Miles Kane and Blondie at their sharpest.

CHOOSE RUDE #2: THE BEGBIES, (MOONLIGHT ZOO) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £10

The Begbies are a seven-piece ska-inspired indie band from West Lothian. After a show at the famous Barrowlands, the venue labelled them ‘The Kings Of Skindie’. See for yourself.

BBC SSO RACHMANINOV PIANO CONCERTO NO.2

USHER HALL, FROM 14:00, £13 - £29

STEVIE CREE

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £5 - £7

Edinburgh-based hip-hop, dance and soul on a Sunday night at LBA. MULTICOLOURED MINDS (EDWIN MORGAN) (GLASSMASTERER + MISTI)

PARADISE PALMS, 21:00–01:00, FREE

Multicoloured Minds return with another showcase of the finest in local live music production and performance.

Listings

MESH (SODAPOP + BIZARRE SILK + NAE KID + JAMBOUREE) STUDIO 24, FROM 20:00, £6 - £8

A night exploring the sounds of progressive frequencies, dad rock, original music, and high energy jazz and funk improvisation.

Mon 27 Feb BARBARA DICKSON

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:30, £30

The folk songstress-cum-actor performs songs from her back catalogue. SOUNDHOUSE: RANT

TRAVERSE THEATRE, FROM 20:00, £8.50 - £16.50

Multi award-winner Kieran Hurley uses storytelling to weave the multifaceted tale of a world nearing destruction.

Dundee Music Wed 01 Feb

A VIENNESE STRAUSS GALA

CAIRD HALL, FROM 19:30, £22 - £24

A glamorous affair harkening back to the romance of the Viennese Festive season

Thu 02 Feb THE SHERLOCKS

BUSKERS, FROM 19:00, £9

Sheffield indie-rock unit made up of two sets of brothers.

Sat 04 Feb

CHINESE NEW YEAR GALA

CAIRD HALL, FROM 19:00, £10

An eve of singing and dancing in celebration of Chinese New Year at Caird Hall.

Fri 10 Feb

SERENITY CAME CALLING (BLACK BLOOD + SONOROUS + DEAD LABEL +CATALYSIS) BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, FROM 20:00, £5

The five-piece metalcore band embark on their By Any Means tour with support.

Sat 11 Feb

RSNO TCHAIKOVSKY FOUR

CAIRD HALL, FROM 19:30, £14 - £18.50

Cornelius Meister conducts the RSNO in a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 4, along with works by Rachmaninov and Smetana.

Sun 12 Feb

THE CLASSIC ROCK SHOW

CAIRD HALL, FROM 19:30, £23.50 - £33.50

A live juke box of classic rock sounds, from Eric Clapton and The Eagles to Led Zeppelin and ZZ Top.

Tue 14 Feb PIATTI QUARTET

MARRYAT HALL, FROM 19:30, £14

The award-winning quartet pay a trip to Dundee’s Marryat Hall. THE SONGS OF MANCINI & MANDEL

THE GARDYNE THEATRE, 19:30–22:00, £19.25

Vibraphonist Joe Locke and vocalist Kenny Washington join the SNJO in an evening of Mancini and Mandel, including the likes of Moon River, Pink Panther and Shadow of Your Smile.

Fri 17 Feb NEON WALTZ

BUSKERS, FROM 20:00, £6

Alternative six-piece from John O’Groats, hotly tipped for 2017.

Fri 24 Feb

AYAKARA (THE UN-ROMANTICS + NOAH NOAH)

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, FROM 20:00, £5

Adrenaline groove for the soul – Ayakara bring passionate 21st century rock’n’roll to the stage.

Sun 26 Feb RSNO: JOHN WILLIAMS

CAIRD HALL, FROM 15:00, £15 - £25

Richard Kaufman directs the RSNO in a performance of the music of famed soundtrack composer John Williams, who brought us the underscores for Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Saving Private Ryan and Star Wars.

Glasgow Clubs Wed 01 Feb KILLER KITSCH

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Eclectic midweeker playing the best in house, techno and electronic – or, in their words ‘casually ignoring shite requests since 2005’. LIGHTS OUT

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

Italo disco, funky house and detroit techno. OPTIC

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, TBC

The new monthly Wednesday night jaunt continues with a second installment.

Thu 02 Feb HIP HOP THURSDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Euan Neilson plays the best in classic R'n'B and hip-hop. ELEMENT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, TBC

Ross McMillan plays chart, house and anthems with giveaways, bouncy castles and, most importantly, air hockey. JELLY BABY

O2 ABC, 23:00, £5

Thursday nighter of chart, disco and party tunes. UNHOLY

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2 - £4

Cathouse’s Thursday night rock, metal and punk mash-up.

BASSMENT (DOMENIC CAPPELLO) (BOOM MERCHANT + QUAIL) LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, FROM 20:00, £6

Imagine the fruits of The Vaselines listening to Lightning Bolt and you’re halfway there. An intensely chaotic sound that wraps sheer pop song writing in Melvins-esque fuzz; a kiss and a punch.

HARDCORE HEAVEN SCOTLAND

CLASSIC GRAND, 21:00–03:00, £22 - £40

Hardcore Heaven touches down in Glasgow with an official album launch party. BD009: BODY FT. LAURINE

STEREO, FROM 23:00, £7

After a wee break, Body’s back, bringing in revered DJ and master of obscure, dancey electronic music.

FEEL MY BICEP (BICEP + JOB JOBSE + TIM SWEENER + RYAN ELLIOT + SHED + HAMMER + JANE FITZ + THUNDER DISCO) SWG3 GLASGOW, FROM 22:00, £18

Cosmic and sweaty mix of 80s sleaze, house and disco.

Sat 04 Feb NU SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £7

Nick Peacock spins a Saturdayready selection of vintage disco, soul and funk. CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

Or Caturdays, if you will. Two levels of the loudest, maddest music the DJs can muster; metal, rock and alt on floor one, and punky screamo upstairs. LOVE MUSIC

O2 ABC, 23:00, £5

Saturday night disco manned by your man Gerry Lyons and guests. THE ROCK SHOP

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, £3 - £5

BROADCAST, FROM 23:00, FREE

HARSH TUG

AVALANCHE PARTY (BLUEBIRDS + RASCALTON + BABY STRANGE)

The launch of Control Social Club’s late night series, featuring a Scottish debut from Avalanche Party.

WALK N SKANK (NIGHTWAVE) (MUNGO’S HI FI + STALAWA + MC TOM SPIRALS )

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

A weekly club night focused on reggae, dancehall and bass music.

Fri 03 Feb OLD SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £7

CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

Screamy, shouty, post-hardcore madness to help you shake off a week of stress in true punk style. JAMMING FRIDAYS

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to 00s with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez. PROPAGANDA

O2 ABC, 23:00, £5

Clubber's favourite of indie classics and baggy greats. GLITTERBANG

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £0 - £3

Listings

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6

Riccardo has just dropped his new Night Portrait EP on Chicago’s Still Music imprint and has new mini-LP, Meditterranea. In addition to being a dope producer, he is a voracious collector of records. This is Riccardo’s first visit to Scotland.

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney.

Exactly what it says on its sparkly tin – a dazzling night of disco Europop.

JELLY ROLL SOUL (RICCARDO SCHIRO)

Bassment welcome Seventh Sign label boss, Subulture and Subclub resident Domenic Cappello. He is considered one of the best DJs in the city and with good reason.

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

PINACT

Dance, chart and remixes in the main hall with Craig Guild, while DJ Nicola Walker keeps things nostalgic in G2 with flashback bangers galore.

Party-chuckers Lunacy return for their first parties of 2017.

WHITEHALL THEATRE, FROM 19:30, £12

Thu 23 Feb

FRESH BEAT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £6

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, £8 - £10

Sat 18 Feb A night of live Scottish contemporary music and dance featuring Gleadraich.

WTF FRIDAYS SHED, 22:30–03:00, £4 - £6

Student-friendly Friday night party, playing (as one might expect) cheesy classics of every hue.

LUNACY (JOHN HECKLE + LINKWOOD)

Connoisseur’s mix of old-school jazz, funk and soul for your jivin’ pleasure.

CELTIC STORM

Glasgow Clubs

SUPERMAX (DJ BILLY WOODS)

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, TBC

DJ Billy Woods – from start to finish, open to close.

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £0 - £3

Hip-hop and rap brought to you by Notorious B.A.G and pals.

SHOOT YOUR SHOT (LEZZER QUEST + MI$$ CO$MIX + RIBEKA)

SWG3 GLASGOW, FROM 21:00, £5

SUBCULTURE (FRANÇOIS K) SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, TBC

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic manning the decks, joined by French star of the underground, François K. BEN NICKY

SWG3 GLASGOW, FROM 21:00, TBC

Ben Nicky stirs up the trance at the Warehouse.

As scientific as a club filled with tipsy Sunday night partiers can get, really. LED lights, glow in the dark wands, ‘Science’ cocktails and cannons. Unlikely to instigate any eureka moments, but it’ll do.

Mon 06 Feb BARE MONDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £4

Lasers, bouncy castles and DJ Gav Somerville spinning out teasers and pleasers. Nice way to kick off the week, no? BURN MONDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Long-running trade night with Normski and Mash spinning the disco beats.

Tue 07 Feb SOULJAM

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £6

One of the UK’s premier touring soul, funk and disco parties, currently bringing the best in boogie to thousands of students every month. #TAG TUESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £4

Indoor hot tubs, inflatables as far as the eye can see and a Twitter feed dedicated to validating your drunk-eyed existence. I AM (BETA & KAPPA)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £10

Residents Beta & Kappa take control all night long.

Wed 08 Feb KILLER KITSCH

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Eclectic midweeker playing the best in house, techno and electronic – or, in their words ‘casually ignoring shite requests since 2005’. BREEZY AT SLEAZYS

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

Non-stop party house and techno stompers!

HAIKU (CREEP WOLAND + BUSHIDO + HEERAH B2B FAROH + GRT WSTRN)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £4

Creep Woland, Bushido, Heerah, Faroh and Grt Western bless La Cheetah’s dancefloor with garage, R'n'B, grime and jungle heaters.

Thu 09 Feb HIP HOP THURSDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Euan Neilson plays the best in classic R'n'B and hip-hop. ELEMENT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, TBC

JELLY BABY

Thursday nighter of chart, disco and party tunes.

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £7

Romeo Taylor gets on the ones at Sleazy’s for a midweek disco.

The Numbers crew invite eclectic Norwegian musician DJ Sotofett and Natalie for a night of genrehopping.

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £7

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

Glasgow’s original vintage night moves to the first Saturday of every month. Resident Mr Divine spins an all-vinyl blend of northern soul, deep funk, sixties psych, dynamite ska and scorching latin.

NUMBERS (DJ SOTOFETT) (NATALIE)

OLD SKOOL

SUNDAY SCIENCE

O2 ABC, 23:00, £5

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, TBC

Fri 10 Feb

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £4

THE ADMIRAL, FROM 23:00, £4 - £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.

A weekly club night focused on reggae, dancehall and bass music.

Sun 05 Feb

Ross McMillan plays chart, house and anthems with giveaways, bouncy castles and, most importantly, air hockey.

I LOVE GARAGE

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Connoisseur’s mix of old-school jazz, funk and soul for your jivin’ pleasure.

A self-confessed ‘jamboree of incandescent nonsense’, with Bonzai Bonner and Anna Gram as Lezzer Quest among others picking out your party soundtrack, plus visual art from James Peter. DIVINE (HOLLY CALDER)

WAK N SKANK (SAMSON SOUNDS) (MUNGO’S HI FI + STALAWA + MC TOM SPIRALS )

UNHOLY

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2 - £4

Cathouse’s Thursday night rock, metal and punk mash-up. KEEP FIT (ROMEO TAYLOR)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

ELECTRIC SALSA (TADEO)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £7

CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

Screamy, shouty, post-hardcore madness to help you shake off a week of stress in true punk style. JAMMING FRIDAYS

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to 00s with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez. PROPAGANDA

O2 ABC, 23:00, £5

Clubber's favourite of indie classics and baggy greats. WTF FRIDAYS

SHED, 22:30–03:00, £4 - £6

Student-friendly Friday night party, playing (as one might expect) cheesy classics of every hue. FRESH BEAT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £6

Dance, chart and remixes in the main hall with Craig Guild, while DJ Nicola Walker keeps things nostalgic in G2 with flashback bangers galore. FORMAL INVOCATION

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

Goth, post-punk, EBM, synth, coldwave, house, noise and disco. Aaaand breathe.

LA CHEETAH CLUB X KUNST (VARONICA VASICKA + DOM D’SYLVA + KRIS BELL) LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £8 - £10

Veronica Vasicka. Through her unearthing and reissuing forgotten music (electronic, disco / post punk movements and 80s cassette material) and her exceptional dance floor tracks released via Cititrax, she’s proven herself to have an exciting, unique ear.

CAPRI COLLECTIVE (FORT ROMEAU) (FORT ROMEAU) THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, TBC

Consistently brilliant producer Fort Romaue stops by The Berkeley Suite to give a lesson in house music. JILTED

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £5

Subcity Radio descend on the Vic Bar at the Art School to see what love really has to do with it. Kickstarting the Valentine’s experience for those who can’t wait, and those that never want it to happen.

Sat 11 Feb NU SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £7

Nick Peacock spins a Saturdayready selection of vintage disco, soul and funk. CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

Or Caturdays, if you will. Two levels of the loudest, maddest music the DJs can muster; metal, rock and alt on floor one, and punky screamo upstairs. LOVE MUSIC

O2 ABC, 23:00, £5

Saturday night disco manned by your man Gerry Lyons and guests. THE ROCK SHOP

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney. BALKANARAMA (BAGHDADDIES + EL GADZÉ)

THE ART SCHOOL, 22:30–03:00, £9 - £10

All singing, all dancing Balkan orgy, plus belly dancing and free brandy. SINGLES NIGHT

Tadeo’s daring experiments in both studio and the club have already earned him a signature sound within the underground techno scene.

Pop, disco and rock action at Sleazy’s Singles Night.

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £12

Glasgow’s burlesque star teasers host the Dundee edition of their favourited raunchy cabaret club.

