What’s On — 16 Crossword — 36 Poster — 55 Music — 58 Film & TV

What's On

All details correct at the time of writing

Photo: Camille Vivier

Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul

Photo: Wolfgang Tillmans

Kae Tempest

Music

It’s only right that the month of our music festivals special should be bookended by two very good ones – Glasgow’s experimental Counterflows (31 Mar-2 Apr), and Stag & Da er which takes over a multitude of venues in Edinburgh on 30 April, landing in Glasgow the following day (1 May). In between all that, The Twilight Sad’s rescheduled shows are finally set to happen at the Barrowlands (1 & 2 Apr); on the same nights, in both Edinburgh and Glasgow, you’ll find Future Islands at Usher Hall and the O2 Academy respectively, with support from the wall-of-hugs lovin’ Dan Deacon. You’ll also find eight-piece jazz and Afrobeat fusion outfit Kokoroko at The Queen’s Hall (1 Apr), Edinburgh-based rapper Conscious Route at Sneaky Pete’s (2 Apr), while London octet caroline bring their gorgeous sounds to Summerhall (3 Apr). Also at Summerhall there’s Rachel Sermanni on 6 April, with Lizzie Reid in tow, Pictish Trail the following night, with Savage Mansion on support duties (they also headline their own show at Sneaky Pete’s on 17 April), before Honeyblood’s Stina Marie Claire performs with a string section and full band featuring Laura Wilkie on fiddle and Carla J. Easton on synth, plus support from Katherine Aly (16 Apr). Elsewhere in Edinburgh, AMPLIFI returns to The Queen’s Hall (6 Apr), catch Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul (11 Apr) and Advance Base (16 Apr) at Sneaky Pete’s, Wet Leg at The Mash House (17 Apr), Foals at Usher Hall (21 & 22 Apr), Kae Tempest at Assembly Rooms (23 Apr) and Tae Sup wi’ a Queen at The Queen’s Hall (27 Apr) with performances from Kinbrae & Clare Archibald, Liz Lochhead & Andrew Wasylyk and James Yorkston’s electronicish alter ego, J Wright Presents. In Glasgow, Ibibio Sound Machine celebrate their latest record, the exceptional Hot Chip-produced Electricity, at St Luke’s (8 Apr), before Alex Cameron brings his latest, Oxy Music, to the same spot a few nights later (11 Apr), while on the same night in the city centre you’ll find BBC Radio 1’s Sound of 2022 poll winner Pinkpantheress at Stereo. After a cancelled tour in 2020, which resulted in some inspired ‘Fuck 2020’ merch, Canada’s Holy Fuck are finally coming to Glasgow this month as they bring Deleter to Broadcast on 20 April; Metronomy tour their latest, Small World, stopping by the Barrowlands on 22 April, before Mitski touches down at the same venue with support from SASAMI on 23rd April, the following night sees Dua Lipa bringing her massive Future Nostalgia Tour to the OVO Hydro. As if all that’s not enough, Record Store Day returns this year on 23 April – support your local vinyl dealer! [Tallah Brash]

Film

Glasgow Film Festival crowns Nicole Holofcener a CineMaster this month with a season featuring a trio of her best features: Friends with Money (2 & 6 Apr), Please Give (9 &1 2 Apr, on 35mm!) and Enough Said (17 & 20 Apr), a tender romance that proved all the more moving for featuring the final lead performance by James Gandolfini, plus Ridley Scott’s sorely underrated The Last Duel (23 & 27 Apr), penned by Holofcener. Filmhouse in Edinburgh have their own retrospective this month, which pays tribute to the late, very great Sidney Poitier, who died in January. Seven films featuring this wonderful actor who tore down racial barriers in Hollywood are included. Among them are classics In The Heat of the

Photo: Edward Cooke

Foals

Photo: Simon Webb

Ibibio Sound Machine April 2022 —

Events Guide

Enough Said

Andromeda

Photo: Clarissa Ceci

Elena Colombi

Koppe Astner, Glasgow Image: courtesy of the artist and

Corin Sworn Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and Lilies of the Field – with the latter, Poitier became the first Black performer to win the Best Actor Oscar.

Taiwanese Film Festival Edinburgh kicks off an ongoing series of screenings with a mini-season in partnership with the Hong Kong Film Festival UK focused on social uprisings. Screening at Summerhall Cinema, the programme includes three films: two from Hong Kong that are banned in their home country – Revolution of Our Times (1 Apr) and May You Stay Forever Young (1 Apr); and Taiwanese film The Price of Democracy (2 Apr), which looks back upon the 40-year-history of democratisation in Taiwan. April also sees the in-person return of one of our absolute favourite film events: Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival (28 Apr-2 May). Expect a new venue in the form of ‘Moving Images’, a solar-powered cinema in a converted 1980s caravan that will showcase a programme of experimental film made in the Scottish Borders and South of Scotland; retrospectives of work by Ghanaian-American filmmaker Akosua Adoma Owusu and Julia Parks, an artist in residence on Alchemy’s Culture Collective programme The Teviot, the Flag and the Rich, Rich Soil; and special screenings of Emily Beaney’s Deviant and Sonya Dyer’s Andromeda. [Jamie Dunn]

Clubs

An early feature this month is Szentek’s Moving Castle, which will bring Donk connoisseur (Donkonnoisseur?) Asquith, Shoot Your Shot’s Bonzai Bonner, and more to Mains Castle in Dundee on 1 April. If you’re not quite ready for festival season yet, there’s a double whammy at Stereo on 1 April, as Club Sylkie makes its Glasgow debut with diessa in tow. The following night, the venue continues its Stereo presents series with Manuka Honey and Bianca Oblivion. Sneaky Pete’s and Palidrone join forces to bring Night Music to Edinburgh in The Fruitmarket Gallery’s new space on 15 April, and they’ve invited DjRUM, Loraine James, and object blue to join the party. It’s all systems go for Easter Bank Holiday weekend. Terminal V returns with its Resurgence event at the Royal Highland Centre on 16 and 17 April. Over in Glasgow, London label Scuffed Recordings host a party at Stereo on 16 April, showcasing some of the label’s talents. And Glasgow’s Sunday seshers have Lunacy to thank for sorting out their Easter Sunday party plans, as they invite Young Marco and Elena Colombi to join residents at Drygate on 17 April. The team behind FLY bring back The Slam Tent for one weekend only (or at least for now) to Hopetoun House in South Queensferry from 29 April-1 May, with a heavy focus on local talent. Alternatively, you could opt for something a bit more lowkey, as this year’s Tectonics Glasgow festival celebrates the work of Scottish electronic music pioneer Janet Beat in a series of events taking place from 30 April-1 May. And *deep breath* finally, end the month on a massive high as Optimo celebrate 25 years (!!) with help from Melting Pot and Heverlee. On 30 April, Queen’s Park Recreation Ground will be transformed into an Optimo funfair, with the duo themselves DJing, a live performance from Free Love, and a stage curated by Electric Shores featuring DJ sets and live performances from Nightwave, Bemz, and Junglehussi B2B Plantainchipps. [Nadia Younes]

Art

Opening the art calendar this month on 7 April, artist Corin Sworn gives a performance lecture as the second event in her series Moving in Relation, working with The Common Guild. Reference will be made in part to the stunning sunset performance that Sworn created with artist Claricia Parinussa in a Hamilton business park last year. On 9 April, CCA in Glasgow open their new two-person show by artists Annalee Davis and Amanda Thomson. Each of the artists’ work comes from experiences of living in, walking around and mapping their respective landscapes in Barbados and Scotland. We last caught up with artist Andrew Sim during Glasgow International 2021 when they hinted that some new motifs of “full-size horses and aliens” were emerging in their figurative and landscape pastel drawings, which explore queer love, relationships and community-building. Making good on this promise, Sim’s exhibition Two Horses, One Pale and One Red is open in The Modern Institute’s Airds Lane gallery until 7 May. Also running through this month and until 21 May, there is the Talbot Rice Residents’ group show Meet me at the threshold. The exhibition offers an insight into the works developed by ten of the artist cohort who have been in receipt of significant mentorial and material support from Talbot Rice for the last few years. The show doesn’t have a single set of thematics, but contains ‘moments of grief, joy, resistance, intimacy and fracture’.

Revolution of our Time

Loraine James

Photo: Anna Docherty

Jupiter Artland

Lyceum

Photo: Emily Wylde

Josephine Sillars 15 April marks the seasonal reopening of the vast contemporary art sculpture park Jupiter Artland, between Edinburgh and Glasgow. For Scottish art trips further afield, there are two exciting events on Bute and Mull, if you’ve got the time and money to make it to either. The first is by Abbas Akhavan, a Montréal-based artist whose exhibition in Mount Stuart on Bute opens on Saturday 30 April. Akhavan’s site-specific, multimedia installation addresses ‘social, economic and political concerns through the lens of ecology, animal and plant life.’ Secondly, there’s a blockbuster weekend art festival happening on Mull from 29 April-1 May curated by artist Bobbi Cameron with An Tobar. Named after the tarot card, Daughter of Cups of the North brings together ten artists including some of the most exciting international contemporary artists working presently, whose practices share ‘themes of ancestry ... and breaking down barriers between worlds.’ [Adam Benmakhlouf]

Theatre

Spring is in the air, and Scottish theatre and dance feel full of creative possibility this month. In Glasgow, head to Drygate for an unconventional night out – a seven-hour retrospective of polymathic artist Tracy Alexander Ri , packed with costume, immersive performance, live music and DJ sets (The Self Assembled, 1 Apr). In the Southside, DIG (Dance International Glasgow) continues at Tramway. Check out the premiere of Will Dickie’s White Sun (1-2 Apr), an electric appraisal of inheritance, privilege and addiction. You can watch Lovey and Boy: A Carnival Odyssey, a magical dance film celebrating Caribbean heritage and history, for free at the venue until the 3rd. Tramway are also hosting the premiere of The Hope River Girls on 23 April, a version of groupwork’s multi-award-winning 2019 show The Afflicted reimagined for younger audiences – it’ll go on to tour venues across Scotland until early May. In Dundee, the Scottish Dance Theatre are hosting the world premiere of Ray at Dundee Rep (14-16 Apr). The brainchild of choreographer Meytal Blanaru, the piece will explore the idea of ‘emergence’. In Edinburgh, the Lyceum is hosting a new festival called Wonder, billed as a celebration of ‘the creative process in all its forms.’ Work-in-progress sharings include a live preview of KELI, a new audio drama by Lau member Martin Green (3 Apr), and a sneak peek of the stage adaptation of Ali Smith’s novel How To Be Both (9 Apr). The Tandem Writing Collective are returning to Traverse on 2 April to host a night of new writing and live music. Yes, we know that on-screen theatre is so 2021 – but it’ll still definitely be worth your while to check out Morna Young’s Demon Island: Takeo’s Tale (on demand on Traverse's website until 10 Apr). This interactive, part-game, part-show digital story, created by Young on a residency in Japan and inspired by a folktale called Momotaro, sounds more multilayered than most streamed theatre shows. [Eliza Gearty]

Poetry

With restrictions easing, poets are hosting some brilliant readings across the country. Edinburgh’s Scottish Storytelling Centre is featuring Morna Burdon’s Fire is Not the Only Element on 2 April: a Scots fusion of poetry, song, and stories. Be quick to catch Scribbler’s Union on 1 April, in Glasgow’s Dram! Headlining the show is the legendary Jim Monaghan, who will be accompanied by comedian Elaine Malcolmson. The pair are supported by a selection of the Scribbler’s Union’s writers: a varied collection of flourishing writers who have been working alongside the Union’s founder, Kevin P. Gilday. Henry Bell and Angela Catlin have launched their exhibition and accompanying book of poems, Still Life, in Glasgow’s SoGo Gallery. Running 16 until 17 April, the poems and photographs document the experience of living in Glasgow during the pandemic. Writer and performer Ross Wilcock has realised his EP, City Streets, featuring Finn Le Marinel and Josephine Sillars. A lyrical fusion of poetry and music, Wilcock beautifully brings together Le Marinel’s atmospheric soundscapes and Sillars’ otherworldly vocals. This EP reflects on themes everyone can connect with: identity, heartache, romance, and is a stunning collection of songs for poetry and music lovers. Granta’s latest release comes from legendary Canadian poet, Sylvia Legris, with her new collection Garden Physic. Out on 7 April, the collection is a complex and emotive journey through the physic garden as it’s never been experienced before. A celebration of plants and true human connection to our living greenery, Garden Physic will be a joy to read this spring. [Beth Cochrane]

Photo: Ciorstaidh Mon

Tracy Alexander Ri

Dram!

Feeling Festive

This month we take a deep dive into music festivals as we start allowing ourselves to get genuinely excited for the warmer months ahead after a couple of years filled with uncertainty, regular cancellations, postponements and socially distanced seated shows. In this year’s festival special we speak to two artists who have come up through the ranks during the global pandemic. First, we speak to our cover stars – “the buzziest of UK buzz bands” – Wet Leg about their fast rise, self-titled debut album (read our review on p56) and how they can’t wait to embarrass themselves in a field this summer. We also get to know local indie-soul artist Brooke Combe; at the end of last year Combe was signed to Island Records and she has a ludicrous amount of festival slots lined up this year. With 2022 being the year by which a host of festivals had pledged to have 50/50 balance on their lineups, one writer takes a look at how the Keychange initiative is doing five years on from its inception, while another writer hones in on the rise of queer festivals like London’s Body Movements, this year’s new Flesh festival in St Albans and Colourboxx in Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park. Finally, as we do every year, we’ve put together a handy calendar for you of all the festivals worth going to in Scotland this year, so if you haven’t done the research yet, sit back, relax, we’ve done it for you. Have a read, get some tickets booked and look out your camping gear, because festival season is on… we hope!

Good Times, All the Time

Ahead of releasing their debut album, and a summer filled with festival slots galore, we catch up with Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers

Interview: Tony Inglis

Disembodied voices rise up from the phone. “Rhian is this one,” goes a voice, straight and businesslike. “Hi, I’m Hester,” goes another, high-pitched and airy. “I am Rhian, this is my voice,” goes a different one still, this time dead-eyed and robotic. Still again, something else, gurgling and decrepit sounding: “It’s Rhian and Hester from Wet Leg here…” Thirty seconds with Wet Leg and you are ensconced in their dizzying, playful world. Equally quick to speak sincerely as they are to take the piss, talking to the duo – perhaps the buzziest of UK buzz bands in a long line of them – can be somewhat disorientating, but that’s perhaps fitting for Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers, who have broken big in a confounding whirlwind, one a studio executive could only imagine in their wildest ‘wet dream’. ‘I’ve never seen anything so obscene’, you might say, as their song of the same name goes. This is when we tell you Wet Leg signed for Domino off the back of only a handful of songs. That they came second in the BBC’s often prophetic Sound of 2022 poll. That their zeitgeistpiercing smash Chaise Longue has racked up nearly twelve million streams on Spotify. That they are on the verge of releasing their self-titled debut album, a record so anticipated, so under lock and key, guarded like some precious, combustible organic material, that, at the time of speaking to Teasdale and Chambers, we – and not even the band’s PR – had been permitted to hear it. “The damage is done,” jokes Teasdale from down the line when asked what listeners can expect of the record. Calling in from Brixton, they are both relaxed and whimsical about what they are teetering on the precipice of. After all, they are just a “baby band”, as Chambers puts it, born out of their to be in the moment together.” They both start “aaawww”-ing in unison. After a pause, Teasdale says: “Yeah, it’s sickening.” And then they both wretch, loudly. And play live they will – almost everywhere, with TV spots, tours, and multiple festival slots this year. “We’re really excited to play festivals, purely because of the atmosphere,” says Teasdale. Wet Leg’s existence, perhaps apocryphally, sprung from an inspirational moment between the pair on a Ferris wheel at the End of the Road festival. “Everyone’s wandering around and so there’s no real expectations of you. Everyone’s there to have a good time and it’s really nice to just be ambling around making friends with other bands. Love to amble. We can get them all to sign our limbs. Just gonna fangirl everyone really hard. We’re really going to embarrass ourselves.” When the wacky, but contained, imagery of Chaise Longue became an out of control sensation, its staccato Sprechgesang seemed to be in line with other British bands – like Dry Cleaning, Squid, Yard Act and Black Country, New Road – matching post-punk guitars and somersaulting basslines with speak-singing. While all these bands are popular and notable in their own way, Wet Leg seemed to hit a sweet spot that took that toolkit and smoothed down its edges and made it more listener-friendly, pairing it with twee visuals

“We’re really excited to play festivals, purely because of the atmosphere”

friendship on their home of the Isle of Wight (“If you play the record backwards, you can hear in the second track ‘we’re stuck on the island, send help’,” teases Teasdale), something fun to pass the time with together, a hobby – there hasn’t been endless demoing, a run of EPs, or even much performing to hash out new songs, coming to the fore as they did in the midst of the pandemic. This first full-length collection of songs will, ultimately, be what they’re judged by, even if the shows are already selling out and their tunes have become omnipresent. “People will get a bit of heartbreak, some disenchantment,” Teasdale says about the record. “And fun, and good times, all the time.” The latter said coldly and monotone, without any hint of being earnest, is a nifty summation of the appeal of Wet Leg. That fierce, deadpan humour, the feeling this is all just a bit of a lark for them, things happening to them, getting rolled up in the absorbent plasticine ball of the modern music industry. When Teasdale says “good times, all the time”, she kind of means it, but she is also able to play with the silliness of that as a concept. Often Teasdale speaks as if filtering every possible piece of information, every scrap of emotion. On Too Late Now, the pre-chorus goes into anxious overload; at one point she pauses the verse to clarify: ‘I don’t even know what I’m saying’. She does this a couple of times in our conversation. Chambers adds: “We’re not really striving for anything in particular. It’s quite free flowing. Rules are: there ain’t no rules. It’s exciting to feel free in what might come out. But then, playing live is what’s important right now. We hadn’t played much together with this line-up, and so since the summer we’ve been on the same journey, learning and writing the set, and we’re just trying to…” “…navigate this crazy wave,” Teasdale chimes in. “Yeah, we’re just excited to play some gigs really,” finishes Chambers. They often do this while we talk – turn to each other and chat as if no one else is listening, or finish each other’s sentences. There’s a sisterly bond; on the cover of the album, they’re locked together, arms around the other’s waist. “When we’re playing,” says Chambers, “I’ll be looking down, then we’ll have a call and response vocal part and I’ll look over to you, and you’re looking back at me. It’s really nice

and simple, memorable refrains – at least that’s what their comparatively massive streaming numbers seem to indicate. Basically, the ‘Avant Basic’ of music: the moment when something considered artful and trending up becomes mass-produced and ubiquitous. For better or worse, the album (finally released from the vault before this piece was finished) deviates from this blueprint somewhat. Wet Leg is filled with prettier vocals; the song Angelica builds into layered shoegaze guitars. And elsewhere the band deal in more conventional indie rock sounds. What they continue to nail is their sharp brand of humour. Teasdale and Chambers are adept at finding that liminal space between laughing and crying, where feeling everything all at once becomes overwhelming. On opener Being In Love, an album highlight, Teasdale sings: ‘I feel like someone has punched me in the guts / The world is caving in, I’m kinda stru ling / I kinda like it cause it feels like being in love.’ “We didn’t really set out to do that. It just kind of happened,” says Teasdale. “I think some of the songs on the album are a little bit sad. And I think one of the ways you can deal with dark times is make it into a joke.” Wet Leg may be doing everything right, but a cursory look at YouTube comments or Reddit pages titled ‘Wet Leg: the band with millions of “Our first ever US tour starts in New York tonight. How did this happen? Anyone else getting industry plant vibes.” It’s hard to argue with that kind of good-spirited response. Teasdale, back to her usual tone, replies: “I will find a way to argue with it. It is pretty funny. I mean, it’s a good thing both of our parents are really high up in the music industry. My dad actually owns all of music. He has many CDs.”