SHOW X SOLARDO SESSIONS

House and techno duo Solardo (known respectivelty as MRK1 and James Elliot) make a stop by at Subbie with SHOW.

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £0 - £3

CLUB NOIR

SWG3 GLASGOW, FROM 21:00, £16

WE SHOULD HANG OUT MORE LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5

Messrs. Panther and Tops take to the turntables with more fresh and classic releases from the worlds of funk, disco, house and electro than you can shake a stick at. I LOVE GARAGE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £7

SUBCULTURE X DJ MAG SESSIONS (MR G LIVE + HARRI & DOMENIC) SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £8 - £10

Monthly night from Soma Records taking in popular techno offerings of all hues, with guest Milton Bradley bringing his dystopian, industrial sound to the decks.

FENIX (ORSON WELLS) (J WALBAUM & AM) THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £8

Fenix welcomes Robert Johnson resident and Live at Robert Johnson contributer Orson Wells for a Scottish debut. KANYE, ALL NIGHT LONG

SWG3 GLASGOW, FROM 22:00, £5 - £8

D’you like the new Kanye? D’you miss the old Kanye? D’you love Kanye as much as Kanye loves Kanye? Prove it at SWG3’s celebration of Yeezy, with originals, samples, features and acts all linked to the man himself.

Wed 15 Feb KILLER KITSCH

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Eclectic midweeker playing the best in house, techno and electronic – or, in their words ‘casually ignoring shite requests since 2005’. NOT MOVING

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

Golden Teacher and Dick 50 DJs spinning outer-national sounds.

SILVER DOLLAR CLUB (KRIS BELL + RIBEKA) LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3

Silver Dollar Club welcome TRP, mysterious pusher of broken-beat acid techno. With prior releases on Lobster Theremin and an new EP with UTTU on the way, this one isn’t to be missed.

Thu 16 Feb HIP HOP THURSDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Euan Neilson plays the best in classic R'n'B and hip-hop. ELEMENT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, TBC

Ross McMillan plays chart, house and anthems with giveaways, bouncy castles and, most importantly, air hockey. JELLY BABY

O2 ABC, 23:00, £5

Thursday nighter of chart, disco and party tunes. UNHOLY

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2 - £4

Cathouse’s Thursday night rock, metal and punk mash-up.

SYMBIOSIS (DARK SKIES) (LD50 + EIGHTH MOON + DJ ALCANE + CALACO JACK)

STEREOTONE: 2ND BITHDAY (WHEELMAN)

AUDIO, FROM 23:00, FREE

It’s Stereotone’s second birthday, so it seems only fair that they celebrate by bringing in Wheelman will be playing all night long.

A night of jungle and drum and bass at Glasgow’s Audio.

Sun 12 Feb SUNDAY SCIENCE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £4

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £10 - £15

I AM welcome electro pioneers Boys Noize to the Sub Club DO YO’ THING

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £0 - £3

Disco and funk all night long. Long live the sunday sesh.

Mon 13 Feb BARE MONDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £4

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

VICIOUS CREATURES (BEN PEARCE) (LÁRUS) SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £8

Fledgling party night intent on breaking free from the chains of normality (aka expect the unexpected).

12 HOUR MUSIC CYCLE (BECKY MARSHALL + HAUSFRAU + WEST PRINCES +TORSTEN LAUCHMAN + LACHLANN MCFEELY BOLT + HORSE WHISPERER) THE ART SCHOOL, 15:00–03:00, £3

A 12 hour music cycle from the city that sleeps with one eye open. NKISI

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, FREE

NON, the label founded by Nkisi is a collective of African artists, and of the diaspora, using sound as their primary media to articulate the visible and invisible structures that create binaries in society, and in turn distribute power.

Lasers, bouncy castles and DJ Gav Somerville spinning out teasers and pleasers. Nice way to kick off the week, no?

WALK N SKANK (SUBACTIVE) (MUNGO’S HI FI + STALAWA + MC TOM SPIRALS )

BUFF CLUB, FROM 23:00, TBC

A weekly club night focused on reggae, dancehall and bass music.

MOTIVATION

Race into the week with Buff Club’s new Monday night monthly, playing house and dance classics from the 80s, 90s and 00s.

Tue 14 Feb

I AM (DENIS SULTA) (BETA & KAPPA)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4 - £15

Golden boy Denis Sulta pops into Subbie to lay down the law at what’s apparently his favourite night in town. #TAG TUESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £4

Indoor hot tubs, inflatables as far as the eye can see and a Twitter feed dedicated to validating your drunk-eyed existence.

LOVE WILL TEAR YOU APART AGAIN (GERRY LYONS) NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 20:00–00:00, FREE

Take yourself to Sleazy’s for the perfect alternative Valentine’s night; quiz from 6.30pm, dancing from 8pm. BLEEDING HEARTS (JD TWITCH)

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £4 - £5

Share the love this Valentine’s with Bleeding Hearts – a night of dancing with JD Twitch and guests, raising money for homeless charity Emmaus. DARK0 & MM.

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £7 - £9

Dark0 provides an ecstatic vision of grime for the future – he plays his Scottish show tonight at The Art School.

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Fri 17 Feb CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

Screamy, shouty, post-hardcore madness to help you shake off a week of stress in true punk style.

FRESH BEAT THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £6

Dance, chart and remixes in the main hall with Craig Guild, while DJ Nicola Walker keeps things nostalgic in G2 with flashback bangers galore. HOT HOUSE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £0 - £3

Cat Reilly spins the best in joyous party magic. YELLOW DOOR

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, TBC

A night of contemporary classics, unheard of gems and well-kent belters, all for your general dancing pleasure, natch. ANIMAL FARM (CLERIC & RYAN JAMES FORD)

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £12

Another serving of doubled up techno, with Cleric and a Scottish debut from James Ford. I WANNA BE YOUR LOVER

BUFF CLUB, FROM 23:00, £6

Buff Club continues its monthly musical special with a tribute to Prince.

Sat 18 Feb NU SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £7

Nick Peacock spins a Saturdayready selection of vintage disco, soul and funk. CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

Or Caturdays, if you will. Two levels of the loudest, maddest music the DJs can muster; metal, rock and alt on floor one, and punky screamo upstairs. LOVE MUSIC

O2 ABC, 23:00, £5

Saturday night disco manned by your man Gerry Lyons and guests. THE ROCK SHOP

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney. NIGHTRAVE (NATALIE + MOTHER + DAVE SHADES)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5

Nightwave debuts her live show for the first time in Scotland and is supported by a host of some of Glasgow’s finest selectors. LANCE VANCE DANCE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £0 - £3

Multi-hued adventure travelling through 70s funk, motown and 80s R'n'B, highlighted with glorious rays of disco sunshine. Or summat. MALLORCA LEE

CLASSIC GRAND, FROM 22:00, £15

2001 returns to Classic Grand with a trunk fulla trance anthems. I LOVE GARAGE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £7

Sun 19 Feb SUNDAY SCIENCE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £4

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to 00s with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez.

SWG3 GLASGOW, FROM 22:00, £15 - £18

BARRAS ART AND DESIGN, 18:00, £14

JAMMING FRIDAYS

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, £3 - £5

DUSKY

RAVING IRAN

The rising stars, Beatport charttoppers, Radio 1 darlings and allround club smash brothers stage a deck takeover, with support from a plethora of house and techno DJs.

A one-off film event in association with Sub Hub. The screening will be accompanied by Iranian street food inspired by some of the best Persian chefs working in Scotland.

O2 ABC, 23:00, £5

Mon 20 Feb

WTF FRIDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £4

PROPAGANDA

Clubber's favourite of indie classics and baggy greats.

BARE MONDAYS

Student-friendly Friday night party, playing (as one might expect) cheesy classics of every hue.

Lasers, bouncy castles and DJ Gav Somerville spinning out teasers and pleasers. Nice way to kick off the week, no?

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £6

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

SHED, 22:30–03:00, £4 - £6

RHYTHM MACHINE

Rhythm Machine presents a night of evergreen concrete dance music and nocturnal performance art in collaboration with The Art School’s Activites Week.

BURN MONDAYS

Long-running trade night with Normski and Mash spinning the disco beats.

PARTIAL (INTERSTELLAR FUNK)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £8

Partial bring in Interstellar Funk for a Friday night banger.

THE SKINNY

Tue 21 Feb #TAG TUESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £4

Indoor hot tubs, inflatables as far as the eye can see and a Twitter feed dedicated to validating your drunk-eyed existence. I AM (BETA & KAPPA) (BETA & KAPPA)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £5

Residents Beta & Kappa take control all night long.

Wed 22 Feb KILLER KITSCH

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Eclectic midweeker playing the best in house, techno and electronic – or, in their words ‘casually ignoring shite requests since 2005’. DRUGSTORE GLAMOUR

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

Trashy, tacky, glamorous and ridiculous. Oh, and fun, too. Very fun.

Thu 23 Feb HIP HOP THURSDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Euan Neilson plays the best in classic R'n'B and hip-hop. ELEMENT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, TBC

Ross McMillan plays chart, house and anthems with giveaways, bouncy castles and, most importantly, air hockey. UNHOLY

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2 - £4

Cathouse’s Thursday night rock, metal and punk mash-up. JELLY BABY

O2 ABC, 23:00, £5

Thursday nighter of chart, disco and party tunes. BREAKFAST CLUB

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

SILVER DOLLAR CLUB (TRP) THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, TBC

Silver Dollar Club welcome TRP, mysterious pusher of broken-beat acid techno. With prior releases on Lobster Theremin and an new EP with UTTU on the way, this one isn’t to be missed. ULTIMATE BELTERS (DJ TEACHERZ)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £0 - £3

Suzie Rodden melts the ego and burns the flag of inhibitions. BASEMENT JAXX DJ SET

SWG3 GLASGOW, FROM 22:00, £15 - £25.50

Electronic dance duo from London, made up of Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe, out embarking on a long ol’ tour of the UK venues and the upcoming festival season.

Sat 25 Feb NU SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £7

Nick Peacock spins a Saturdayready selection of vintage disco, soul and funk. CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

Or Caturdays, if you will. Two levels of the loudest, maddest music the DJs can muster; metal, rock and alt on floor one, and punky screamo upstairs. LOVE MUSIC

O2 ABC, 23:00, £5

Saturday night disco manned by your man Gerry Lyons and guests. THE ROCK SHOP

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney.

DIXON AVENUE BASEMENT JAMS (CLIFF LOTHAR + DIXON AVENUE BASMENT JAMS) LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £10

H&P celebrates its 10th anniversary with a series of shows in London and Glasgow, kicking things off at The Art School.

WALK N SKANK (MUNGO’S HI FI) (MUNGO’S HI FI + STALAWA + MC TOM SPIRALS )

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

A weekly club night focused on reggae, dancehall and bass music.

Fri 24 Feb OLD SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £7

Connoisseur’s mix of old-school jazz, funk and soul for your jivin’ pleasure. CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

Screamy, shouty, post-hardcore madness to help you shake off a week of stress in true punk style. JAMMING FRIDAYS

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to 00s with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez. EZUP

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, TBC

GENERAL LUDD ( MELLOWDRAMATICS + FERGUS CLARKE)

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £7

General Ludd, part of Glasgow collective Golden Teacher play a show at The Art School. SHAKA LOVES YOU

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

Hip-hop and live percussion flanked by wicked visuals. I LOVE GARAGE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £7

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, TBC

The total enigma that this night is, no info about the performer will be released before the night. Trust. KANYE, ALL NIGHT LONG

SWG3 GLASGOW, FROM 22:00, £8

Kicking off their 2017 residency in La Cheetah Club, DABJ have invited the superb Cliff Lothar to play live. Involved in the early Cybernetic Broadcasting System scene, his live set is notorious; soothing and suprising every time.

THE club night for those in their 40s and 50s who claim they don’t go out anymore. You do now. (To this.) A ‘pre-request’ early club night where you choose the tunes.

O2 ABC, 23:00, £5

SUNDAY SCIENCE

PROPAGANDA

Clubber's favourite of indie classics and baggy greats.

BUFF CLUB, 19:00–23:00, FREE

Sun 26 Feb THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £4

FRESH BEAT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £6

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £10

WTF FRIDAYS

SHED, 22:30–03:00, £4 - £6

Student-friendly Friday night party, playing (as one might expect) cheesy classics of every hue.

BURN MONDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Long-running trade night with Normski and Mash spinning the disco beats.

Tue 28 Feb I AM (JD TWITCH)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £5

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa welcome one half of Optimo, Mr JD Twitch, to join ‘em on deck duties. #TAG TUESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £4

Indoor hot tubs, inflatables as far as the eye can see and a Twitter feed dedicated to validating your drunk-eyed existence.

Edinburgh Clubs Wed 01 Feb COOKIE

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Resident midweek student rammy of chart, club and electro hits.

WITNESS (ROSS BLACKWAX + FAULT LINES + SKILLIS + SQUELCHY)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £2

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £17

Long-running house night with Telford and German deep house veteran Henrik Schwarz.

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £10

Lasers, bouncy castles and DJ Gav Somerville spinning out teasers and pleasers. Nice way to kick off the week, no?

Hella fun midweek throwdown playing soul, funk, jazz, ska, disco and more.

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3

HUNTLEYS & PALMERS IS 10 (BEN UFO + LENA WILLIKENS + SAPHIRE SLOWS)

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £4

House, garage and bass adventures with Blackwax and Faultlines.

SUBCULTURE (HENRIK SCHWARZ) (TELFORD)

All Night Passion’s discotheque takes you on a journey through disco, love and magic. All profits donated to the Drumchapel Food Bank.

BARE MONDAYS

DABJ are the sound of house and raw techno in Glasgow right now. Get involved at La Cheets.

Gerry Lyons delivers 80s and 90s pop and rock hits. ALL NIGHT PASSION

Mon 27 Feb

EATS EVERYTHING

LOCO KAMANCHI

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £4 - £5

Thu 02 Feb

JUICE (KA MI + DAN JUICE + DECLAN)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £2

Dan, Declan and Kami make weird waves through house and techno. HI-SOCIETY

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Early weekend-welcoming (y’know, for students) chart anthems, bolstered by hip-hop, R'n'B and urban in the back room. BELLY BELLY (SUNSHIP)

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £10

UK Garage extraordinaire Sunship graces our ears with a belter of a two-hour set.