streams and just two songs’ and you’ll quickly find enough suspicion and criticism to make you think twice. Questions like: “How can such a young band get so big so fast?” seem laced with misogyny and a retrograde ‘rockist’ attitude that still perceives music through a traditionalist lens – a world where a band made its name gi ing themselves into the ground, a world that barely exists now. What even does an organic development for a band look like now? “I’d be like, ‘I hope they burn in hell, I can’t believe it, only two songs and they’ve been to America? I hope their plane crashes on the way back.’ I’d be jelly as hell,” says Teasdale, tongue firmly in cheek, about how they would look at themselves from the outside. “No, I don’t really think people are jealous, just overanalysing. But it doesn’t matter. Music is just about the stars aligning. It’s been quicker for us, but I think it’s the same with any band, even if you have followed their journey of them grafting and working their way up. The stars still had to align at some point for them. It’s a total mystery why we are doing what we’re doing but, you know, we’re just trying to have a nice time doing it. If that’s OK?” Living up to the hype will no doubt silence many of those comments. But if those criticisms affect them at all, they don’t show it, instead disarming with their wit. One recent tweet read:

“We’re not really striving for anything in particular. It’s quite free flowing”

Hester Chambers, Wet Leg

Wet Leg is released on 8 Apr via Domino; Wet Leg play The Mash House, Edinburgh, 17 Apr; SWG3, Glasgow, 17 Nov

Catch Wet Leg at a festival this summer as they play Neighbourhood Weekender, Warrington, 28-29 May; Primavera Sound Festival, Barcelona, 3 Jun; Isle of Wight Festival, 16-19 Jun; Glastonbury Festival, 22 Jun; TRNSMT, Glasgow Green, 9 Jul; Lowlands Festival, Biddinghuizen, Netherlands, 19 Aug

The Time Is Now

Five years on from its inception, we reflect on the Keychange pledge to push for gender parity in our festival fields with some of the forethinkers breaking down the boys’ club

Interview: Cheri Amour

In midsummer of 2015, social media was awash with blanked-out festival posters. Male acts were slashed from the weekend listings to prove how few women were being programmed to major festival stages. But this disparity doesn’t just exist within the festival fields. In 2018 The New York Times reported: “Of the 899 individuals who have been nominated for the last six Grammy ceremonies, 90.7 percent were men and 9.3 percent were women,” while in the same year PRS for Music revealed that only 17% of their songwriter memberships identified as female. Five years ago, against a backdrop of raging timelines, the Keychange initiative launched hellbent on addressing this imbalance with a two-pronged approach. First, its talent development programme. Secondly, a pledge with a goal to reach 50/50 women and gender minorities representation by 2022, as Project Manager Francine Gorman recalls. “The pledge was developed as a response to festivals looking for ways to develop their lineups differently.” The team quickly realised that inequality isn’t merely stage deep though. Beginning their work across the live music and performing arts sector, they only found more rotten roots. “For a festival to book an artist, there’s so much infrastructure that leads to that point from radio (how do you get on radio?) to labels (where are labels finding music?),” explains Gorman. And while the Keychange initiative works to support women and gender minorities, there’s also the issue of diversity. “It’s a conversation that we want to have with every person, pointing them to other resources where they can start learning in those areas as well.” Nurturing an inclusive space for a broad range of artists sits at the heart of Jupiter Rising. Launched in 2019, the indie arts festival formed with the “urgent need to address the imbalance” as Head of Exhibitions and Learning Programmes at Jupiter Artland (the festival’s home), Claire Feeley shares. “We push for inclusivity and celebrate artists, specifically queer-folk and people of colour who have fought to see themselves represented.” Last year’s event boasted DJ sets from Gemma Cairney, Junglehussi and OH141’s Sarra Wild alongside live sets from Kapil Seshasayee, Sacred Paws and Lady Neptune, with installations from multidisciplinary artist Furmaan Ahmed. This year sees Alloysius Massaquoi (Young Fathers) and Tamara Schlesinger, of

“There is no better time to be implementing change than now”

all-female and non-binary songwriting collective Hen Hoose, on curatorial duties. But it’s not only Scotland where we’re finally seeing the ripples of change making waves. Last year Keychange received its 500th signatory to the pledge from industry ju ernaut EBU Music (the European Broadcasting Union’s music department). It’s a milestone that Gorman believes is significant to the project’s future. “To have an umbrella organisation like that on board is vital. They’re in touch with every national broadcaster throughout Europe!” Elsewhere in Europe, we’re already seeing shifts. Partner festivals like Way Out West in Sweden continue to deliver a gender-balanced lineup with homegrown exports First Aid Kit topping the bill in 2022. For Head of Communications Filip Hiltmann, signing the pledge was a no-brainer. “50/50 gender balance should not be communicated as a feather in your cap, but rather as the new status quo. Because if you think about it, why wouldn’t it be?” Many will remember the backlash after TRNSMT boss Geoff Ellis stated: “we need to get more females picking up guitars” to address the imbalance in the industry. But for Feeley, she believes it’s with these underrepresented genders where the spark of innovation is burning brightest. “The most exciting work being created right now is coming from non-binary, gender non-conforming artists. What Jupiter Rising has done is create a home for this energy.” Hiltmann agrees: “We’ve never had any trouble with finding enough female acts for our stages. Actually, our problems are reversed – there are too many that we can’t fit on our bill!” There’s also no data to su est that women sell fewer tickets than their male counterparts. In fact, last year saw solo female artists leading the Billboard Top 200 for the first time in over a decade. It’s a falsehood that Gorman believes can lead to toxic behaviour. “When festivals spread sentences like that around, it’s devaluing the place of women in the music industry and that’s not acceptable.” As Feeley posits, this attitude breeds future iterations of exactly the same thing. No questions asked. “I’ve seen first-hand the pressure promoters are under to book white male artists as stats su est they give better box-office returns. The problem is when this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Frustratingly, questioning is exactly what so many organisations need to be doing right now as we begin to navigate out of a pandemic. There’s no doubt that the live music industry has been hit hard by two years of global flux. But COVID has also provided a stop-gap to reflect on the infrastructures our music festivals have long been built on. An opportunity to slowly dismantle the longreigning boys’ club. As Gorman attests: “We want to go into this new era of music festivals with the lineups that represent who we are and who’s attending. There is no better time to be implementing change than now.”

To find out more about Keychange’s longterm goals or to sign the pledge, visit keychange.eu

Way Out West takes place in Gothenburg, Sweden, 11-13 Aug; Jupiter Rising takes place at Jupiter Artland, Wilkieston, Edinburgh, 26-28 Aug

Community Focus

For too long, queer events have generally taken place under the shadow of darkness. But promoters up and down the country are making this a thing of the past, with a whole host of new music festivals bringing the queer community into the light

Interview: Nadia Younes

For one day in October last year, one corner of London was transformed into a playground for the city’s queer community. “It felt like a real place of self-expression… to see everyone express their queerness in the middle of the day, taking over a whole section of East London,” says Saoirse Ryan, DJ and co-founder of Body Movements festival. The one-day event – dubbed “East London’s first queer dance festival” – took place in venues around Hackney Wick, an area already known for its plethora of independent, queer-friendly spaces. Just a glance at some of the photos captured from the festival showed exactly how joyous it was, and highlights the need for more events of its kind. “I’ve been playing at a lot of queer events around the world… and it just clicked in my head [that] there’s no festival that represents all of these people,” says Ryan. “Our goal with Body Movements was that it was representative of the full – as much as possible – spectrum of the queer community within clubbing culture,” she continues. “We wanted to have a broad and diverse music policy; we wanted to make sure that it was representing a lot of different sexual identities, cultures, ethnicities; and also it was important to work with promoters who we know have a real established audience, but also with promoters who are doing something a lot more unique and smaller.” If the huge turnout and glowing reviews of the festival’s inaugural edition didn't prove just how necessary a festival like Body Movements is, then the demand for tickets for its second edition certainly does. When we speak to Ryan, it’s on the same day that presale tickets for Body Movements 2022 go live, and by the end of the day 80% of tickets for the festival have gone. This time around, though, Body Movements boasts a much more localised line-up, with collectives like Glasgow’s Lezzer Quest, London’s Pxssy Palace, and Manchester’s High Hoops among those hosting showcases. The festival will also incorporate workshops and panels for the first time, with Ryan’s Body Movements partner,

“The whole future goal [is to] build something that really benefits the queer community and the culture of clubbing”