Fri 03 Feb PLANET EARTH

CITRUS CLUB, 23:30–03:00, £5

Distinctly retro selections from 1960 to 1999, moving from Abba to ZZ Top.

Edinburgh Clubs FRACTAL CLUB (SAOIRSE) (HI + SABERHÄGEN) SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £8 - £10

Frequenter of Fabric, Loud BCN, Output New York, The Zoo Project Ibiza, Toi Toi, Art Of Dark, Half Baked & Corsica Studios Saoirse plays Sneaks with support from residents and rising Edinburgh duo Hi & Saberhägen.

Find Your Rhythm launch night with Craig Smith and The Revenge (6th Borough Project). Think local selectors, quality house and techno, consistency and big things to come.

LA BELLE ANGELE, 22:00–03:00, £5 - £10

Sun 05 Feb

IVI STUDENT DJ COMPETITION

From the creators of the Nice and Spicy Festival IVI’s back with their annual Student DJ Competiton. Cash prize of £500 for the DJ that receives the most votes from you the crowd. Get your tickets early. FLY: 4TH BIRTHDAY PT. I (MODA BLACK)

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £7 - £10

Happy FLY Birthday! Four special parties to celebrate four special years at Cab Vol. First up:the Moda Black crew – ‘forward-thinking music that sparks the imagination’.

JUNGLISM X THE 59TH DEGREE (BRIAN BRAINSTORM) (ANIKONIK + AL THE KEMIST + METRAGNOME + DJ DROWZEE) STUDIO 24, FROM 23:00, £7 - £10

Junglism makes a third trip to Edinburgh, teaming up with radio guys The 59th Degree to bring in German drum and bass hero for his Scottish debut.

Sat 04 Feb TEASE AGE

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, £0 - £5

Long-running indie, rock and soul night, traversing the spectrum of classic and modern. BUBBLEGUM

THE HIVE, 21:00–03:00, £0 - £4

Saturday mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics thrown in for good measure. BIG ‘N’ BASHY

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4 - £6

GLOBAL ROOTS (ANDREA MONTALTO + HANGARELLA) PARADISE PALMS, 21:00–01:00, FREE

Global roots curator Andrea Montalto returns from his travels in the sunshine and brings with him another hit from the Mediterranean. Italy-based Hangarella will go b2b all night with his electronic brand of street symphony. FOUR CORNERS: 12 BIRTHDAY & FAREWELL PARTY

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

For the very last time, DJs Simon Hodge, Astrojazz and Johnny Cashback bring tunes from all over the globe to your Edinburgh based eardums. MINDER (LAURENCE GUY) (MR FUDSON + TOCS)

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £6

A wide variety of dance-orientated music from across the spectrum. House DJ and producer Laurence Guy takes the reigns with support.

Distinctly retro selections from 1960 to 1999, moving from Abba to ZZ Top.

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5

THE CLUB

Two rooms of all the chart, cheese and indie-pop you can think of/ handle on a Sunday.

Mon 06 Feb MIXED UP

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Monday-brightening mix of hiphop, R'n'B and chart classics, with requests in the back room. MINDSET (GARETH SOMMERVILLE)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £2

Strictly House grooves from Edinburgh house DJ don Gareth Sommerville.

Tue 07 Feb TRASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Alternative Tuesday anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more. HECTOR’S

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £6

Since May 2012, Hector’s House (known affectionately to many as Hector’s) has become Edinburgh’s a stalwart midweek shindig, drawing in capacity crowds each and every Tuesday. COOKIE

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Resident midweek student rammy of chart, club and electro hits.

House, garage and bass adventures with Blackwax and Faultlines.

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 22:30, TBC

Hella fun midweek throwdown playing soul, funk, jazz, ska, disco and more.

Classic garage and a dash of bass. ASCENSION (MR. SINISTER + DJX)

TEVIOT UNDERGROUND, FROM 22:30, £3 - £5

Alternative club night, playing electro, industrial, EBM, noisegoth and darkwave.

FLIP

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, £0 - £3

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

There’s a fine line between poptimism and cheese. Speaker Bite Me is a club night that values good party music for dancing, drinking and having fun. This is pop music with bite and attitude.

Weekly house and techno club bringing the world’s most credible artists to Edinburgh, alongside residents Simon Bays, Kieran Apter and Izzy Demzky, Gareth Sommerville & Jonny Herd.

Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and novelty-stuffed. Perrrfect.

Weekly bass institution hosted by DJ Believe and friends.

WITNESS (ROSS BLACKWAX + FAULT LINES + SKILLIS + SQUELCHY)

REWIND

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £6

JACUZZI GENERAL (JAISU)

PARADISE PALMS, 21:00–01:00, FREE

Jacuzzi General presents hip-hop hydrotherapy with local legend Jaisu, whose knack for sampling and boom-bap beats has earned him production credits on notable works by The J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League and Danny Brown. SAMEDIA SHEBEEN: CARNIVAL SPECIAL

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £7

With full, immersive set design and décor, and a soundtrack spanning old and new sounds of Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and New Orleans, Samedia Shebeen has proven a hit at clubs and festivals. FIRECRACKER RECORDINGS: HEAL YOURSELF & MOVE #7 (RICCARDO SCHIRO) (HOUSE OF TRAPS + FUDGE FINGAS)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £7

Edinburgh-based label Firecracker Recordings have international reach and acclaim, specialising in oddball house, techno and electronics.

Dance, chart and remixes in the main hall with Craig Guild, while DJ Nicola Walker keeps things nostalgic in G2 with flashback bangers galore.

Fresh Bristol producer Eats Everything gets stuck into Subbie all night long.

February 2017

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

Odyssey returns with another monthly installment of dance heavyweights. Originating in the early days of dubstep, alongside Skream and Benga, Route 94’s house reincarnation brought him to the top of charts in Europe and beyond.

Fri 10 Feb

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

SPEAKER BITE ME

ODYSSEY. 006 (ROUTE 94) CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £8 - £12.50

COALITION (BELIEVE + GAV MILLER + STU + JORDAN COCHRANE + GED & SKANKY B)

Wed 08 Feb

TWEAK_ (SIMON BAYS + KIERAN APTER + IZZY DEMZKY + GARETH SOMMERVILLE + JONNY HERD)

Edinburgh’s original rock’n’roll bash, mixing indie, pop, electro, hip-hop and alternative styles to make one hell of a party playlist.

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £7

Mighty mix of reggae, grime, dubstep and jungle played by inimitable residents Brother Most Righteous, Skillis, Era and Deburgh.

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 22:30–03:00, £0 - £5

EVOL

THE BOROUGH COLLECTIVE: FIND YOUR RHYTHM (6TH BOROUGH PROJECT)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £2

LOCO KAMANCHI

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £4 - £5

PHONIK (SOLARDO)

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 22:00, £10-15

Phonik enter 2017 with a bang this month, bringing rising UK stars Solardo to the capital for their Scottish debut.

THE APPRECIATION SOCIETY: HARRY POTTER PARTY

LA BELLE ANGELE, 22:30–03:00, £4 - £10

An HP party during which you’ll be sorted into houses and provided with Harry, Ron, Hermione and Drako masks.

Thu 09 Feb

PLANET EARTH

CITRUS CLUB, 23:30–03:00, £5

PROPAGANDA

Clubber’s favourite of indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like. BALKANARAMA (BAGHDADDIES + EL GADZÉ)

THE CAVES, 22:30–03:00, £9 - £10

All singing, all dancing Balkan orgy, plus belly dancing and free brandy. DISORDER

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:00, TBC

Another dose of techno from Edinburgh night Disorder.

BIGFOOT’S TEA PARTY (WRICK + CHRIS + JAMES)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £5

Bigfoot’s first time back in the capital since NYE with The Black Madonna. Big session on the cards at a top Edinburgh gaff.

LORDS OF THE RING

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:00, £6

Launch party for Edinburgh’s student boxing event, Lords Of The Ring.

SOULSVILLE (PERCY MAIN + MONTALTO)

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5

Raw, high energy R'n'B at Bongo. GROWNUPS: GROOVE IS IN THE HEART

SUMMERHALL, 20:00–01:00, £8 - £10

Edinburgh’s club for more ‘fully-fledged’ music fan returns. Resident DJs Kinghorror and The Spotlight Kid return refreshed and invigorated with their little black books, select music taste and stack-loads of vinyl to curate a mash-up of bangers. THE BOROUGH COLLECTIVE: TOUCHE LAUNCH NIGHT (HUGGY + MARCO CAPOZZELLA)

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £7

LOCO KAMANCHI (DJ MARKY)

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £4 - £5

Hella fun midweek throwdown playing soul, funk, jazz, ska, disco and more. PALUCH

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £25

The Rising Polish hip-hop star plays live.

Thu 16 Feb

JUICE (KA MI + DAN JUICE + DECLAN)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £2

Dan, Declan and Kami make weird waves through house and techno. TRIBE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

Midweek student night with local DJs bringing big room anthems, house and R'n'B – plus the biggest beer garden on the Cowgate. HI-SOCIETY

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Early weekend-welcoming (y’know, for students) chart anthems, bolstered by hip-hop, R'n'B and urban in the back room.

Fri 17 Feb PLANET EARTH

CITRUS CLUB, 23:30–03:00, £5

THE LIQUID ROOM, 21:00–03:00, £22

Edinburgh tropical fun machine Samedia Shebeen continue their monthly residency at Paradise Palms. The resident DJs team and occasional guests spin fresh beats from Brazil, Latin America, Africa, Middle East and beyond with a healthy dose of old school.

PARTIPETS

Wimmun wrecking the stage with their b2b belters. SKINNY BITCHES (GRANDMASTER BRASH + LORD PASOLA)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 22:30–03:00, £0 - £3

The women of The Skinny spin the very nastiest in lady pop and hip-hop with a feminist bent, accompanied by teen movie visuals (and maybe the odd feminist meme). Free before midnight. HEADSET (ARIOSE) (SKILLIS)

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £6

A live techno set from Ariose with Skillis in tow playing garage, techno and house. THE HARRINGTONS + ALTIUS

WEE RED BAR, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

Purveyors of ‘neo-vintage’ The Harringtons are joined by bluesinfused indie rockers Altius. UTAH JAZZ

LA BELLE ANGELE, 22:30–03:00, £8 - £12

With a razor sharp ear for a sample and hankering for grooves, he’s retained all the hallmarks and skills that he made his name with and honed them without compromise. The result is a repertoire of timeless rollers. FLY: 4TH BIRTHDAY PT. II (JASPER JAMES)

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £10

HI-SOCIETY

Early weekend-welcoming (y’know, for students) chart anthems, bolstered by hip-hop, R'n'B and urban in the back room.

TEESH 3D WORLD CLUB (DJ CHEERS)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £5

The ‘All You Can Eat Mind Buffet’ through Afro, cosmic disco, boogie, classics, warm weird house and techno. Prepare for an immersive 3D experience – 3D glasses provided.

House, garage and bass adventures with Blackwax and Faultlines.

PARADISE PALMS, 21:00–01:00, FREE

Long-running indie, rock and soul night, traversing the spectrum of classic and modern.

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, FROM 23:00, £5 - £6

Baz and Dave spin out some belters under a strictly vinyl-only policy.

WITNESS (ROSS BLACKWAX + FAULT LINES + SKILLIS + SQUELCHY)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £2

NIGHTVISION (EATS EVERYTHING) (DENSE & PIKA + TREVINO + TIM GREEN + LAUREN LANE + IZZY DEMZKY + LAURIE NEIL)

Sat 11 Feb

Midweek student night with local DJs bringing big room anthems, house and R'n'B – plus the biggest beer garden on the Cowgate.

DR NO’S SKA CLUB

Resident midweek student rammy of chart, club and electro hits.

Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and novelty-stuffed. Perrrfect.

FLIP

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, £0 - £3

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

TRIBE

Weekly house and techno club bringing the world’s most credible artists to Edinburgh, alongside residents Simon Bays, Kieran Apter and Izzy Demzky, Gareth Sommerville & Jonny Herd.

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Distinctly retro selections from 1960 to 1999, moving from Abba to ZZ Top.

Dan, Declan and Kami make weird waves through house and techno.

JUICE (KA MI + DAN JUICE + DECLAN)

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £6

Wed 15 Feb

The legendary house night returns to where it all began. It’s Huggy and Marco’s first project in years so expect something very special. Experience, quality, consistency, house.

Happy FLY Birthday! Four special parties to celebrate four special years at Cab Vol! Jasper James inaugurates his residency at FLY with a four hour set.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £2

TWEAK_ (SIMON BAYS + KIERAN APTER + IZZY DEMZKY + GARETH SOMMERVILLE + JONNY HERD)

TEASE AGE

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, £0 - £5

BUBBLEGUM

THE HIVE, 21:00–03:00, £0 - £4

Saturday mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics thrown in for good measure. BEEP BEEP, YEAH! (BEBOP-ATALLAH & AT THE HOP)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

Expect only the best pop tunes from the 50s, 60s and 70s at this retro pop club night. ELECTRO CYCLE

THE VILLAGE, FROM 20:00, FREE

Some of the best in Chicago, deep and funky house music, old and new, with resident DJ’s Foxxy DJ and Hi Tech John.

Next year Musika turns the grand old age of 10, so liquid room’s holding two special birthday events featuring some of their favourite acts of the last decade, along with some fresh new faces. OTHER THUMPERS (LOCKAH + TOM BLIP)

PARADISE PALMS, 21:00–01:00, FREE

Last Friday for some time as PP's furry friends go into hibernation for the winter. Expect big beats and kitty cuddles as PartiPets bid us a fond (and funky) farewell.

Sun 12 Feb

COALITION (BELIEVE + GAV MILLER + STU + JORDAN COCHRANE + GED & SKANKY B) SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Weekly bass institution hosted by DJ Believe and friends. THE CLUB

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Two rooms of all the chart, cheese and indie-pop you can think of/ handle on a Sunday.

Mon 13 Feb MIXED UP

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Monday-brightening mix of hiphop, R'n'B and chart classics, with requests in the back room. MINDSET WITH GARETH SOMMERVILLE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £2

Strictly House grooves from Edinburgh house DJ don Gareth Sommerville.