Clayton Wright of Little Gay Brother, even working on putting together an LGBTQ+ promoters forum that will provide advice for queer promoters on licencing, funding, legal issues and so forth. “There’s not really anything like it that exists for queer promoters, and there’s a lot of different nuances that come with being a queer promoter,” says Ryan. “The whole future goal [for Body Movements] is not just to put on a rave, but to actually build something that really benefits the queer community and the culture of clubbing.” And it feels like a match has been lit, with the announcement of several new queer festivals across the UK this year already. The UK’s first queer electronic music and camping festival, Flesh, was announced in January, and is set to take place at Springfield Farm in St Albans on 28 and 29 May. The festival’s line-up is also the first to be entirely made up of underrepresented artists, with 90% of those performing being women, trans and non-binary artists of various ethnicities. Jake Davis Working with many of the same collectives as Body Movements, Flesh will showcase an array of rising and established DJs from all over the world across its three stages, featuring sets from the likes of Chippy Nonstop, LSDXOXO and TAAHLIAH. There will also be an activity tent – catered towards sober festival goers – hosted by art-rave collective Riposte, where attendees can socialise, take part in workshops and panels, share their experiences, and relax. Closer to home, Colourboxx Festival describes itself as “a celebration of love and unity with inclusion at its core”, and takes place at Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park on 25 June. Combining live music and drag performance, Years & Years, Sugababes, Rina Sawayama, Lawrence Chaney and Bimini are among those set to appear at the festival, with additional performers selected by local collectives Shoot Your Shot, Push It, Pretty Ugly and Obsession. For its debut edition, Colourboxx is also actively working with and supporting two Scottish LGBTQ+ charities. When purchasing a ticket for the festival, ticket buyers will be given the option to donate to the festival’s partners: Time for Inclusive Education – Scotland’s LGBT Inclusive Education charity – and LGBT Youth Body Movements Scotland – Scotland’s national charity for LGBTI young people aged 13-25. A running thread between all three festivals is their focus on community, with each of them working with various organisations and collectives to offer a broad range of experiences that cater to as many members of the queer community as possible. And as each of them work to bring queer events into the daytime economy, that feeling of being cast into the shadows that has existed, for so long, among the queer community feels like it might just be starting to slip away.

Body Movements takes place at various venues across Hackney Wick, London, 30 Jul: bodymovements.co.uk

Flesh Queer Festival takes place at Springfield Farm, St Albans, 28-29 May: fleshfestival.com

Loyal Subjects

Having opted to hold onto a festival ticket since 2019, instead of getting a refund, one writer asks: what is it that makes festivalgoers remain loyal to a festival?

Interview: Maeve Hannigan

Rummaging through my inbox for a festival ticket bought back when life seemed simpler brings up everything that has not happened since. Time has passed without new memories, without gatherings lit by dazed fairy lights, dust-stained beats, reunited strangers and the sound of collective freedom. You can imagine the shock that stirred when the date at the top of the confirmation email was 2019. You can imagine the mental questions that rolled on after in a Sandy Denny cry – ‘Who knows where the time goes?’ As somewhat of a commitment-phobe, it seems hilarious and rather worrying that my loyalty to Kelburn Garden Party has lived longer than any romantic relationship in my life. The idea of the festival has become like a long lost relative, the fun auntie you only hear crazy, legendary stories about. But therein lies a trust that these stories will once again become a reality and I will be both taken under its wing and given a taste of careless freedom. There is a comforting quality in Scottish festivals that is embraced protectively by their small communities yet forever grows among warm, open invites. Like an old family reunion that gets brilliantly out of hand, the mutual connections trail off further than anyone can keep track of. But what is it that pulls people back to these festivals year after year? Every festival devotee will have qualities they look for: the programme, the people, the place. But what about the elders of the family? With that in mind, we ask some of the people behind Scotland’s most-loved festivals what it is that they think makes festivalgoers stay loyal to their festival over others? Chris Knight, Music Programmer, Kelburn Garden Party “I think the best festivals are those that seem to have an ingrained culture, because when you have festivals that have been around for a few years, you get the staff and crew embedded in the festival. And you end up with an event that doesn’t seem transient – it doesn’t seem like it’s just been thrown up and is there just to make some money for the promoters. It’s a real sort of solid cultural entity. “We’re a small festival, we can’t afford to book the heavy hitters. So we’ve certainly worked hard to really establish ourselves with a reputation of booking new, exciting, up-and-coming acts that always deliver. So while a lot of people might come to Kelburn not really knowing the acts so well, a lot of people say that they always discover a lot of stuff.”

Chay Woodman, Press Officer, Eden Festival “I think Eden goes the extra mile to make people feel welcome and entertain them. It’s okay having artists in a field, some flags and calling it a festival... but Eden picks some fantastic music. It’s not always about having a heavy top line, you can have really good headliners and then spread everything out through all the other stages, which I think works for Eden very well because it’s a four-day festival. It’s a family-friendly festival and you get to see a lot more things just by wandering. “Eden is also in this beautiful Photo:Allan Lewis valley, Raehills Meadows near Moffat in southwest Scotland. There are not many artists that come to southwest Scotland.” Katch Holmes, Producer, Knockengorroch “Knockengorroch is run by a family, my family, and it has family at the very core of it and that sensibility sort of seeps out into the ethos of the festival as a whole. You know, how you try to love your family, whatever their faults are? Your loyalty is kind of driven by love and only love. And I think that the festival is a little bit like that – none of us is

Photo: Stevie Powers

Knockengorroch

perfect, but there’s very little judgement. People look after each other. Also the length of time we’ve been going for: we’ve been going for 24 years this year. That means you’ve had entire families form and grow up at the festival, you know, people have met there, conceived there, we’ve had ashes scattered there.”

Aarti Joshi, Head of Marketing and Communications, DF Concerts “I think the reason that people stay loyal to TRNSMT and why they did for T in the Park for so many years, is because of that special connection – the relationship between the artist and the crowd. Artists tell us all the time that the atmosphere is different in Scotland – there’s a special relationship and energy in Scotland that can’t be replicated. A Scottish crowd is unlike any other. Festivals that we put on like T in the Park and TRNSMT are just about creating or facilitating that moment to happen where artists and crowds come together. It’s something special, and it makes people want to experience that feeling again and again.”

Knockengorroch, Carsphairn Hills, Kirkcudbrightshire, 19-22 May

Eden Festival, Raehills Meadows, nr Moffat, 9-12 Jun

Kelburn Garden Party, Kelburn Castle, nr Largs, 1-4 Jul

Spotlight On... Brooke Combe

Having sold out King Tut’s and signed to Island Records during a global pandemic, we shine a spotlight on Brooke Combe ahead of a busy summer of festivals

Interview: Tallah Brash

Edinburgh-born singer-songwriter Brooke Combe’s star has been on a steep incline over the past year and it’s been exciting to watch. From a very classy cover of Baccara’s Yes Sir, I Can Boogie to the singles which have followed, it’s clear that Combe has a knack for relatable lyrics and infectious hooks, with latest single Miss Me Now probably her catchiest song yet, turning bad decision-making into an earworm of a bop. “I wrote Miss Me Now after seeing an old flame when I was on a night out and thinking it was a good idea to leave the club with them,” she says. “It’s never a good idea… but it makes for a good tune.” With an impressive array of successes gathered in such a short period of time, from selling out King Tut’s and signing to Island Records to winning Best Female Breakthrough artists at the 2021 Scottish Music Awards, it’s mad to think that Combe’s journey is only really just beginning. With all that in mind, we shine a spotlight on Brooke Combe to get to know her a little better before she becomes a household name.

You’ve been playing music in some form or another since you were five years old – who would you cite as your main musical influences and what inspires your music writing? There are a lot of artists and bands that inspire me musically, but I’d say some of the main ones growing up were Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Amy Winehouse... the list is endless. However, the main theme throughout them all is soul. I’ve got a really soulful voice and it’s important to me because that’s what moves me the most when listening to tunes. I’d say lyrically my bi est inspiration is Arctic Monkeys. I love the endless use of metaphors throughout their tunes. It just always gets me thinking about ways I can incorporate metaphors in my tunes. It’s quite a difficult thing to do.

It must’ve been quite weird for you coming into prominence with your music amid a global pandemic – what have the last couple of years been like for you? The last couple of years have been sort of crazy, but in a good way. A lot of people saw the pandemic as a hindrance to my development which is somewhat true in terms of performing. I wasn’t able to get out and gig for a long time, which is something I was probably most nervous about considering I’d never really gi ed before. However, it also gave me a lot of time to focus on writing tunes and lyrics and bettering myself as a songwriter. I’ve grown a lot over the last two years and being a fairly shy person, I’m excited to push my limits and see how far I can go with everything.

You’ve got a really busy summer ahead of you – what are you most looking forward to? This summer will be a busy one but I am really excited for it. There’s loads of festivals lined up

Image: courtesy of Island Records and I didn’t ever really go to festivals until I started getting into gi ing, so I’m excited to see other great artists I love performing. I’m trying to work on a really fun, energetic and soulful setlist for this summer and I’m excited to share it with everyone. I’m opening for Miles Kane on his UK tour as well for a month so I’m looking forward to being out on the road and really getting a taste for the touring life.

What festivals are you most excited about playing this summer? I am so buzzed to be playing some of the big UK festivals this year – I’ve just announced Reading and Leeds which is madness to me and the response has been great. As well as Neighbourhood festival, a big one for me is TRNSMT in Glasgow. Playing at home in Scotland alongside some unbelievable company is definitely going to be a highlight of the summer. I can’t wait to be back on the stage and doing what I love and I’d love to see as many people as possible there enjoying it with me.

What does the rest of the year hold for you? I have just released my first single of the year Miss Me Now, which feels insane; I tried something a little different and I’m super proud of this one. We had such a laugh filming the video and the outfits were amazing; I’ve been so excited for everyone to see what I’ve been working on. Throughout the rest of the year I’ll be releasing more tunes and hopefully getting myself out on the road doing my own little headline tour around the UK. It’s going to be an exciting year and opportunities keep coming up, I can’t wait to steal everyone’s hearts… That’s the main goal.