PROPAGANDA

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £3 - £6

Clubber’s favourite of indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like. SAMEDIA SHEBEEN

PARADISE PALMS, 21:00–01:00, FREE

FLIP

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, £0 - £3

Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and novelty-stuffed. Perrrfect. SHAKE YOUR TITS (BAMBITAS + FEMME FRESH + KATH MAN DU)

WEE RED BAR, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

An LBGTQ+ safe space for tit shaking.

SUBSTANCE: 10 YEARS OF ILLIAN TAPE (ZENKER BROTHERS + SKEE MASK)

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, TBC

House, techno and electro club Substance celebrates the turn of a decade.

ATHENS OF THE NORTH (FRYER + JAMIE WILSON + GARETH SOMMERVILLE + LEL PALFREY) SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £5

Edinburgh’s Athens of the North label reveal their top picks from their extensive record collections. Soulful funk and disco, rare Brazilian, fucked up 80s boogie, with a sprinkle of house that speaks of its soulful black and gay disco origins. FLY: 4TH BIRTHDAY PT. III

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £10

Tue 14 Feb

Happy FLY Birthday! Four special parties to celebrate four special years at Cab Vol, featuring friendly faces from the past.

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 22:30–03:00, £0 - £3

TRASH

Alternative Tuesday anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more. HECTOR’S

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £6

Since May 2012, Hector’s House (known affectionately to many as Hector’s) has become Edinburgh’s a stalwart midweek shindig, drawing in capacity crowds each and every Tuesday. HOT SINGLES 45RPM

PARADISE PALMS, 20:00–22:00, FREE

There’s still time to find your Valentine! Gender neutral speed dating where each date lasts the length of a song, spun by PP DJs. Ice breakers, lovegames and free cocktails with each ticket.

NO SCRUBS (MS MIXTAPE + LG)

D’you miss the days when Mariah was queen of R'n'B? When Ashanti & Ja Rule were the ultimate power couple? Of course you do, because that was the best of times. No Scrubs is a night of 90s and 00s hip-hop and R'n'B vibes, ft. remixes and mash-ups to boot. WD05 (DIREKT) (JOE HIGHET)

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £7

Wicked Discourse’s fifth club instalment welcoming skilled producer DJ Direkt for his UK debut.

Sat 18 Feb TEASE AGE

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, £0 - £5

Long-running indie, rock and soul night, traversing the spectrum of classic and modern.

Listings

THE EGG

LOCO KAMANCHI

BUBBLEGUM

HECTOR’S

WEE RED BAR, FROM 23:00, £3 - £5

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £4 - £5

THE HIVE, 21:00–03:00, £0 - £4

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £6

A salad of genres: 60's garage and soul plus 70s punk and new wave, peppered with psych and indie for good measure. BUBBLEGUM

THE HIVE, 21:00–03:00, £0 - £4

Saturday mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics thrown in for good measure. MESSENGER SOUND SYSTEM (MC JEREMIAH)

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £7

Conscious roots and dub reggae rockin’ from the usual beefy Messenger soundsystem. TWEAK_ (SIMON BAYS + KIERAN APTER + IZZY DEMZKY + GARETH SOMMERVILLE + JONNY HERD)

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £6

Weekly house and techno club bringing the world’s most credible artists to Edinburgh, alongside residents Simon Bays, Kieran Apter and Izzy Demzky, Gareth Sommerville and Jonny Herd. REGRESSION SESSIONS

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £10

Step into the psychedelic kaleidoscope and prepare to be transported to back to The Summer of Love, where the music and vibes were good, the hugs were free and living and loving was easy. Or summat. PERCY MAIN SOCIAL CLUB

PARADISE PALMS, 21:00–01:00, FREE

A monthly social with Percy Main and pals spinning shakin’ disco, balearic boogie, gareish gospel and hermetic haus. Bring your friends, your mum and your dancing boots. DEEP EXCURSIONS (TAMA SUMO)

THE MASH HOUSE, 21:00–03:00, £10

Fresh night playing deep underground dance music, with celebrated Berghain regular Tama Sumo on tune duties.

WASABI DISCO (TELEPHONES) (KRIS WASABI)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £7

Wasabi Disco welcomes Norway’s Telephones to Sneaky Pete’s as its first guest of 2017. Expect to move your feet and minds alike with his hypnotic, outer disco grooves. THE BOROUGH COLLECTIVE: REBEL WALTZ (MURRAY RICHARDSON + STUART PATTERSON)

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £7

Rebel Waltz, an iconic deep house night with residencies all over the UK and beyond, returns to Cab Vol for their first installment.

Sun 19 Feb THE CLUB

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Two rooms of all the chart, cheese and indie-pop you can think of/ handle on a Sunday. COALITION (JUST BLAZE)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £10

A long-awaited return for the Influential hip-hop producer behind countless hits for Jay Z, Kanye West, Busta Rhymes, Diddy, Rick Ross, Drake and more.

Mon 20 Feb MIXED UP

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Monday-brightening mix of hiphop, R'n'B and chart classics, with requests in the back room. MINDSET (GARETH SOMMERVILLE)

Hella fun midweek throwdown playing soul, funk, jazz, ska, disco and more.

Saturday mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics thrown in for good measure.

PARADISE PALMS, 19:30–22:00, £5

At Magic Nostalgic every half an hour a crowd member is invited up on stage to spin a wheel. Wherever it lands determines what kind of music gets played for the next 30 mins, be it Brit-pop, power ballads or Prince vs MJ. Oh, the delicious spontaneity.

JUKEBOX BINGO (SUSAN MORRISON + DJ LOLA LEOPARTSKIN)

Grab your gem sweaters, polish up your dabbers, and get your ears ready for a night down the bingo. Instead of balls and numbers, match songs and artists to the speedy soundtrack and pit your wits in a fast-paced musical challenge.

Thu 23 Feb TRIBE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

Midweek student night with local DJs bringing big room anthems, house and R'n'B – plus the biggest beer garden on the Cowgate. HI-SOCIETY

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Early weekend-welcoming (y’know, for students) chart anthems, bolstered by hip-hop, R'n'B and urban in the back room.

JUICE (YOUANDEWAN) (KA MI + DAN JUICE + DECLAN)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £5

A class act album artist who also makes earworm house tracks.

Fri 24 Feb PLANET EARTH

CITRUS CLUB, 23:30–03:00, £5

Distinctly retro selections from 1960 to 1999, moving from Abba to ZZ Top. PROPAGANDA

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £3 - £5

Clubber’s favourite of indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like. SURE SHOT

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 22:30–03:00, £0 - £3

Golden age hip-hop and R'n'B night hosted by two bearded men with an equal love of food and music; The Skinny’s Food Editor Peter Simpson and one half of Edinburgh’s Kitchen Disco, Malcolm Storey. HEY QT!

WEE RED BAR, FROM 22:30, £3

Sweaty dance disco for queer folk and their pals. FLIP

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, £0 - £3

Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and novelty-stuffed. Perrrfect.

INTERGALACTIC FUNK SMUGGLERS (NIKNAK) PARADISE PALMS, 21:00–01:00, FREE

Can you hear the funk, Major Tom? Helmets on, stars out - an intergalactic dance party to knock your space boots off. JACKHAMMER (THE ADVENT ALTERN8 DJ SET)

THE CAVES, 23:00–03:00, £8

The Jackhammer crew provide our dose of all things techno, bolstered by the return of European techno legend The Advent (aka Cisco Ferreira). ELECTRIKAL: ADDISON GROOVE LAUNCH

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £10

Bongo’s monthly house, bassline, grime and jungle night brings in Spooky + AJ Tracey for a two-hour session.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £2

MIDLIFE CRISIS, THE RETURN

Tue 21 Feb

The (not so) eagerly awaited return of Midlife Crisis. Still bringing you a mix of alt/rock/grunge, mostly from the 90s.

Strictly House grooves from Edinburgh house DJ don Gareth Sommerville. TRASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Alternative Tuesday anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more. HECTOR’S

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £6

Since May 2012, Hector’s House (known affectionately to many as Hector’s) has become Edinburgh’s a stalwart midweek shindig, drawing in capacity crowds each and every Tuesday.

Wed 22 Feb COOKIE

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Resident midweek student rammy of chart, club and electro hits.

WITNESS (ROSS BLACKWAX + FAULT LINES + SKILLIS + SQUELCHY)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £2

House, garage and bass adventures with Blackwax and Faultlines.

Listings

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

FLY: 4TH BIRTHDAY PT. IV (THEO KOTTIS)

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £10

Happy FLY Birthday! Four special parties to celebrate four special years at Cab Vol! Following a successful US tour, Theo Kottis returns for a four hour set in his first set of 2017.

Sat 25 Feb TEASE AGE

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, £0 - £5

Long-running indie, rock and soul night, traversing the spectrum of classic and modern. MUMBO JUMBO

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £7

Funk, soul, and birthday beats and bumps from the Mumbo Jumbo regulars and pals.

MAGIC NOSTALGIC

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 22:30–03:00, £7 - £9

RIDE (LAUREN ILL + CHECK YERSEL)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £5

A monthly nineties and noughties hip-hop and R'n'B jams party. Live fast, die young, RIDE girls do it well. MADCHESTER

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

Established in 1994, Madchester’s a long running Edinburgh club night celebrating the baggiest beats from the late 80s and early 90s. BETAMAX (DJ CHRIS FAST + BIG GUS)

Since May 2012, Hector’s House (known affectionately to many as Hector’s) has become Edinburgh’s a stalwart midweek shindig, drawing in capacity crowds each and every Tuesday.

Dundee Clubs Thu 02 Feb

LUNACY (TWONKO DELERIUM + JAMIE GILLESPIE +NADA + STU ALCANE)

READING ROOMS, FROM 22:30, £0 - £5

Party-chuckers Lunacy return for their first parties of 2017.

Sat 04 Feb

ALL GOOD (TOM FINDLAY)

Theatre Glasgow Theatre CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art THE END OF THINGS

7-8 FEB, 7:30PM, PRICES VARY

Infused with joy, pain and breathtaking beauty, this is a journey to the heart of letting go. Come for the sheer pleasure of chaos and redemption. Come see what might lie at the end of things. ST MUNGO’S MIRRORBALL SHOWCASE 8

RAMBERT: GHOST DANCES AND OTHER WORKS 9-11 FEB, 7:30PM, £13.90 - £33.40

Christopher Bruce’s most popular work which tells the story of ordinary people as their lives are interrupted by death, which appears in the form of the iconic ‘ghosts’. SCOTTISH OPERA: PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE

23 FEB-4 MAR, TIMES VARY, £11.50 £77.50

Acclaimed director Sir David McVicar returns to Scottish Opera to direct Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, with set design by the team behind War Horse.

Tramway

THE BALLAD OF THE APATHETIC SON AND HIS NARCISSISTIC MOTHER

9 FEB, 7:00PM, £5

Groove Armada’s own Tom Findlay hits Reading Rooms with the All Good crew. Advance tickets sold out, 50 OTD from 10pm.

An evening showcasing some of the best poetry across the UK with poets Sarah Howe, Cheryl Follon and Samuel Tongue.

24-25 FEB, TIMES VARY, £8 - £12

New wave and mutant disco, post punk and 80s synth, power pop and synthetic sounds for your dancing pleasure. THE CAVES, 21:00–03:00, £21

Thu 09 Feb

Citizens Theatre

24-25 FEB, TIMES VARY, £10 - £14

ETHOS (LOOSE JOINTS)

READING ROOMS, FROM 22:30, £3.50 - £5

14-18 FEB, 7:30PM, £12.50 - £14.50

26 FEB, 8:00PM, £10 - £12

Fri 10 Feb

Clyde Auditorium 11 FEB, 7:00PM, TBC

Tron Theatre

STUDIO 24, 23:00–03:00, £4 - £5

TORTURE GARDEN

Infamous fetish club spread over three dungeon-themed playrooms in the cavernous surrounds of The Caves. Dress code: all the PVC you can slither into. TWEAK_ (SIMON BAYS + KIERAN APTER + IZZY DEMZKY + GARETH SOMMERVILLE + JONNY HERD)

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £6

Weekly house and techno club bringing the world’s most credible artists to Edinburgh, alongside residents Simon Bays, Kieran Apter and Izzy Demzky, Gareth Sommerville & Jonny Herd.

THE BOROUGH COLLECTIVE: CRASH GOES LOVE (GARETH SOMMERVILLE + CUNNIE) CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £7

Sexy disco, soul and house served on a silver platter. Quite literally. TRUE SOUL

WEE RED BAR, FROM 20:00, £10

Seven hours of quality soul.

SIMON PATTERSON + JOHN ASKEW

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £19.50 - £27.50

Catch the two legends bringing their Open To Close up north for a Scottish debut. FINITRIBE (KRIS WASABI)

PARADISE PALMS, 21:00–01:00, FREE

Resident and promoter of Sneaky Pete’s Wasabi Disco teams up with Finitribe for one night only.

Sun 26 Feb

COALITION (BELIEVE + GAV MILLER + STU + JORDAN COCHRANE + GED & SKANKY B) SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Weekly bass institution hosted by DJ Believe and friends. THE CLUB

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Two rooms of all the chart, cheese and indie-pop you can think of/ handle on a Sunday. SUCH A DRAG (GROUNDSKEEPER FANNY & FRIENDS)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 22:30–03:00, FREE

Queen, queer or just straight up zany, it matters not to Such A Drag’s groundskeeper Fanny (nor to her friends). Leave your judgements and dignity at the door and get involved in the live acts and dancing.

Mon 27 Feb MIXED UP

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Monday-brightening mix of hiphop, R'n'B and chart classics, with requests in the back room. MINDSET (GARETH SOMMERVILLE)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £2

Strictly House grooves from Edinburgh house DJ don Gareth Sommerville.

Tue 28 Feb TRASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Alternative Tuesday anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more.

READING ROOMS, FROM 22:00, TBC

Glasgow’s Loose Joints make their second trip to Dundee, with support from Ethos residents Matt and Spam. MUNGO’S HI-FI SOUND SYSTEM (SAMSON SOUNDS) READING ROOMS, FROM 22:30, £6

The mighty Mungo’s Hi-Fi Sound System returns to the small town club for their first session of 2017 Joining Mungo’s and making their Reading Rooms debut, Samson Sounds play live on stage.

Sat 11 Feb

AUTODISCO (DICKY TRISCO + DAVE AUTODISCO)

READING ROOMS, FROM 22:30, FREE

The electro-funk, house and disco night celebrates double figures with a classic night of resident vibes.

Thu 16 Feb RECKLESS KETTLE

READING ROOMS, FROM 22:30, £0 - £5

Party-throwers Reckless Kettle follow up their banging debut in another show at Reading Rooms.

Sat 18 Feb LOCARNO

READING ROOMS, FROM 22:00, £5 - £7

A night dedicated to the 50s and 60s that’s been running for over half a decade.

Thu 23 Feb STAMINA

READING ROOMS, FROM 23:30, £0 - £5

House, techno, Italo and disco in Dundee’s Reading Rooms.

THE LAST ROUNDS OF BENNY LYNCH

Arts Enigma bring to life the rise to fame of boxer Benny Lynch, from Gorbals slum to glory and glamour.

BALLET WEST: SWAN LAKE

Ballet West, a ballet company which hires both professional dancers with students about to begin their careers, perform a rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.

Platform COMMON GROUND

18 FEB, 2:00PM, FREE

Company A Moment’s Peace unearth stories of how we live now and in the future. IF I HAD A GIRL

27 FEB, 7:00PM – 8:15PM, £5 - £8

A high-energy performance by a mother and son duo. Part of Take Me Somewhere festival. GUERILLA

Provocative Spanish theatre company El Conde de Torrefiel bring an epic, large cast show split into three settings; a rave, a Tai Chi class and a conference. #NEGROPHOBIA

A performance lecture surveying ‘the erotic fear of the black body’. Part of Take Me Somewhere festival. MADE IN INDIA

8-22 FEB, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

A new play by Tamasha Theatre about motherhood and blood ties, between women and across nations. THE LIGHT COMES BACK

1 FEB, 8:00PM, £14

A ‘warm-hearted hybrid’ of monologues from Scottish poet/ playwright Liz Lochhead, indie-pop from Dundee unit The Hazey Janes and evocative folk/jazz sounds from saxophonist Steve Kettley. RACHEL WALKER: SEUDAN

A verbatim play by Mariem Omari which speaks on behalf those who have survived honour-based violence in Scottish ethnic-minority communities.

2 FEB, 8:00PM, £14

4-20 FEB, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

THE PIPES THE PIPES & NORTHERN COMPANY

FISK

A story of a man and a fish, and the unexpected impact they have upon one another. By Tortoise in a Nutshell. BLACK BEAUTY

6 FEB, 7PM, £4-8.50

In a stable yard, with pitchforks and straw bales at the ready, Andy and Andy tell the classic tale of Black Beauty. Saddle up, jump on and gallop headlong into a story where loneliness gives way to hope.

The King’s Theatre

THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE

1-25 FEB, 7:30PM, PRICES VARY

1925s set musical based on the classic Julie Andrews’ movie, all flapper girls, dashing chaps and singalong merriment. GIRLS NIGHT OOT

3 FEB, 7:30PM, £21.90 - £25.90

Sequel to feel-good production I Will Survive, featuring songs from the 60s right through to modern hits. Frothy as it comes. ROY WOOD

8-26 FEB, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

The prolific man behind Move, ELO and Wizzard brings his rock ‘n’ roll band our way.

Winner of Gaelic Singer of the Year at the 2013 Scots Trad Music Awards Rachel Walker reprises her 2015 work Seudan (which translates to ‘Jewels’). 3 FEB, 8:00PM, £14

Devised by DJ, broadcaster and filmmaker Donal Dineen, The Pipes, The Pipes is focused around the unison sound of three uilleann pipers - Padraig McGovern, Leonard Barry and Maitiú Ó Casaide. RUSSELL DECARLE + DENIS KELDIE

4 FEB, 8:00PM, £15

Blues, jazz and and western swing with a hint of R'n'B in a live show at Tron. THE CAUSE OF THUNDER

17-18 FEB, FROM 19:45, £10 - £16

14 FEB, 7PM, £10

MADE IN DAGENHAM

21-25 FEB, 7:30PM, £21.90 - £39.90

The Scottish premiere of Made in Dagenham, a musical based on the 2010 BAFTA nominated film and set in the 60s amidst the Ford Dagenham strike.

Theatre Royal

THE SUNDAY SERIES: OPERA IN CONCERT - L’ENFANT PRODIGUE

5 FEB, 3:00PM, £14 - £28

Stuart Stratford conducts Scottish Opera in an afternoon concert of Debussy and Sibelius.

Edinburgh Theatre Festival Theatre

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME

20 FEB-4 MAR, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

Stage adaptation of Mark Haddon’s award-winning novel, about a young boy who is exceptional at maths while ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. Matinee performances also available.

RENT

PUNK AND PUSSY: THE SOLO SHOW

14 FEB-4 MAR, 7:30PM, PRICES VARY

11 FEB, 7:00PM – 7:30PM, £3 - £5

Gritty, perennial NYC musical based on Puccini’s opera, La Bohème, which follows a group of creative types living in the East Village, in the shadows of the late1980s HIV/AIDS epidemic. Matinee performances also available. CIRQUE BERSERK

7-12 FEB, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

A circus show designed for the theatre which is, apparently, quite berserk indeed. BUDDY: THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY

28 FEB-29 APR, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

A feel-good West End show featuring two hours of Buddy Holly bangers, charting his rise to fame and legendary final performance in Clear Lake, Iowa. SILENT CINEMA WITH WILL PICKVANCE: BUSTER KEATON DOUBLE-BILL

3 FEB, 7:30PM, £14.50

Musical maestro Will Pickvance takes us on another silent film adventure, accompanying Buster Keaton’s The General and One Week live on piano.

King’s Theatre Edinburgh A JUDGEMENT IN STONE

13-18 FEB, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

Ruth Rendell’s tale of a housekeeper named Eunice whose deeply held secrets lead her inexorably toward a tale of murder in cold blood – on Valentine’s Day. SCOTTISH OPERA: THE TRIAL

3-4 FEB, 7:15PM, PRICES VARY

Kafka’s nightmarish tale of Joseph K is reworked by Academy Awardwinning playwright Christopher Hampton and performed by Scottish Opera. TITANIC

21-25 FEB, 7:30PM, £14 - £19

Tony Award-winning musical telling the tale of the world’s largest and most unsinkable ocean liner, er, sinking.

Royal Lyceum Theatre THE WINTER’S TALE

10 FEB-4 MAR, 7:30PM, PRICES VARY

A solo show drawing from two main perspectives: a 5-year-old’s and a 20-year-old’s. Both points of view bring together fragments of identity into a whole. PHAEDRA’S PSYCHOSIS

12 FEB, 7:00PM – 7:45PM, £3 - £5

A piece inspired by Sarah Kane’s work, questioning the workings of the mind, a woman’s worth and how love can make a person achieve clarity. EDINBURGH FOOTLIGHTS’ SHOWCHOIR

16 FEB, 8:15PM, £3 - £5

Edinburgh University Footlights is a student-led musical theatre society, both a Showchoir and musical. The Footlights’ Showchoir will give you a glimpse of their upcoming showcase A Step In Time in which they will lead audiences through the decades. I AM THAT GIRL

19 FEB, 5:00PM, £3 - £5

Clara, an unemployed woman is on a quest to find the ancient city of Niniveh. As the world around collapses she meets herself at different stages of her life to examine who left her where she is right now. TRANSPIRE

19 FEB, 6:50PM, £3 - £5

A wordless performance about finding the courage to explore new places and try new things. Featuring a curious puppet and a mysterious cloaked figure who do not always see eye to eye. QUEER TENDENCIES: A NEW COCKTAIL

19 FEB, 8:00PM, £3 - £5

An evening with a queer twist on what is straight and anything else on the edge. A bittersweet affair.

The Edinburgh Playhouse THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE

1-25 FEB, 7:30PM, PRICES VARY

1925s set musical based on the classic Julie Andrews’ movie, all flapper girls, dashing chaps and singalong merriment. EVITA

Max Webster is reunited with The Lyceum’s Artistic Director David Greig in as they bring their production of Shakespeare’s passionate tragedy of wit and wisdom to the Lyceum.

7 FEB-18 MAR, 7:30PM, PRICES VARY

26 FEB, 7:30PM, £15

27 FEB-8 APR, 7:30PM, PRICES VARY

LYCEUM VARIETY NIGHTS

Flint & Pitch team up with The Lyceum once more for another variety night of music, poetry and theatre.

Scottish Storytelling Centre DUVET DAY

10 FEB, 5:15PM, £3 - £5

Bed: cosy, safe, warm, haven of rest. Bed: trapped and limited, resented prison. Having experienced bouts of depression, we realise bed is not always perceived as an image of comfort. This piece explores that conflicted relationship. EXOTICHIPPIEPRINCESS43

10 FEB, 5:45PM, £3 - £5

ExoticHippiePrincess43 is a YouTube blogger and on her channel she shares all her beauty secrets. Her latest and greatest tutorial titled, ‘Prom Looks for Non White Girls’ will be recorded live in the space. CHARLIE

10-12 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

A 15 minute performance one-toone solo performance between artist and audience, by the Bhumi Collective. If your words were the only thing a little girl could hang on to in this maddening world, what would you say to her? MODELS OF MADNESS

11 FEB, 6:15PM – 6:45PM, £3 - £5

Response to The Wonderful World of Dissocia, taking the story arc and creating a performance. Live music and vocal sounds run along physical theatre dealing with mental health, abusive relationships and the art of fighting mentally and physically.

The creative lovechild of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber which tells the story of Eva Peron, wife of former Argentine dictator Juan Peron. THE COMMITMENTS

Based on the BAFTA awardwinning film, following a young working class music fan produce the finest soul band Dublin’s ever seen. Matinees available. MOSCOW CITY BALLET: THE SLEEPING BEAUTY

24-25 FEB, 7:30PM, £23.90 - £45.90

The dazzlingly elegant Moscow City dancers realise Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty.

Traverse Theatre PINK MIST

23 FEB-1 APR, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

Telling the tale of a young man deployed to Afghanistan, inspired by 30 interviews with returned servicemen. OOG

4 FEB, 7:30PM – 8:10PM, £8.50 - £16.50

A physical and poetic exploration of the trauma of conflict and violence. Featuring Guy Veale’s powerful and visceral soundtrack, OGG burns indelible images onto the mind, questioning what happens when humans morph into something different. A HOUSE IN ASIA

3 FEB, 7:30PM, £8.50 - £16.50

Geronimo is hiding in a house in Pakistan. An exact copy of that house stands in a military base in North Carolina, USA. A film is being shot in a second exact copy of that house in Jordan. CITIES

1 FEB, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

An actor, a table, a camera. Dozens of objects used to conjure up a collection of imaginary cities. Built by the actor before our eyes, each city provides a potential alternative narrative about our own contemporary society and the challenges we face.

THE SKINNY

COULROPHOBIA 4 FEB, 9:00PM – 10:15PM, £8.50 - £13.50

Dik and Adam are Clowns. They couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag, let alone a surreal cardboard world. Why are they there and what are they supposed to be doing? TOUCH ME

2 FEB, 7:30PM – 8:25PM, £8.50 - £16.50

Touch Me articulates through a chain of metamorphoses the many facets of intimacy – the tenderness, the hardness, the vulnerability, the loneliness, but also the beauty and the solace of these most private of places. MADE IN INDIA

8-22 FEB, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

A new play by Tamasha Theatre about motherhood and blood ties, between women and across nations. ARCTIC OIL

10 FEB, 8:00PM, £4.50 - £6.50

A rehearsed reading of a new play by 2015 IASH/Traverse Creative Fellow Clare Duffy. LOCKER ROOM TALK

17-18 FEB, 7:30PM, £4.50 - £6.50

A Trump-inspired work in progress by Gary McNair (A Gambler’s Guide to Dying, Donald Robertson is Not a Stand Up Comedian). SOUNDHOUSE: ROB HERON & THE TEA PAD ORCHESTRA

19 FEB, 8:00PM, £11

Western swing, blues, gypsy jazz and country from the Newcastlebased band.

Comedy Glasgow Comedy Wed 01 Feb THE IMPROVERTS

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £6 - £7

Long-standing improv comedy troupe made up of an everchanging line-up of local students, whose rather fine show is built entirely on (oft daft) audience suggestions.

Thu 02 Feb

THE THURSDAY SHOW (KEITH FARNAN + ABIGOLIAH SCHAMAUN + LIAM WITHNAIL + DANIEL BESTER) THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £5 - £10

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

Fri 03 Feb

THE FRIDAY SHOW (KEITH FARNAN + ABIGOLIAH SCHAMAUN + LIAM WITHNAIL + DANIEL BESTER) THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £6 - £12

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts. LAUGHTER EIGHT

Dundee Theatre Dundee Rep DEATH OF A SALESMAN

22 FEB-11 MAR, 7:30PM, £10

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

Sat 04 Feb

THE SATURDAY SHOW (KEITH FARNAN + ABIGOLIAH SCHAMAUN + LIAM WITHNAIL + DANIEL BESTER) THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £18

Reworking of one of Arthur Miller’s best-known plays, inspired by an encounter Miller had with his uncle, a salesman, at a performance of his first hit play, All My Sons.

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

The Gardyne Theatre

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

MATCH! THE MUSICAL

11 FEB, 7:30PM, £15 - £16

The latest in a string of musicals borne of our new-found appreciation for dating apps.

Whitehall Theatre

THE CIRCUS OF HORRORS

10 FEB, 7:30PM, £26 - £28

Prepare thyself for a whirlwind of contortionists, flying aerialists, demon dwarfs, sword swallowers, and any other weird thing you can think of – yep, it could only be The Circus of Horrors MENOPAUSE THE MUSICAL

9-12 FEB, TIMES VARY, £23

One of the Nolan sisters, someone off Casualty and the woman who played Heather Trott on Eastenders do a musical about ‘the change’. Apparently it’s hysterical! Apparently.