Brooke Combe

Brooke Combe plays Dalkeith Miners Club, 29 Apr; she supports Miles Kane at O2 Academy, Glasgow, 20 May

You can also catch Brooke at several festivals this summer including: Sound City, Liverpool, 30 Apr; Neighbourhood Weekender, Warrington, 28 May; TRNSMT, Glasgow Green, 8 Jul; Truck Festival, Abingdon, 21 Jul; Tramlines, Sheffield, 22 Jul; Deer Shed Festival, North Yorkshire, 29 Jul; Kendal Calling, Cumbria, 30 Jul; Y Not Festival, Derbyshire, 31 Jul; 110 Above Festival, Leicester, 14 Aug; Reading and Leeds Festivals, 26-28 Aug

Dear Diary With festival season just around the corner, here's a handy calendar featuring all of the key Scottish dates for the year ahead Compiled by Tallah Brash

Terminal V: Resurgence Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh, 16-17 Apr Terminal V makes its long overdue return this Easter Bank Holiday weekend, very appropriately named Resurgence. After an unfortunate run of cancellations due to you know what, we’re feeling hopeful that this one will go ahead and the lineup is, as we’ve come to expect, stacked. Expect live sets from KiNK, Robert Hood and 999999999, alongside world class DJs like Helena Hauff, HAAi, Amelie Lens, Eats Everything, Austin Ato and more. terminalv.co.uk

Photo: James Gourlay

Terminal V

Riverside Festival Riverside Museum, Glasgow, 2-4 Jun Following a euphoric September outing for Glasgow’s Riverside Festival last year, the weekender returns to its rightful place in the calendar, taking full advantage of the Jubilee Bank Holiday weekend. Taking place in the shadow of the Riverside Museum on the banks of the River Clyde, Charlotte De Witte, Róisín Murphy and Carl Cox head up a bill which also includes FJAAK (live), Joy Orbison, TAAHLIAH (live), Lisalööf and more. riversidefestivalglasgow.com

Photo: Ryan Buchanan

Riverside Photo: Harry Millett/State of Music

Anna B Savage

The Great Eastern Various, Edinburgh, 21 May Following a successful first outing for The Great Eastern last November in Edinburgh’s Southside, the festival returns this spring for round two to The King’s Hall, The Queen’s Hall and the many rooms of Summerhall. So far the lineup includes Brighton indie quartet Porridge Radio, London psych outfit Soccer96, indie-pop trio Peaness and the inimitable Kathryn Joseph, with Anna B Savage and The Joy Hotel back for round two. thegreateastern.org

Photo: Marilena Vlachopoulou

Rina Sawayama

Colourboxx Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, 25 Jun Making its debut in the Scottish festival calendar this year is the vibrant Colourboxx. Taking place in Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park, the aim behind the all-dayer is to bring people together to celebrate love and unity. As well as a whole host of exceptional drag artists like Lawrence Chaney, Bimini and Tia Kofi, there’s also a gleaming bill of pop music featuring Years & Years, Becky Hill, Rina Sawayama and the Sugababes, in their original lineup no less! colourboxx.com Knockengorroch Carsphairn Hills, Kirkcudbrightshire, 19-22 May The Knockengorroch World Ceilidh is finally set to return this May, ushering in the start of ‘taps aff’ weather and getting the camping festival season off to a strong start. This year the much-loved world music/trad/hip-hop/fusion knees-up welcomes the likes of Afro Celt Sound System, Lowkey, Mungo’s Hi-Fi Sound System, Nova, Callum Easter and Plump DJs to the stunning Carsphairn Hills beside the Water of Deugh. knockengorroch.org.uk

Knockengorroch

Hidden Door Old Royal High School, Calton Hill, Edinburgh, 9-18 Jun After an exceptional return to form from Hidden Door last year, which saw them take over the Granton Gasworks, the location-hopping festival will take over the Old Royal High School on Calton Hill this June. Featuring both an outdoor and indoor stage, this ten-day extravaganza will welcome music, art, theatre and more to this unique setting, with music from This Is the Kit, Warmduscher, Dry Cleaning, EFÉ, Makeness, Girl Ray and more. hiddendoorarts.org

Old Royal High School

Photo: Ian Schofield

Dream Wife

Stag & Da er Various, Edinburgh, 30 Apr; Various, Glasgow, 1 May Dream Wife, Let’s Eat Grandma, Protomartyr instagram.com/stagandda erofficial Tectonics Festival Various, Glasgow, 30 Apr-1 May BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Douglas R Ewart, FUJI||||||||||TA bbc.co.uk/tectonics

Photo: Glen Stubbe Photo: Jannica Honey

Chef

Wide Days Various, Edinburgh, 19-21 May Savage Mansion, Chef, Katherine Aly widedays.com Fly Open Air Hopetoun House, Edinburgh, 21-22 May Pe y Gou, DJ Koze, Horse Meat Disco flyflyfly.co.uk

Kelburn Garden Party Kelburn Castle, nr Largs, 1-4 Jul After a three year break, we can’t wait to get back to Kelburn this year. The lineup is as suitably diverse as we’ve come to expect from the team behind the Garden Party, and we’re delighted to say we’re programming the Pyramid Stage for all three days of the festival this year with Nova, Free Love and Maranta all set to play alongside the likes of Kapil Seshasayee, Bemz, Swiss Portrait and Katherine Aly. Bring on the sunshine! kelburngardenparty.com

Photo: Aly Wight

Jupiter Rising

Jupiter Rising Jupiter Artland, nr Edinburgh 26-28 Aug Jupiter Rising was a real highlight of 2021 for us and we can’t wait to be back in the beautiful surrounds of Jupiter Artland this August for more fun. So far, this year’s festival features guest curators Alloysious Massaquoi (Young Fathers) and Tamara Schlesinger (MALKA / Hen Hoose). The lineup so far includes Emma Pollock, AMUNDA, Poster Paints, Susan Bear, jayda, Djana Gabrielle, Distruction Boyz, Dylema and Mychelle. jupiterrising.art

Photo: Allegra Stodolsky

Kelburn Castle

Otherlands Scone Palace, Perth, 19-21 Aug Partnering with the likes of BBC Introducing, Sub Club, Sneaky Pete’s and Boiler Room, Fly Club launch their debut Scottish camping festival this summer which will see them taking over the grounds of Perth’s Scone Palace. Best known as the site where both Macbeth and Robert the Bruce were crowned, this summer it will be best known as a place for dancing the night away to world class acts such as Bicep (live), Jamie xx, Honey Dijon, TSHA and Elkka (live). otherlandsfestival.com

Photo: Alex James-Aylin

Otherlands Doune the Rabbit Hole Cardross Estate, Port of Menteith, Stirling, 14-17 Jul We almost choked on our coffee earlier this year when the family friendly Doune the Rabbit Hole announced that Patti Smith would headline the festival’s opening night. Returning after a few years off, the 2022 lineup is one of the most exciting on the Scottish festival circuit, where alongside Patti you’ll find Boney M(!), Yard Act, Belle and Sebastian, Camera Obscura, Snapped Ankles, Nadia Rose, Porridge Radio, Stanley Odd and more. dounetherabbithole.co.uk

Photo: Euan Robertson

Mogwai

Connect Festival Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh, 26-28 Aug At the end of 2021 it was announced that after 14 years Connect Festival would return in 2022, much to the delight of many on social media. With a relocation to Edinburgh’s Royal Highland Centre, Massive Attack, The Chemical Brothers and The National are set to headline this year’s fest with Mogwai, Self Esteem, The Twilight Sad, Black Coffee, Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul, Caribou, Sudan Archives and more further down the bill. connectmusicfestival.com

Some more dates for your diary

As if all of that isn’t enough, there’s plenty more going on across the country this year that’s worth shouting about. Counterflows kicks things off in Glasgow at the end of March (31 Mar-3 Apr) before The Return of the Slam Tent (29 Apr-1 May) sets the grounds of Hopetoun House alight. Skye Live (12-14 May) gets things underway in the Highlands and Islands, with the Orkney Folk Festival (26-29 May) following shortly after, before Lost Map Records’ Howlin’ Fling invites you to the Isle of Ei for Island Family Gathering (1-2 Jul). The following weekend sees the Tiree Music Festival take place (8-10 Jul), before the Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival (28-30 Jul) brings revellers to the Belladrum Estate near Inverness. Back in the central belt, the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival takes over the capital from 15-24 July, warming up the city ahead of the Edinburgh International Festival (5-29 Jul). Coinciding with the Edinburgh festivals, Fringe by the Sea takes place in the seaside town of North Berwick (5-14 Aug), while the Edinburgh Summer Sessions bring big names to Princes Street Gardens for a run of shows from 7-14 August. Meanwhile in Glasgow, Summer Nights at the Kelvingrove Bandstand are well worth checking out (27 Jul-13 Aug), while later in the year Tenement Trail takes over Glasgow’s East End on 8 October, with The Great Western taking place the following month (12 Nov).

Image: courtesy Eden Festival

Eden Festival

Eden Festival Raehills Meadows, nr Moffat, Dumfries & Galloway, 9-12 Jun Coolio, Hollie Cook, Pictish Trail edenfestival.co.uk Solas Festival Errol Park, Perthshire, 17-19 Jun Stanley Odd, Lewis McLaughlin, Callum Easter solasfestival.co.uk

Photo: Jassy Early Photo: Allan Lewis

TRNSMT

TRNSMT Glasgow Green, Glasgow, 8-10 Jul The Strokes, Wet Leg, Self Esteem trnsmtfest.com HebCelt Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, 1316 Jul Texas, Seasick Steve, Admiral Fallow hebceltfest.com

Photo: Eoin Carey

You may think you know the writer Douglas Stuart, but you most likely don’t. Not really. Stuart, a former creative director in the fast-paced world of fashion, now a Booker Prizewinning novelist, has found freedom in rejecting any pigeonholing that might have come with his monumental past few years. Stuart is only the second Scottish author to win the Booker Prize in its 51-year history (after James Kelman) with his debut Shu ie Bain, a novel that follows a young man’s relationship with his mother as their family navigate life on a Glaswegian council estate. From his New York apartment, I speak with Stuart over Zoom while I myself am not far from the very city that has shaped much of his early writing. While fans may revere Stuart for his effort in shining a light on marginalised stories, he is not to be mistaken for his widely acclaimed characters; specifically, his debut novel’s portrayal of queer, working class Scottish life during the Thatcher years. He is now ready to make clear that his life’s experiences are his and his alone. “I reject all pressure to be a representative for something,” he says. “My art can be enough. This is the story that I am telling. “I can’t say to you I was the kid that grew up sort of journaling or writing poems or disappearing into the world in that way,” Stuart continues. “But I always had an imagination that was really restless because I was a lonely kid. I was suffering, both with addiction at home and poverty. Then when I was going on the streets, I was queer, and so a lot of the other young boys and men didn’t quite know what to do with me. I didn’t know how to fit into that world that I was in.” That notion of fitting in as a young queer man is something threaded in both Shu ie Bain and Young Mungo, his sophomore effort. Both novels feature central characters who are coming to terms with their sexuality in the middle of communities that constantly deride them for being soft, effeminate, unathletic. As Stuart alludes to in both novels, the other male characters are often at a loss with how to interact with the young men. Shu ie’s mother tries to get her neighbour to take the boy out on a fishing trip, much to his horror. Still, Shu ie digs deep inside himself to find the courage to go only to then be left behind by the older man and his young sons. Mungo’s older brother Hamish stru les to connect with him, fearing that their lack of father has made Mungo weak. He eventually forces his younger brother to take part in a sectarian clash so that Mungo can prove his manhood. Such violence goes against Mungo’s very nature and ultimately leads to unimaginable consequences. While Young Mungo may share many characteristics to Stuart’s debut (the city of Glasgow, poverty and addiction), it is largely a departure,

following the slow burning romance some pain, or some hurt, of Mungo, a Protestant teenager, and or some really big James, a Catholic school-leaver, one themes that will haunt year his senior, who are navigating me, I think, for my entire the start of manhood against a writing life.” backdrop of violent toxic masculinity. Manhood is Mungo is a quiet, gullible young another important man who sits in the shadows of his theme, especially the gang leader brother, Hamish, and shaping of gay men in a academically gifted sister, Jodie. He world in which the is constantly told what to do, how to quintessential male is a think, how to act, but it is not until he violent, disenfranchised meets James that he realises he can heterosexual. “You simply be himself. know Mungo loves his What is so moving about Young mother, but the mother Mungo is how it unfurls its main is not the focus of character’s sexual awakening, set in [Young Mungo] at all. the 1990s during the years of Section This is about his love 28 when queer visibility or LGBT for himself, discovering allyship were not a part of mainstream himself, and with James culture or society. Reading it serves as as well, but really what a reminder of just how harrowing a it means to become a journey coming out can be even to this day. For man.” It was important to write Mungo in that way, Mungo, all he knows of being gay is that it will make he says, against a backdrop of performative toxic him a pariah in his community, a further target for masculinity “especially because he’s a very tender homophobic vitriol. He has learned to quell any and a very gentle boy, and sometimes tenderness desire for other boys until he meets another outsid- or being gentle or being kind can be seen as a er in the form of James. weakness for men.” That isolation is not unfamiliar to Stuart, As we speak ahead of his first major UK book though he notes his youth differs from the era of tour, I can’t help but note how his rise in the social media in which young people might more literary world happened during a time in which our easily find community or visible queerness online collective worlds grew smaller and many of us even if their home life is not as accepting. “There turned to books and TV as a portal into other has to be an easing of loneliness when you can worlds. As the world began to bunker down during just see someone, even if they’re in Venezuela, or the early days of deepest, darkest lockdown, his Argentina, or no matter where they are in the 2020 debut Shu ie Bain became something of a world. It can be geographically a billion miles away zeitgeist for booklovers and literary awards alike. from you, but you know that there’s other stars in Published just a month before most countries the firmament. You know that they’re out there, began to close their borders, Stuart is now only somewhere, and they like the same things as you.” just getting to meet his fans during a packed Like many LGTBQ people who did not grow publicity run for his sensational follow-up. up during the dawn of social media, I “Shu ie doesn’t intend to speak for every “There’s room too stru led to find examples of queerness, especially examples of single working-class family in Glasgow,” notes Stuart, on the pressure of portraying Scotland, for every kind queer people thriving, happy, and at peace. The need for this visibility is specifically a grittier, unglamorous Glasgow, ahead of his imminent return. “It speaks for the working of story, and something Stuart emphasises class family I created and that is it. But there are throughout the relationship Mungo many people who survived under the Thatcher so I reject shares with James. Both young men years and who flourished and who had great lives. all pressure are paramount in shaping their understanding of same-sex love and There’s probably young queer people who grew up in the 90s in Glasgow who had a great time that to be a desire. While much of the story is lived on the other side of the city. There’s room for every kind of story, and so I reject all pressure to representative centred on its two star-crossed lovers, it is violent, harrowing, and at be a representative for something.” Perhaps this is what all writers deserve, the for something” times difficult to read. There is a real sense that Mungo and his neighability to transcend both expectation and the self and to write into the unknown. For Douglas Stuart,

Douglas Stuart bours will never escape their estate writing about Glasgow and its gallus denizens was and instead must learn to survive. a way to work through the very things that weighed Filled with scenes of sexual assault, heavily on him decades after emigrating from sectarian violence, and visceral depictions of Scotland. But his acute ability to depict the daily addiction, Young Mungo is painful but powerful for stru les of the human experience no doubt how it explores young love and sexuality. Against means wherever he chooses to write into next will all odds, it feels powerful that Mungo can maintain give his readers even more insight into what it a friendship with James, even as the communities means to survive and exist in all one’s multitudes. around them are at odds with each other. Undoubtedly, his art will indeed be enough. Stuart acknowledges that he might always need to explore the pain that colours much of his writing. “Thematically, I am still getting my hands around Young Mungo is published by Picador, 14 Apr, £16.99

War Games

Over recent years, the UK’s damaging war rhetoric has persistently reared its ugly head. We reflect on how we talk about war and why that needs to change

Words: Anahit Behrooz Illustration: Kate Osmomd

What is this country’s obsession with world wars? They are everywhere, all the time. We dreamed of one in early 2020, when a conflict between the US and Iran never quite came to fruition but lasted long enough for crazed armageddon rhetoric to grip the nation. During lockdowns, so-called Blitz spirit was invoked more often than public health policy, a sick nostalgia for a time of terror and making do. And now, ever since the invasion of Ukraine, my social media timelines are thick once more with hypothetical violence and newly imagined home fronts. There’s a strange bloodlust in the air. World War III is trending on Twitter and people are joking about drafts and evacuations and I am so sick of it I could scream. The UK does not have a healthy relationship with its past. Every time a fresh crisis occurs that might tap into whatever murky, idealised idea it has of its history, I am struck anew by it all: the delusions of grandeur, the desperation for heroism, the longing for meaningful violence – any kind of violence – as long as it does not arrive on our own shores. Perhaps it is unsurprising. British history has left so many bloody footprints on the world, with centuries of colonialism and extraction and coups, that maybe the only way to cope with the weight of it is to blot it all out, sink comfortably back into a time when we were heroes, good people, when we did the right thing. Remember when we protected Poland, remember when we drove out fascism, remember when we sacrificed everything – our young and beloved – for a higher purpose. Remember, remember, remember. If we say it enough, surely it must be true. The problem with mythologising, let alone self-mythologising, is that it, by necessity, creates a rupture with reality. Yes, we sheltered during the Blitz, lived frugally on rations and purportedly pulled together. But wait – did we really? Black people were routinely ejected from air raid shelters during the Battle of Britain; the Jewish parents of the children on Kindertransports were denied asylum and consequently died in the genocide of the concentration camps; and the efforts of soldiers of colour have been all but erased from every war film that has followed. Tom Moore may have walked for weeks to raise money for the NHS, but what was that but a gruesome protraction of the exploitation his generation faced – an entire country of men farmed out to fight and die, no structures of welfare or care in sight. What nobility is there in any of it? What kind of pure past are we harking back towards? It all feels so utterly meaningless, and so utterly hopeless, because if we can’t understand or see the past for what it was, then how can we ever process the present with any sense of responsibility or, indeed, reality. The way the UK and the West fight wars has changed: the time of drafts and mandatory service is over, and this current warfare will likely not reach our lands. That isn’t to say that the anxiety and horror of human misery won’t affect us, but also – they won’t, not really, not in the same way. Not directly. We likely won’t have to flee our homes, we won’t have to count and bury our dead, our lives will not change overnight. And yet, somehow, we can’t stop imagining it. Teenagers on TikTok are bantering about conscription and people are cosplaying military tactics by donating to the Ukrainian army’s bizarre Patreon account and as spring creeps incongruously through the windows I wonder if we have all lost our minds. People die as missiles pound the air hundreds of miles away and here there is nothing but silence and the grind of the internet and newspapers guessing what the fallout from a nuclear attack on