LAUGHTER EIGHT

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

Sun 05 Feb

MICHAEL REDMOND’S SUNDAY SERVICE (ABIGOLIAH SCHAUMAUN + PAUL MCDANIEL + GARY FAULDS)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £1 - £6

Chilled Sunday night laughs to see the weekend out. YESBAR VIRGINS: COMEDY SUNDAY SCHOOL

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £3

A selection of five fledgling comedians do their best to win over the audience and graduate Vespbar’s ‘Comedy Sunday School’. GLASGOW KIDS COMEDY SHOW (ABIGOLIAH SCHAMAUN + ROSSCO MCLELLAND) THE STAND GLASGOW, 15:00–16:30, £4

Comedy session suitable for little ears (i.e. no swearies), for children aged 8-12 years-old.

Mon 06 Feb

Marryat Hall

MONDAY NIGHT IMPROV (BILLY KIRKWOOD + STUART MURPHY + GARRY DOBSON)

MARRYAT HALL, FROM 19:30, £15

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £4 - £6

THE CAUSE OF THUNDER

David Hayman plays Bob Cunningham, a raconteur sharing his musings on early retirement; politics, the No vote, Brexit, Corbyn, refugees…and having seen a man spontaneously ascend into

Two teams of comics battle it out for the biggest laughs under the watchful eye of ‘Improv Warlord’ Billy Kirkwood.

heaven...

Open mic-style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to road test new material.

Tue 07 Feb

RED RAW (STUART MITCHELL)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:45, £3

Wed 08 Feb COMEDIAN RAP BATTLES

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:00, £4 - £6

Ro Cambell and The Wee Man’s comedian rap battle-off, where a select batch of comics compete to see who’s got the most swagger when it comes to hippity-hop wit. 69 SHADES OF GAY

ORAN MOR, FROM 20:00, £18

River City’s Gary Lamont brings an hour of comedy to Oran Mor.

February 2017

Thu 09 Feb

Wed 15 Feb BBC COMEDY PRESENTS

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £4

BBC-selected sketch comedy showcase where handpicked new acts get their chance to shine – with each performer getting a quickfire 5-10 minutes on stage.

THE THURSDAY SHOW (BENNETT ARRON + LLOYD LANGFORD + JAMIE MACDONALD + CARLY BAKER + RAYMOND MEARNS)

69 SHADES OF GAY

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £5 - £10

Thu 16 Feb

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase. 69 SHADES OF GAY

ORAN MOR, FROM 20:00, £18

River City’s Gary Lamont brings an hour of comedy to Oran Mor.

Fri 10 Feb

ORAN MOR, FROM 20:00, £18

River City’s Gary Lamont brings an hour of comedy to Oran Mor. THE THURSDAY SHOW (SEYMOUR MACE + EDDY BRIMSON + JIM SMITH + RACHEL JACKSON + SUSAN MORRISON) THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £5 - £10

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

THE FRIDAY SHOW (BENNETT ARRON + LLOYD LANGFORD + JAMIE MACDONALD + CARLY BAKER + RAYMOND MEARNS)

69 SHADES OF GAY

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £6 - £12

Fri 17 Feb

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts. LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit. 69 SHADES OF GAY

ORAN MOR, FROM 20:00, £18

River City’s Gary Lamont brings an hour of comedy to Oran Mor.

Sat 11 Feb

ORAN MOR, FROM 20:00, £18

River City’s Gary Lamont brings an hour of comedy to Oran Mor. THE FRIDAY SHOW (SEYMOUR MACE + EDDY BRIMSON + JIM SMITH + RACHEL JACKSON + SUSAN MORRISON) THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £6 - £12

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts. LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

69 SHADES OF GAY

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £18

Sat 18 Feb

LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit. 69 SHADES OF GAY

ORAN MOR, FROM 20:00, £18

River City’s Gary Lamont brings an hour of comedy to Oran Mor.

Sun 12 Feb

MICHAEL REDMOND’S SUNDAY SERVICE (JIM SMITH + GUS LYMBURN + RACHEL JACKSON) THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £1 - £6

Chilled Sunday night laughs to see the weekend out. BIANCA DEL RIO

CLYDE AUDITORIUM, FROM 20:15, £35

Rupaul's own Bianca heads to town as part of her Not Today Satan tour. YESBAR VIRGINS: COMEDY SUNDAY SCHOOL

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £3

A selection of five fledgling comedians do their best to win over the audience and graduate Vespbar’s ‘Comedy Sunday School’. 69 SHADES OF GAY

ORAN MOR, FROM 20:00, £18

River City’s Gary Lamont brings an hour of comedy to Oran Mor.

Mon 13 Feb BRIGHT CLUB

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £5

A selection of comedic academics do a stint of stand-up for your entertainment and enlightenment. Laughs and learning in one neat package = tick. 69 SHADES OF GAY

ORAN MOR, FROM 20:00, £18

River City’s Gary Lamont brings an hour of comedy to Oran Mor.

Tue 14 Feb

RED RAW (ASHLEY STORIE + ALLAN IRWIN)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:45, £3

Open mic-style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to road test new material. 69 SHADES OF GAY

ORAN MOR, FROM 20:00, £18

River City’s Gary Lamont brings an hour of comedy to Oran Mor.

THE SATURDAY SHOW (PETE JOHANSSON + STUART GOLDSMITH + RHONA MCKENZIE + JOE HEENAN)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £18

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend. LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

Sat 25 Feb

MICHAEL REDMOND’S SUNDAY SERVICE (STUART MITCHELL + ASHLEY STORRIE)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £1 - £6

Chilled Sunday night laughs to see the weekend out. LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

Sun 26 Feb

RED RAW (RAY BRADSHAW)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:45, £3

Open mic-style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to road test new material. YESBAR VIRGINS: COMEDY SUNDAY SCHOOL

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £3

A selection of five fledgling comedians do their best to win over the audience and graduate Vespbar’s ‘Comedy Sunday School’.

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

THE SATURDAY SHOW (BENNETT ARRON + LLOYD LANGFORD + JAMIE MACDONALD + CARLY BAKER + RAYMOND MEARNS)

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

Fri 24 Feb

THE SATURDAY SHOW (SEYMOUR MACE + EDDY BRIMSON + JIM SMITH + RACHEL JACKSON + SUSAN MORRISON) THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £18

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend. LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit. 69 SHADES OF GAY

ORAN MOR, FROM 20:00, £18

River City’s Gary Lamont brings an hour of comedy to Oran Mor.

Sun 19 Feb

YESBAR VIRGINS: COMEDY SUNDAY SCHOOL

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £3

A selection of five fledgling comedians do their best to win over the audience and graduate Vespbar’s ‘Comedy Sunday School’.

Mon 20 Feb

RED RAW (PETE JOHANSSON)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:45, £3

Open mic-style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to road test new material.

Tue 21 Feb

BENEFIT IN AID OF EPILEPSY SCOTLAND (PETE JOHANSSON + RAYMOND MEARNS + CHRIS RUTTER + TONY SLOAN + SUSIE MCCABE) THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £5

A charity show dedicated to raising funds for Epilepsy Scotland.

Wed 22 Feb

THE THURSDAY SHOW (PETE JOHANSSON + STUART GOLDSMITH + RHONA MCKENZIE + JOE HEENAN)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £5 - £10

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

Thu 23 Feb

THE FRIDAY SHOW (PETE JOHANSSON + STUART GOLDSMITH + RHONA MCKENZIE + JOE HEENAN)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £6 - £12

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

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

THE SUNDAY NIGHT LAUGH-IN (RHONA MCKENZIE) THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:00, £1 - £6

Chilled comedy showcase to cure your Sunday evening back-to-work blues.

STU & GARRY’S FREE IMPROV SHOW (STUART MURPHY + GARRY DOBSON) THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 13:30–15:00, FREE

Long-running improvised comedy show with resident duo Stu & Garry weaving comedy magic from offthe-cuff audience suggestions. PROGRESS!

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £5

Monkey Barrel’s rising comedy star showcase; swing by and catch the stars of tomorrow.

Mon 06 Feb

RED RAW (STUART MITCHELL)

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:45, £3

Open mic-style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to road test new material.

Tue 07 Feb

RICHARD MELVIN PRESENTS: MORE RADIO RECORDINGS!

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 20:00–22:00, FREE

Richard Melvin brings another night of radio recordings to Edinburgh’s comedy haunt The Stand. PROJECT X

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £3

All-new student night themed around the film of the same name, Project X.

Wed 08 Feb VIVA LA SHAMBLES

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:30, £4 - £5

ORAN MOR, FROM 20:00, £18

River City’s Gary Lamont brings an hour of comedy to Oran Mor.

Sun 05 Feb

Edinburgh Comedy Wed 01 Feb

STAND SPOTLIGHT (PHIL O’SHEA + MICHAEL HOLLINGWORTH + ROSS LESLIE + JOSEPH GOSS + KIMI LOUGHTON + GARY MEIKLE)

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:15, £5

The Stand shines its comedy limelight on the topic of new beginnings. TOP BANANA

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £0 - £2

Monkey Barrel’s comedy competition for new folk on the scene.

Thu 02 Feb

THE THURSDAY SHOW (STEVE GRIBBEN + FELICITY WARD + CHRIS CONROY + STEVE MCC + GUS LYMBURN)

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 21:00–23:00, £5 - £10

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase. KATHARINE FERNS IS IN STITCHES

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £5

Exclusive preview show from an international rising star.

Fri 03 Feb

THE FRIDAY SHOW (STEVE GRIBBEN + FELICITY WARD + CHRIS CONROY + STEVE MCC + GUS LYMBURN) THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 21:00–23:00, £6 - £12

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts. THE BIG SHOW

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £12

Monkey Barrel’s flagship weekend show, bringing you top laughs in the heart of Edinburgh.

Sat 04 Feb

THE SATURDAY SHOW (STEVE GRIBBEN + FELICITY WARD + CHRIS CONROY + STEVE MCC + GUS LYMBURN)

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 21:00–23:00, £18

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend. THE BIG SHOW

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £12

Monkey Barrel’s flagship weekend show, bringing you top laughs in the heart of Edinburgh.

The Stand hosts a monthly evening of total joke-pandemonium as Edinburgh’s top comics join forces. TOP BANANA

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £0 - £3

Monkey Barrel’s comedy competition for new folk on the scene.

Thu 09 Feb

THE THURSDAY SHOW (KEIR MCALLISTER + TOTALLY WIRED + STUART MITCHELL + PAUL MCDANIEL + SUSIE MCCABE) THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 21:00–23:00, £5 - £10

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase. MONKEY BARREL COMEDY PRESENTS…

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £5

THE BIG SHOW

THE SATURDAY SHOW (PETE JOHANNSON + MICHAEL LEGGE + ASHLEY STORRIE + RAYMOND MEARNS)

Sun 12 Feb

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

Monkey Barrel’s flagship weekend show, bringing you top laughs in the heart of Edinburgh.

THE SUNDAY NIGHT LAUGH-IN (SUSIE MCCABE + JIM PARK + IAIN CAMPBELL + MEGAN SHANDLEY) THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:00, £1 - £6

Chilled comedy showcase to cure your Sunday evening back-to-work blues.

STU & GARRY’S FREE IMPROV SHOW (STUART MURPHY + GARRY DOBSON) THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 13:30–15:00, FREE

Long-running improvised comedy show with resident duo Stu & Garry weaving comedy magic from offthe-cuff audience suggestions. PROGRESS!

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £5

Monkey Barrel’s rising comedy star showcase; swing by and catch the stars of tomorrow. LAUREN PATTISON

SCOTTISH STORYTELLING CENTRE, 21:00–22:00, £3 - £5

Bright young comedic talent and finalist in numerous comedy competitions.

Mon 13 Feb RED RAW (ALAN IRWIN)

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:45, £3

SCOTTISH STORYTELLING CENTRE, FROM 19:30, FREE

Spontaneous Sherlock is an entirely improvised Sherlock Holmes comedy play, based on an audience suggestion of a title. THE BIG SHOW

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £12

Monkey Barrel’s flagship weekend show, bringing you top laughs in the heart of Edinburgh.

Sat 11 Feb

THE SATURDAY SHOW (KEIR MCALLISTER + TOTALLY WIRED + STUART MITCHELL + PAUL MCDANIEL + SUSIE MCCABE) THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 21:00–23:00, £18

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend. ALBERT SCOTTISH STORYTELLING CENTRE, 21:00–22:00, £3 - £5

Albert, Monkey Barrel Comedy’s resident sketch group, brings a selection of its best sketches to ESAF.

Sun 19 Feb

THE SUNDAY NIGHT LAUGH-IN (PETE JOHANSSON + PAUL MCDANIEL)

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:00, £1 - £6

Chilled comedy showcase to cure your Sunday evening back-to-work blues.

STU & GARRY’S FREE IMPROV SHOW (STUART MURPHY + GARRY DOBSON) THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 13:30–15:00, FREE

Long-running improvised comedy show with resident duo Stu & Garry weaving comedy magic from offthe-cuff audience suggestions. PROGRESS!

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £5

Monkey Barrel’s rising comedy star showcase; swing by and catch the stars of tomorrow.

Open mic-style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to road test new material.

ANTI-VALENTINE’S DAY (SUSIE MCCABE + GUS LYMBURN + ROBIN GRAINGER + LIAM WITHNAIL)

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:30, £5 - £6

Defiant singleton or smug-ass couple, head to The Stand for the mid-Feb laughs. PROJECT X

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £0 - £3

All-new student night themed around the film of the same name, Project X.

Wed 15 Feb BONA FIDE

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:30, £5 - £6

A brand new night which welcomes a stellar line-up of Scotland’s comics to perform material specially written for the theme of the night. TOP BANANA

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £0 - £3

THE THURSDAY SHOW (PETE JOHANNSON + MICHAEL LEGGE + ASHLEY STORRIE + RAYMOND MEARNS)

SPONTANEOUS SHERLOCK

Monkey Barrel’s flagship weekend show, bringing you top laughs in the heart of Edinburgh.

Tue 14 Feb

Fri 10 Feb

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

THE BIG SHOW

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £12

Mon 20 Feb

Monkey Barrel’s comedy competition for new folk on the scene.

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 21:00–23:00, £6 - £12

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 21:00–23:00, £18

Open mic-style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to road test new material.

Guest shows and tours at Monkey Barrel – keep an eye on their social media for weekly listings.

THE FRIDAY SHOW (KEIR MCALLISTER + TOTALLY WIRED + STUART MITCHELL + PAUL MCDANIEL + SUSIE MCCABE)

Sat 18 Feb

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £12

Thu 16 Feb

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 21:00–23:00, £5 - £10

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase. SPONTANEOUS SHERLOCK

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £5

Spontaneous Sherlock is an entirely improvised Sherlock Holmes comedy play, based on an audience suggestion of a title. BISCUIT BOX

SCOTTISH STORYTELLING CENTRE, FROM 18:00, £3 - £5

A fun and surreal sketch show. EDINBURGH REVUE

16 FEB, 5:00PM, £3 - £5

Student society dedicated to the writing and performing of comedy. Apparently each show is so hilarious that you’ll vomit up your brain through your lungholes. Part of ESAF.

Fri 17 Feb

THE FRIDAY SHOW (PETE JOHANNSON + MICHAEL LEGGE + ASHLEY STORRIE + RAYMOND MEARNS) THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 21:00–23:00, £6 - £12

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts. THE BIG SHOW

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £12

Monkey Barrel’s flagship weekend show, bringing you top laughs in the heart of Edinburgh.

RED RAW (PETE JOHANSSON)

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:45, £3

Tue 21 Feb

BENEFIT IN AID OF MARIE CURIE (STUART MITCHELL + WAYNE MAZADZA + DAVID CALLAN + SUSAN MORRISON) THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:30, £8

Charity comedy benefit. PROJECT X

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £3

All-new student night themed around the film of the same name, Project X.

Wed 22 Feb

TOPICAL STORM (MARK NELSON + KEIR MCALLISTER + STUART MURPHY + VLADIMIR MCTAVISH) THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:30, £5 - £7

Radical satire from Keir McAllister, Vladimir McTavish, Stu Murphy and Mark Nelson. TOP BANANA

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £3

Monkey Barrel’s comedy competition for new folk on the scene.

Thu 23 Feb

THE THURSDAY SHOW (JOSH HOWIE + GARETH RICHARDS + KIMI LOUGHTON + BRUCE DEVLIN) THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 21:00–23:00, £5 - £10

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase. ALBERT

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £5

Albert, Monkey Barrel Comedy’s resident sketch group, brings a selection of its best sketches to ESAF.

Fri 24 Feb

THE FRIDAY SHOW (JOSH HOWIE + GARETH RICHARDS + KIMI LOUGHTON + BRUCE DEVLIN) THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 21:00–23:00, £6 - £12

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts. THE BIG SHOW

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £12

Monkey Barrel’s flagship weekend show, bringing you top laughs in the heart of Edinburgh.

Sat 25 Feb

THE SATURDAY SHOW (JOSH HOWIE + GARETH RICHARDS + KIMI LOUGHTON + BRUCE DEVLIN) THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 21:00–23:00, £18

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

Listings

THE BIG SHOW MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £12

Monkey Barrel’s flagship weekend show, bringing you top laughs in the heart of Edinburgh.

Sun 26 Feb

STU & GARRY’S FREE IMPROV SHOW (STUART MURPHY + GARRY DOBSON) THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 13:30–15:00, FREE

Long-running improvised comedy show with resident duo Stu & Garry weaving comedy magic from offthe-cuff audience suggestions. PROGRESS!

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £5

Monkey Barrel’s rising comedy star showcase; swing by and catch the stars of tomorrow. JOSH HOWIE’S MESSED UP

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–21:30, £12

London-born comic who brought his first solo show to Edinburgh Fringe back in 2008.

Mon 27 Feb RED RAW

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:45, £3

Open mic-style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to road test new material.

Tue 28 Feb

ALLAN STEWART’S BIG BIG VARIETY SHOW

KING’S THEATRE EDINBURGH, FROM 19:30, £26

Comedy, music and entertainment from yer pal Allan Stewart and a roster of guests. LEE KYLE: BURNING THIS PLACE TO THE GROUND

THE STAND COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–21:30, £5 - £7

A solo show from Northeastern comic Lee Kyle. PROJECT X

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY CLUB, 20:30–22:50, £0 - £3

All-new student night themed around the film of the same name, Project X.

Glasgow Art CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art FORMS OF ACTION

1 FEB-12 MAR, TIMES VARY, FREE

A show exploring current international developments in socially engaged art practices, looking at both form and content. The exhibition also aims to present a diverse series of approaches that transform spectatorship and the role of artists in society. THE COLLINS & GOTO STUDIO: THE CENTRE FOR NATURE IN CITIES

2-23 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

The Centre for Nature in Cities explores lost urban meaning and the lure of remote experience in ancient Scottish forests. The Caledonian Decoy is a composition of objects and exchanges that interrogate lost and misleading values.

Glasgow Film Theatre

MARGARET TAIT AWARD SCREENING: KATE DAVIS

10 FEB, 6:45PM, FREE

Art Glasgow School of Art

SIMONE TEN HOMPEL: CONFLUENCE/ KONFLUENZ

1-23 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

Independent curator Amanda Game and ten Hompel bring together domestic objects, sculpture, images, models and photographs to trace her exceptional work as designer, maker, teacher and curator in the field of contemporary metal design.

GoMA

JOHN SAMSON: 1975 - 1983

1 FEB-17 APR, TIMES VARY, FREE

A showcase of the complete works of enigmatic Scottish filmmaker John Samson (1946–2004), exhibiting the five films made during his lifetime. MAX BRAND AND JOANNE ROBERTSON: POPPIES

1 FEB-11 JUN, TIMES VARY, FREE

A debut collaboration between Max Brand and Joanne Robertson, featuring new painting and sculpture along with a musical work co-produced in the lead-up to the exhibition’s opening.

Hunterian Art Gallery

WILLIAM HUNTER TO DAMIEN HIRST: THE DEAD TEACH THE LIVING

1 FEB-5 MAR, TIMES VARY, FREE

An exhibition curated by students on GSA / University of Glasgow’s students of Curatorial Practice, featuring objects and art which explore moments of synergy between the fields of art and science.

Mary Mary

CURVE OF A HILL LIKE THE CURVE OF A GREEN SHOULDER

1 FEB-11 MAR, 12:00PM – 6:00PM, PRICES VARY

Named after Aleana Egan’s 2015 work, Curve of a hill like the curve of a green shoulder is a group show from Egan herself, along with Mary Heilmann, Judith Hopf, Amanda Ross-Ho and Erika Vogt. Each work included provides a focus on sculptural objects offering multiple standpoints beyond the traditional idea of the sculptural canon.

RGI Kelly Gallery STAYING WITH THE TROUBLE

1-18 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

This exhibition brings together the work of 2016 GSA MLitt Graduate Martin Darbyshire and Elected RGI Neil Macdonald. The artists present imagined landscapes which resonate in an age of political uncertainty; the familiar becomes less and the new embraced in an accelerated world.

Street Level Photoworks TABULA RASA II

1-5 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

Five Glasgow artists, Alan Knox, Kotryna Ula Kiliulyte, Frank McElhinney, Stephen Healy, Julia Bauer, respond to the notion of the Passage of time and its effects on place, self, memory, and history. PHOTOBOOK AND ZINE EXHIBITION

A hotly anticipated event: the winner of the annual Margaret Tait Award Kate Davis screens the film she’s been developing since receiving the prize last year.

1-5 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

Glasgow Print Studio

A collection of photographs by Syd Shelton documenting the streets of the 70s, ‘when racist skinheads danced to Jamaican ska, punks embraced reggae and black kids reached out to punk’.

PUBLIC ARCHIVE

11 FEB-26 MAR, TIMES VARY, FREE

A selection from Glasgow Print Studio’s extensive archive of over 1500 prints made by artists since the seventies. Works range from early prints by John Bellany and Philip Reeves to more recent prints by artists such as Jim Lambie and Christine Borland.

Listings

Street Level Photography presents an exhibition display of new photobooks and zines from Scotland. ROCK AGAINST RACISM

11 FEB-9 APR, TIMES VARY, FREE

The Common Guild

MARIA FUSCO: RADICAL DIALECT

1 FEB-30 DEC, TIMES VARY, FREE

An ongoing project conceived by writer Maria Fusco, including a cycle of events, a series of commissioned publications and a major new performance, all taking shape across 2017 and 2018. See thecommonguild.org.uk for info.

The Hidden Lane Gallery THE CLASSIC IMAGES

1 FEB, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Canadian born Margaret Watkins spent the second half of her life in Glasgow, dying in obscurity. But before her demise she gifted a mysterious sealed box to her neighbour, Joe Mulholland, to thank him for his help. This exhibition showcases 60 of her classic images, left inside that very box.

The Lighthouse JENNIFER KENT: SANQUHAR

1-5 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

Glasgow-based knitwear designer and GSA grad Jennifer Kent presents a new collection manufactured in Scotland, created after Kent’s collaboration with knitters based in Sanquhar and Shetland. A LIFE IN LETTERPRESS

1 FEB-5 MAR, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

A retrospective of Alan Kitchin’s work, spanning six decades of his letterpress typographic design and printmaking. His work is presented alongside artefacts, proofs, sketchbooks and equipment from his studio.

The Modern Institute @ Airds Lane THE GAP BETWEEN THE FRIDGE AND THE COOKER

2 FEB-11 MAR, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

A group exhibition featuring Liz Larner, Urs Fischer, Rose Marcus, Anne Collier, Marco Giordano, Yui Yaegashi, Martin Boyce and more.

The Telfer Gallery

KIMBERLEY O’NEILL: CIRCUITS OF BAD CONSCIENCE

11 FEB-5 MAR, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

O’Neill concludes her period of residency with Telfer with a new video work built around a science fiction scenario where characters are formed from the cross-fertilisation of personal experiences, historical figures and commercial materials. This provides O’Neill with a means of considering the perpetuation of dominant ideologies by mainstream media, and the stymying of female energy by these circuits. LOVE REMAINS

18 FEB, 8:00PM, £20

A fundraising event by France-Lise Mcgurn, Urara Tsuchiya and Zoe Williams for a forthcoming exhibition and event series in late spring 2017. For £20, you’ll be treated to a ‘sumptuous meal’ and have ‘love potions’ on hand. BYOB.

Tramway OLIVER LARIC

1 FEB-19 MAR, TIMES VARY, FREE

A new exhibition by Oliver Laric featuring sculpture, video and installation; is a keen take on internet transmogrification, in-between mental states, and technological reality. CLAIRE BARCLAY: YIELD POINT

10 FEB-9 APR, TIMES VARY, FREE

A new exhibition from Glasgowbased artist Claire Barclay in Tramway, whose thoughtful installations and sculptures will respond to the industrial setting of the former tram depot, through her sensuous and poetic arrangement of materials.

Transmission Gallery

HOW TO SUFFER POLITELY (AND OTHER ETIQUETTE)

1-15 FEB, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Transmission begin the year with Brooklyn-based artist-activist Kameelah Janan Rasheed, who will transform the Transmission window with How to Suffer Politely (And Other Etiquette). This series of public aphoristic large format digital prints examines the choreography and performance of the ‘angelic negro’ who in the face of routinised Black death must display superhuman restraint in repressing anger.

Edinburgh Art

Royal Scottish Academy RSA UNREALISED: ARCHITECTURAL IMAGINATION FROM THE RSA COLLECTIONS

1-13 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

City Art Centre PAPER TRAIL: DRAWINGS, WATERCOLOURS, PRINTS

1 FEB-21 MAY, TIMES VARY, FREE

An exhibition exploring some of the many ways artists create works from the starting point of a fresh sheet of paper, including work by celebrated figures like Anne Redpath, Joan Eardley, Eduardo Paolozzi and Paul Sandby. A SKETCH OF THE UNIVERSE: ART, SCIENCE AND THE INFLUENCE OF D’ARCY THOMPSON

1-19 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

City Art Centre showcases the highlights of a collection of artworks inspired by pioneering Edinburghborn biologist D’Arcy Thompson. PETER RANDALL-PAGE: WORKS ON PAPER

1-12 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

Renowned sculptor Randall-Page’s interest in order and chaos is explored in a series of his large-scale drawings, created using controlled pouring of ink. GENUIS LOCI: THE TEXTURE OF LONGING

25 FEB-5 MAR, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

An ESAF exhibition challenging the contemporary turn towards digital based, post-internet art instead of the physical.

Collective Gallery

W.W.W. (WHOLE WORLD WORKING)

1-5 FEB, 10:00AM – 4:00PM, FREE

W.W.W. (Whole World Working) is an exhibition devised by Anastasia Philimonos, that brings together artworks and writings considering the possibilities of a world without border demarcation. Examining the tensions between geopolitical restraints and information technologies, the exhibition includes work by Michel De Broin, Alessandro Di Massimo, Buckminster Fuller and Ben Russell.

Dovecot Studios COLOUR & LIGHT

1-25 FEB, 10:30AM – 5:30PM, FREE

Dovecot exhibits a selection of recent projects which share in common a creative relationship between colour and light.

Edinburgh Printmakers PROCESS & POSSIBILITIES

1 FEB-15 APR, 10:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

An archival exhibition curated by Lesley Logue, Process & Possibilities features artists who have helped to lay and then build upon the foundations of printmaking as a fine-art practice in Scotland and beyond. FIREDAMP: REVISITING THE FLOOD

1 FEB-15 APR, 10:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Through installation, sculpture and printmaking Caulfield’s work considers the ways our environment is transformed by forces of urban and industrial growth. Caulfield has transformed the gallery, covering the entirety of the walls with woodcuts.

Embassy Gallery GORDON DOUGLAS/ALIMA ASKEW/ METTE STERRE

2-12 FEB, 12:00PM – 6:00PM, FREE

Embassy open a group show with three emerging artists who each in some way work with costume, prop and performance within their practice, including Edinburgh-based artists Gordon Douglas and Alima Askew, and London-based Mette Sterre.