Glasgow would be. I wonder how far Western narcissism will take us, when its outer limits will finally be reached. How inwardly do you have to look before you eventually collapse in on yourself? Everything has become a game, a joke, because it barely feels real. We have become very good at outsourcing our fantasies of violence and so violence has become entirely sundered from any kind of material reality; blood and bones and sheer, unimaginable horror. On the Thursday that the invasion begins I sit frozen all day, an acrid panic heavy in my stomach. I can’t stop scrolling. One Tweet appears again and again. “Men,” it tells me, “will literally invade Ukraine instead of going to therapy.” The conflict is barely hours old and already it is just a silly little gag. But what place does the meme-ified language of bad dating have in devastating international conflict? What new stage of feminism is this deliberately cultivated ironic carelessness? Which women are being helped? Surely not the women of Ukraine, or Russia, or Afghanistan, or Yemen. I scroll again. The next Tweet predicts World War III, that we will all die. Well, I wonder, which is it? It sums it up really, the complete and utter insane paradox of it all: the illusion that we are just as vulnerable as those being bombed; the solid comfort of knowing that we aren’t. That we can make jokes, laugh, try and be the funniest person on the internet with impunity. I am certain now that this is how the world will go out. Liberalism and smug, flimsy feminism and solipsism right until the last ray of light. An understanding of war that only ever centres the West, and then maybe – just maybe – those that look similar. “There’s rumours of a thermobaric bomb,” a man from the news explains, in a clip that circulates again and again online. “Which,” he adds, “the US has used before in Afghanistan, but the idea of it being used in Europe is stomach churning.” I click off Twitter. In the days following the invasion, a poem by Ukrainian-American writer Ilya Kaminsky goes viral, its screenshot from Poetry Foundation intermittently breaking up the rest of the internet’s savage shriek. “I took a chair and watched the sun,” it goes. “In the street of money in the city of money in the / country of money, / our great country of money, we (forgive us) / lived happily during the war.” I have been thinking of these lines often, every time World War III re-trends, every time I myself become preoccupied with the idea of possible nuclear holocaust where I am. We, so many of us, live in the country of money – we have always done so. Here, safe in the country of money, far from the shells and bombs, it is so very easy to fantasise about war.

“British history has left so many bloody footprints on the world, with centuries of colonialism and extraction and coups, that maybe the only way to cope with the weight of it is to blot it all out”

Go With the Flow

Ahead of two performances at this year’s Counterflows festival, we meet London-based DJ aya to discuss what she has planned, and discover that forward planning isn’t exactly her strong suit

Interview: Nadia Younes

For someone who thinks very deeply about music, Aya Sinclair’s approach to preparing for a live performance is surprisingly ramshackle. Speaking to us from her South London flat, the DJ and producer – better known as aya – is in the process of pulling things together for an upcoming performance at MUTEK festival in Barcelona in just a few days. “I’m fairly used to being quite last minute,” she laughs. “I sometimes write tunes in the green room and then play them half an hour later.” And it appears that the same last minute approach is also being taken for her upcoming performance at Glasgow’s Counterflows festival – taking place in venues around the city from 31 March-3 April. In a late addition to the programme, it was announced that not only will Sinclair be DJing at the festival’s late night club event at Room 2, she will also be performing live at the festival’s closing party, alongside her close friend and frequent collaborator Iceboy Violet. “I think we’re going to be working out how we’re going to do it up until the week before, of course, but it’s definitely something we want to do more of,” she says. “This could all change in the space of a week, but from where we’re at now it’s going to be that there will be a set within a set, basically. There will be a handing over of the microphone, and we’ll have a bunch of Iceboy stuff as well.” Having known each other from their days living in Manchester and as part of the queer DJ collective boygirl, the pair worked closely together on aya’s debut album, im hole, released in October last year via Hyperdub. During the making of the album, Sinclair was heavily influenced by the writing of Sadie Plant, specifically her 1997 book, Zeros and Ones: Digital Women and the New Technoculture. “There’s a few consistent narratives that come back time and time again, and each time they come back a bit more context is given to them based on all of the things that have happened

“While my music can maybe come off quite complicated or disorientating, most of the stuff that’s on [im hole] is incredibly simplistic”

around them,” she says. “So you get this sense of weaving taking place in the writing… and you’re recognising all of these loops that are happening around you as you’re reading it. It’s absolutely magical.” Such was the book’s influence on her, Sinclair adopted a similar structure for im hole, which was released with an accompanying clothbound book of lyrics, poems and photographs, designed in collaboration with Oliver Van Der Lugt. Just like Plant’s book, each element of the album gives meaning to another and our understanding of it is constantly shifting as a result, making each listen more thrilling than the last. “Stitching and weaving is something that comes up time and time again in the lyrics, but it’s also finding ways of creating this sort of patchwork in my production,” she says. “I reuse the same sounds quite a lot, but just the processing that I put on them is super different. “While my music can maybe come off quite complicated or disorientating, most of the stuff that’s on the record is incredibly simplistic,” she adds. “Most of the tracks are three or four elements really, and it’s about the way that things are combined or the way that things are arranged… I think making a point clearly and simply, and coming to an odd conclusion about things based off that is something that’s really valuable to me.” There’s one particular recurring motif on im hole that we discuss: the repetition of the phrase ‘red shoes, blue shoes’, spoken in an almost frustrated and confused tone that appears across the album. To one ear, this might su est some sort of internalised identity stru le, but, in fact, Sinclair tells us that it is merely a vocal warm-up she picked up while doing some voice training sessions, and its inclusion on the album is a way of forcing herself to actually practise them. “There is the nice thing that it’s kind of walked backwards into being about an indeterminacy of identity,” she says. “These things get meaning attached to them… and sometimes the answer is as stupid as they’re just vocal warm-up phrases, but that doesn’t invalidate that reading of it… Also, she gave me a sheet of like 35 words and phrases, and those are the ones that I picked.” With Sinclair, you get the sense that the cogs are always turning. Whether intentional or not, her work feels incredibly intricate and considered, with hidden gems scattered throughout for the listener to unpack in a manner of different ways. And, even if it’s only been thrown together in the few days, hours or minutes before, you can always expect something special.

Counterflows takes place at various venues across Glasgow, 31 Mar-3 Apr

Late Night Counterflows: Bonaventure, aya, and Ira, Room 2, Glasgow, 2 Apr

Still House Plants, aya featuring Iceboy Violet, and MC Yallah & Debmaster, The Ferry, Glasgow, 3 Apr

Abbey Days

The Paisley Food and Drink Festival returns this month; here’s a look at what’s in store

Ever since Saint Mirin rocked up in this corner of the Lowlands in the 7th century and decided to settle down for a bit, Paisley Abbey has been a site of meetings, greetings and camaraderie. Paisley may have some famous sons and daughters – from fashion designer Pam Hogg to shouty action man Gerard Butler – but the Abbey itself remains one of the town’s most recognisable residents. Over the centuries it’s been burned down, rebuilt, and fallen in and out of favour, but after an extensive renovation project it’s now a spectacular sight to behold.

While the building itself may be very very old, the Paisley Food and Drink Festival – taking place in the shadow of Paisley Abbey this month – is a chance to try something new with a collection of your fellow travellers (the 2019 edition of the Festival drew in 16,000 attendees). Or, to be a bit more accurate, the Paisley Food and Drink Festival is a chance to try a lot of new stu .

Take the Festival’s extensive selection of street food as an example. There are more than 30 food traders lined up for 2022, including a host of stands, trucks and stalls from Glasgow street food market PLATFORM. Expect a huge range of street grub inspired by locations and traditions from around the world, all helpfully wrangled together in one place to allow you to bob between cuisines at a moment’s notice.

So that’s the food part of the title dealt with. As for drinks, there’s some good news and bad news. The bad news is that Paisley Town Hall – the traditional home of the town’s beer festival – is currently undergoing a major refurbishment. The good news is that the beer festival’s organisers at Renfrewshire CAMRA have found an ideal solution, in the form of a beer tent that will be parked up in front of the Abbey, right in the heart of town. They’ll be serving up great cask ales from the local area and beyond at Paisley Food and Drink Festival.

Entertainment comes in the form of live music programmed by a trio of venues over the course of Friday and Saturday. First up is The Rum Shack, the ever-popular bar and gig venue in Glasgow’s Southside, and they’re joined by Paisley rock bar and burger joint The Keg. Making up the trio is The Bungalow, Paisley’s independent, ethical, grassroots gig venue. Again, the lineup is TBC at this stage, but keep an eye on paisley.is for details.

Taking place on the nal weekend of April, this is the rst ‘in-person’ outing for the Paisley Food and Drink Festival since 2019, and the rst in a series of big events in Paisley this spring and summer. It’s just a ten-minute train ride from Glasgow Central, and if you get your timetables right, you can make it from the centre of Edinburgh to Paisley in under 90 minutes. The Paisley Food and Drink Festival promises a weekend of extremely edible fun as well as acting as a jumping-o point to discover more of what makes Paisley great.

Paisley Food and Drink Festival 2022, Abbey Close, Paisley, Fri 29 Apr, 4-9pm and Sat 30 Apr, 12-9pm, free entry

Find out more about Paisley Food and Drink Festival at paisley.is

Short but Sweet

As is now tradition, we speak to some of the filmmakers behind our favourite shorts at this year’s Glasgow Short Film Festival

Interviews: Jamie Dunn

Maryam Hamidi on Bahar

Film and TV were Maryam Hamidi’s first loves. “Escapism was crucial for our mental health as an immigrant family,” she tells us, “and helped me and my siblings understand our hybrid culture after moving to the UK from Iran.” She toyed with directing when she was younger, making videos at college, but ended up pursuing a career in front of the camera instead. Most of her acting has been on stage, although you might have seen her in feature films like Wild Rose and The Last Bus, or during her three-year stint on Glasgow soap River City. “Working as an actor on screen projects lit a fire in me for screenwriting and directing,” she says. She’s now stepped behind the camera. First for zombie apocalypse romance Bloody Love and now Bahar, a dazzling short exploring the inner turmoil of a mother who’s haunted by grief for her dead daughter – figuratively and potentially literally too. Hamidi always wanted to incorporate genre into her scripts. “For me, drama needs something to elevate it, whether in story terms or picture terms, and I’m always reaching for the supernatural to unlock that inner dimension of character psyche.” Hamidi cites three Iranian films that gave her the confidence to play with genre while also holding on to her own voice: Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Babak Anvari’s Under the Shadow and Shirin Neshat’s Women Without Men. “Exploring Iran’s painful socio-political transitions through the lens of horror and magic realism was a revelation,” she says, “and I feel like grounding genre elements in social drama is where I find really charged up stories.”