National Museum of Scotland

51ST WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR EXHIBITION 1-19 FEB, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

The only Scottish showcase for the 51st Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition, which will feature 100 awe-inspiring images, from fascinating animal behaviour to breathtaking wild landscapes.

RSA showcases the architectural plans, sketches and competition entries detailing plans for buildings that never came to be. Have a wander and wonder ‘what if?’. RSA NEW CONTEMPORARIES 2017

18 FEB-15 MAR, TIMES VARY, TBC

Now in its ninth year, RSA exhibits the cream of the graduate crop, taking in painting, sculpture, film making, photography, printmaking, architecture and installation from 66 artists.

BP PORTRAIT AWARD 2016 1 FEB-26 MAR, TIMES VARY, FREE

Now in its thirty-seventh year at the National Portrait Gallery and one of the most prestigious international portrait painting competitions of its kind, the BP Portrait Award 2016 makes its way to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

Scottish Storytelling Centre

CONTEMPORARY MYTHOLOGIES: NARRATIVES OF FANTASY AND LOSS

11 FEB, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

A showcase of work that engages with contemporary reinterpretations of classical mythology. Artists respond to a coming-of-age narrative often situated within a period of adolescence.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Stills BRIDGET RILEY: PAINTINGS,1963-2015

THE COLLECTION SERIES

1 FEB-16 APR, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

A focused display of selected paintings from the works of Bridget Riley, born in 1931. The exhibition chronicles her earlier, iconic use of monochrome, her transition into using a grey palette, before an expansion into using an array of colour. 20TH CENTURY: MASTERPIECES OF SCOTTISH AND EUROPEAN ART

1 FEB-18 FEB 18, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

An exhibition of works offering a historical overview of some of the most significant artistic contributions made during the last century. The exhibition also aims to place Scottish modern art within an international context. KARLA BLACK AND KISHIO SUGA: A NEW ORDER

1-19 FEB, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Karla Black and Kishio Suga share in common their knack for taking ordinary everyday materials and using them to create beautifully complex sculptural works. Their exhibition at Modern One combines their work for the first time. JOAN EARDLEY: A SENSE OF PLACE

1 FEB-21 MAY, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, £7 - £9

A collection of works from the short career of Joan Eardley, who died at just 42. This showcase will focus on two contrasting themes in her works; candid paintings of children in Townhead and paintings of paintings of the fishing village of Catterline.

18 FEB-9 APR, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

A two-part display continuing an annual series of exhibitions aimed at increasing the visibility of photography collections in Scotland. This show features works from David Eustace’s private collection and Alan Dimmick’s studio archive, 1977-2017.

Summerhall ARCHIPELAGO

1 FEB-17 MAR, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

An exhibition of new work from Scotland featuring David Blyth, Alan Grieve and Derrick Guild. Curated by Jon Blackwood. AUTISM ABSTRACTION AND COLOUR

1-16 FEB, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Garvald Artists present a vibrant collection of abstract artwork by John Black. John is autistic and combines his innate understanding of colour with his intuitive active mark-making to create inherently beautiful and balanced works. BIRD

1-18 FEB, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

For 17 years, Alex Flett’s work has been concerned with HIV/AIDS in an African context, and Bird is only one of three bodies of work in that time not referencing this humanitarian problem. According to Flett, “Bird contains African elements of joy, abstracted colour and form derived from my home village on the Moray Firth”. ANN MARIE GILMORE: ALLOWAY 432

25 FEB-18 MAR, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Scottish National Portrait Gallery

This exhibition of paintings, prints and drawings draws heavily upon the artist’s personal archive which has only recently become available.

1 FEB-28 MAY, TIMES VARY, FREE

Talbot Rice Gallery

THE TWEEDDALES: POWER, POLITICS AND PORTRAITS

Artwork featuring and commissioned by the Tweeddale family, a highly influential dynasty at the heart of Scottish society in the latter half of the 17th century who were known best for contributions to politics and the military. SCOTS IN ITALY

1 FEB-5 MAR 19, TIMES VARY, FREE

A showcase of the Scottish experience of Italy in the 18th century, a time when artistic, entrepreneurial and aristocratic fascination with the country was reaching boiling point. OUT OF THEIR HEADS: BUILDING PORTRAITS OF SCOTTISH ARCHITECTS

1-5 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

An opportunity to peer into the minds of some of Scotland’s greatest architects via The Scottish National Portrait Gallery’s collection of portraits and designs. THE VIEW FROM HERE

1 FEB-30 APR, TIMES VARY, FREE

Taking the theme of landscape through photographs from the 1840s to the present day, this exhibition is drawn completely from the National Galleries of Scotland’s permanent photographic collection and aims to explore the techniques and processes of landscape photographers far and wide. THE MODERN PORTRAIT

1 FEB-27 OCT 19, TIMES VARY, FREE

KATE V ROBERTSON: OBJECT(HOOD)

11 FEB-8 APR, TIMES VARY, FREE

A changing exhibition, whereby each week will see complete change around a new object (‘a brain coral, a Gandharan sculpture fragment, a large mannequin head cast by Eduardo Paolozzi, an anatomical eye model…’) from Edinburgh University’s collection, built around a large sculpture cabinet that emanates moving-images and spoken word. BETWEEN POLES AND TIDES

11 FEB-6 MAY, TIMES VARY, FREE

For five years, Edinburgh University has been strategically garnering works of contemporary art which it considers reflective of its teachings as an institution and community. See an exhibition of their acquisitions at the Talbot Rice.

Dundee Art DCA: Dundee Contemporary Arts DCA THOMSON

1-19 FEB, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

A group exhibition in partnership with DC Thomson featuring murals, prints, drawings, sculpture and videos created by a group of six artists: Rob Churm, Rabiya Choudhry, Craig Coulthard, Malcy Duff, Hideyuki Katsumata and Sofia Sita.

Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design

OF OTHER SPACES: WHERE DOES GESTURE BECOME EVENT? (CHAPTER TWO) 1 FEB-4 MAR, TIMES VARY, FREE

A contemporary art exhibition and rolling event programme comprising live performances, screenings, collective readings, participatory dance and an international symposium; 12-Hour Action Group. Referencing art works, artist collaborative groups and activism by women from the 1970’s to the present day, the project looks at the contemporary relevance and cogency of feminist thinking on power as it is enacted through bodies, institutions and systems of representation.

Hannah Maclure Centre ALL WATCHED OVER BY MACHINES OF LOVING GRACE

1-24 FEB, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

A NEoN festival exhibition by Miyu Hayashi, Ruth Kerr, Willy Lemaitre and Tom Sherman, interrogating the idea of whether machines now recognise and understand the spaces they inhabit.

The McManus REFLECTIONS ON CELTS

1 FEB-26 MAR, TIMES VARY, FREE

A delightfully pun-based name for an exhibition featuring two Iron Age mirrors – the British Museum’s Holcombe mirror and National Museums Scotland’s Balmaclellan mirror – in a partnership between National Museums Scotland and the British Museum. OUT OF THE FRAME: SCOTTISH ABSTRACTION

1 FEB-23 APR, TIMES VARY, FREE

A collection of works celebrating the artistic freedom afforded by abstraction, including art by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham and Calum Innes, plus a major new acquisition by Victoria Morton. A SENSE OF PLACE: TWENTIETH CENTURY SCOTTISH PAINTING

1 FEB-1 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

An exhibition of primarily landscape paintings, including work from the Glasgow Boys, the Scottish Colourists, James McIntosh Patrick and Joan Eardley.

The Fruitmarket Gallery CONVERSATIONS IN LETTERS AND LINES

1-19 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

The Fruitmarket presents an exhibition combining the works of South African artists William Kentridge (animated filmmaker, opera director, performer and draughtsman) and Vivienne Koorland (painter, printmaker and maker of objects).

A display collating paintings, sculptures and works from the Portrait Gallery’s 20th-century collection, ft. a variety of well-known faces, from Ramsay Macdonald to Alan Cumming, Tilda Swinton to Danny McGrain.

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

THE SKINNY

Trunk of Funk Probably best known as Red Dwarf’s Dave Lister, BBC 6 Music’s Funk and Soul king Craig Charles lets us delve deep into his musical psyche ahead of his appearance at this years Groove festival in the Cairngorms

Interview: Tallah Brash

of Heard It Through The Grapevine is beautiful. And Mario Biondi – This Is What You Are has a Latin-y tip. I’d dance to anything, me. I’ve even done The Birdy Song. What gets you in the mood for a night out? D’you know what? This is so egotistical, but if I’m going to go out I generally stick one of my own compilations on. I know that sounds terrible, but I’ve chosen all the tunes, I know they’re all bangers, and I know I like them all. There’s nothing worse than having to go to the CD player and flick something over… I suppose I’m lucky enough that I can do that and I’m guaranteed that every one’s a banger. What’s your favourite opening tune to play as a DJ? It depends. You play to all different audiences, but something like a remix of Stevie Wonder’s I Wish or something that’s really up and groovy... Get Up Offa That Thing by James Brown. Something that really goes bang, we’re here!

What was the first record you remember buying? I used to steal loads 'cause I used to work in a record shop on a Saturday, but the first record I can actually remember spending real money on was Live and Dangerous by Thin Lizzy. I must’ve been about 13, 14 and I was really into Thin Lizzy – where I grew up was a really white area, and everyone was into all this rock music. There were no black people in rock music apart from Jimi Hendrix, so I was really into them ‘cause it was someone I could identify with. I reverse-engineered my way into funk and soul music – I listened to bands like Led Zeppelin and my dad would go, ‘You know where they got that lick from?’ He’d start playing me old blues records like John Lee Hooker and B.B. King and that’s how I started getting into golden era Black American music. What record do you never get bored of? Cody Chestnutt’s Landing on a Hundred and The Headphone Masterpiece – two albums that you can listen to again and again. There’s a new album which I’ve been playing all the time – it’s not even out yet – called Country Hustle by a guy called Jeb Loy Nichols. He does this country-soul sort of thing. Then you’ve got things like Talking Book from Stevie Wonder, which I play a lot, and Songs in the Key of Life. What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye, Hot Buttered Soul by Isaac Hayes... all those classic albums get spun quite a lot but I

February 2017

listen to a lot of new stuff as well, so you can’t have a favourite record because it changes every day. At the moment I’d say Jeb Loy Nichols’ Country Hustle is my favourite album. What’s your favourite funk record? You can’t go wrong with Parliament. I love P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up): ‘I’m known as the lollipop man / Alias, The Long-Haired Sucker’... all that Chocolate City and Mothership Connection stuff. And I’ve been listening to a lot of Fatback Band recently – they’re quite groovy as well. And there’s a (new) band called The Pimps of Joytime coming out of Brooklyn, New York – they’re quite hardcore funk as well; quite like them. What’s your favourite soul record? I think What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye – it’s just a classic album you can never get tired of listening to. I listen to a lot of soul compilations ‘cause a lot of stuff that comes out on Kent and Ace – those labels do these brilliant compilations, and every one’s a banger. I’m really into compilations at the moment. I’ve also been listening to this CD a lot called The Curtom Story. Curtis Mayfield set up his own label called Curtom and it’s got stuff from Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions, Leroy Hutson, Linda Clifford, The Five Stairsteps, Major Lance, Gene Chandler, and it’s really cool. It tells the story of the Curtom label. I fixate on stuff like that.

What record do you love to listen to when you wake up in the morning? Oooh, I like things that are quite groovy for when you’re waking up – another compilation, Jalapeno Funk (Vol. 8) has bands like Soopasoul, Kraak & Smaak and Skeewiff. I suppose their biggest crossover stars at the moment are Smoove & Turrell. It’s based in the golden age of funk, but it’s been remixed and rehashed for the modern dancefloor, which is quite cool.

“ I don’t know what it is with skiers and funk, but they seem to like it!” Craig Charles

What record do you like to dance around your kitchen to? Ah well, it depends if me and the missus are being romantic – if we’re having a little smooch in the kitchen, it would have to be something like Always and Forever by Heatwave. That kind of thing for having a slowy in the kitchen. But things like Grant Lazlo orchestra and Marvin Gaye – that version

Music

If you’re DJing and it’s not quite working, do you have a go-to track? It’s more go-to styles for me – if you’re playing it heavy on the funk and people don’t seem to be getting into it, and you switch to a breakbeat kind of thing and that’s not working, then you might drop into a bit of Northern Soul. But it kind of depends on the age of the crowd; you can kind of tell from the look of the crowd what sort of music they’re into. When you’ve got a load of hipsters in you can go a bit more eclectic; it all depends on the audience. And obviously when they’re dancing, it’s just trying to keep them there. It’s quite good to play stuff that they know but playing it in a way they’ve never heard it before. There’s a band called Traffic who’ve got this brilliant breakbeat brass version of White Lines which I like to drop cause people go, ‘Fuck, what’s this?’ They think they know (it), and then they think, ‘Fuckin’ hell, this is different,’ so it keeps them guessing. Keeps them on their feet, keeps them moving. What one last tune would you play when DJing? I do play I Like It Like That [Pete Rodriguez], it’s a Latin-based tune: ‘Hey baby, I like it like that’ – it gets everyone jumping up and down. It depends on how I’m gonna leave it – sometimes I take it right up so you’re leaving on a real blistering high, or sometimes you might wanna drop it and just bring it down; take them right towards the end, say your goodbyes… and if I wanted to bring it down, it would be something like the Hot 8 Brass Band and Sexual Healing. There’s a nine-and-a-half-minute version of Sexual Healing which is a thing of beauty, but I don’t want to tell you who does the version I play, do I? ‘Cause everyone else would be playing it, wouldn’t they?! Are you looking forward to playing Groove Cairngorm? I’m looking forward to it. I’ve played a few ski resorts, I do the Horizon festival in Bulgaria – I’ve done it a couple of times – and we have such a buzz doing those gigs. I had a snowball fight with the audience but then again there was only me on stage and hundreds in the audience so I lost. I don’t know what it is with skiers and funk, but they seem to like it! It’s just gonna be no sleep until way past bedtime. We’re just gonna go there and have it. Someone call the fire brigade! Craig Charles plays Groove Cairngorm festival, 11-13 Mar groovefestival.co.uk

Out Back

THE SKINNY