Bahar centres on Narges, a single mum and professor of Iranian literature, who might be losing her grip on reality. For ten years she’s been mourning the death of her eight-year-old daughter who was killed in a car accident, and she’s become convinced the creeping mould that has enveloped the walls of her family home is the manifestation of the girl’s lingering spirit. “The premise grew from witnessing the slow and sometimes toxic impact of ‘empty nests’ on the elder immigrant women in my life,” explains Hamidi. “The convergence of visceral bereavement and loss of identity and purpose when your children leave home felt quietly urgent to me. The supernatural textures grew from the truth of the characters, and this developed loads in collaboration with my producer Alysia Maciejowska and the rest of our creative team.” Hamidi’s ambition for the film is that it will help open some eyes to how grief continues to evolve over decades. “Within repressed cultures we often expect people to move on from grief, which breeds this toxicity. I hope this visceral, mouldy expression of that is ultimately cathartic for people.”

Sean Lìonadh on Too Rough

When we catch up with filmmaker and poet Sean Lìonadh, he’s fresh from a trip to SXSW in Austin, where his new short Too Rough was making its international debut. “During my first screening, an ‘Amber Alert’ went off and we were all texted by the government to tell us a child had been kidnapped,” he recalls. “Everyone seemed unfazed by it, like it was a common occurrence…” That wasn’t the only culture shock. “During the film itself, I felt there were some jokes where the audience may have felt they weren’t allowed to laugh. In Scotland, people were roaring. I think our humour is a lot darker. Despite that, I could hear a lot of sniffling, so the emotion seems to be viscerally universal.” It’s no wonder emotions cut through. Too Rough is raw and visceral, particularly for any queer person with vivid memories of the closet. It sees Nick, a gay teen still uneasy in his sexuality, wake up in horror after a night of partying when he realises he’s brought his boyfriend home to his single bed under the roof he shares with his highly dysfunctional and blatantly homophobic parents. Lìonadh delved into similar themes of shame and homophobia in previous works like Time to Love. It’s clearly a subject he’s compelled to explore in his poetry and through cinema. “Shame has unfortunately been the experience of the LGBTQ community for centuries,” he says. “That makes it sound like a collective experience, but when you’re in it, it feels like you’re the only person who has ever felt like that. I’ve been trying to understand it for so long now, and the best way I can do that is through making it visible. Visibility is the antithesis of shame – because we hold others to a completely different standard than we hold ourselves. When we are ashamed of ourselves, it feels right in some way. When we see others ashamed, we suddenly recognise something is very wrong. That empathy frees us, makes us caring, makes us soft. I really want my work to invite people to soften.” It’s no surprise Too Rough has been a success in America and at home: both cultures’ cinema sensibilities are present in his work. He’s particularly influenced by two directors: Lynne Ramsay and Andrea Arnold. “I’m so inspired by both of those female filmmakers – they can manage the huge and the minuscule. In Ramsay and Arnold’s work, we have both the beautiful, European, 4:3 cinematic qualities, and also the widescreen, open plain sensation of Hollywood. These women are courageous and go to some of the darkest places I’ve seen. I would love to follow in their footsteps.”

seanlionadh.com

Too Rough

Cat Bruce on Dùsgadh

As one of Scotland’s most talented young stopmotion animators, Cat Bruce has forged a career bringing inanimate objects to life. But that wasn’t always the plan. She rocked up at Edinburgh College of Art intending to study the more static art of sculpture, but switched degrees after getting a taste for animation in first year. “I completely fell in love with it,” she tells us. “I really enjoyed the process of expressing ideas and telling stories through moving images.” And what images. In No Place Like Home and The Golden Bird, Bruce utilises gorgeously tactile models and puppets while films like Vincent Black Lightning and her beguiling new film Dùsgadh see her work in a black and white cut-out style. Animation tends to be a fastidious and exacting business, but in Bruce’s hands there’s a thrilling freedom to the work. “Messy” and “haphazard” are the first two words Bruce reaches for when describing her work. “I am aiming to be precise, but at the same time I lose patience. It becomes like a casserole I have made with whatever is in the kitchen and I will never remember the recipe for.”

Dùsgadh’s stew was cooked up by Bruce and folk band Breabach over lockdown. It’s based very loosely on the Highland fairytale The Sea-Maiden and features a fearsome two-headed dragon, a plucky hunter who’s transformed into a dog and a mysterious kelpie who sends the hunter on a magical quest. The soundtrack comprises five new pieces of music, one from each of Breabach’s members, while Bruce dazzles with the animation. It’s been a fruitful partnership. “I find sound and music very helpful to visualise ideas and stories,” says Bruce. “When working in collaboration with Breabach, they have always been very open with how they approach the projects, so it feels very free. With Dùsgadh, we started with some folk story ideas, based around themes of awakening, then the band came up with some music based on the story chapters and I responded to this in the animation.” This isn’t the first time Bruce has dabbled in folklore. Her ECA graduation film The Golden Bird was a Brothers Grimm adaptation. “I see fairytales as malleable structures to build new stories upon,” she says. “The nature of them is to change through each telling.” Dùsgadh feels even more embedded in the fairytale realm thanks to its form. Constructed in the black cardboard silhouette, it instantly calls to mind the great German animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger (The Adventures of Prince Achmed). Homage wasn’t the only reason for using this technique. “In some ways I used it because of the connotations with Lotte Reiniger films, but I decided on that style because of the way the simpler forms leave space for imagination. The less detail in the image, the more the viewer’s mind can fill in the blanks.”

Dùsgadh

FIlm

Razan Madhoon on Go Home

Razan Madhoon’s route to filmmaking was a circuitous one. “Back home in Gaza I did a degree in journalism and I worked as a TV reporter and programmer and directed news-led documentary films, but I have always been interested in directing fiction.” After winning a Chevening international scholarship, she moved from Palestine to Scotland to begin an MA in Film Directing at the University of Edinburgh. Go Home is Madhoon’s professional debut and takes us inside the Kafkaesque bureaucracy of the UK Home Office. “It has been an idea on my mind since I claimed asylum in the UK in 2017,” she says. “I claimed asylum to be able to stay in the UK and went through the tough and bureauGo Home cratic asylum process myself. The film is my own observations of the immigration centre and the people I met there – either the officers who worked there or the other asylum seekers who were waiting for hours for their interviews.” As you would expect from a film by a former journalist, Go Home is rich in detail and feels deeply authentic in its depiction of the UK’s dehumanising asylum process. Raw, realist films are the work to which Madhoon says she’s naturally drawn. “I like to be truthful to reality and close to the characters I’m portraying in my films. That’s why I appreciate realism in cinema and the documentarylike approach, like what we see in the films of the Dardenne brothers, Claire Denis and Andrea Arnold. It’s an authentic and honest representation of the realities of the people and their experiences.” What makes Go Home so powerful is the fine-grained performances Madhoon has elicited from her faultless cast, and the riveting parallel editing structure she employs. Throughout the film, action intermittently switches between the experience of a young Palestinian woman trying to claim asylum in the UK and the point-of-view of a Polish asylum officer who’s encouraged by her hard-nosed boss to reject genuine asylum claims. Madhoon herself was interviewed by a female asylum officer who had a foreign accent. “I kept thinking, ‘we are alike, we both want a home accepting us as we are both challenged by the same political system and its hostile policies towards foreigners.’” The parallel story lets the film speak to every immigrant who has made the UK their home but is still faced with a government set on alienating them. “We are all in the same boat no matter what our backgrounds are.” We ask what she hopes UK-born audiences will take away from Go Home. “More sympathy and understanding of refugees and immigrants’ need for home, freedom, and acceptance,” she says. You’d be a callous person to come out of Madhoon’s deeply empathetic film with any other notion.

razanmadhoon.com

Daniel Cook on The Bayview

Daniel Cook is a filmmaker drawn to people on the fringes of mainstream society. He stumbled across a passion for shooting documentaries almost by accident in 2016, while studying for a Master’s at Edinburgh College of Art. “I had been out photographing a charismatic New Town resident called Graham Croan Bee,” Cook recalls. “I also happened to take some video on my DSLR as a bit of an experiment. When I presented my work to the tutors they were totally into the video, and I made this footage into my first short documentary. From then on I’ve been persevering with lots of different documentary film ideas around Scotland.” He cites “slow documentaries” such as Gianfranco Rosi’s Sacro GRA among his influences, as well as the great Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang, who’s known for his long, static shots filled with rich visual details and seriocomical surrealism. You see shades of both in Cook’s elegant observational doc The Bayview, which takes us inside a ramshackle guest house in Macduff, a small fishing village in the northeast of Scotland, that’s become a refuge for an international collection of fisherman seeking some semblance of a home away from home. The heart of the film is American ex-pat Susie, The Bayview’s gregarious proprietor who’s become a mother figure to the dozens of itinerant workers, from Eastern Europe to The Philippines to Ghana, who wash up on Macduff’s docks along with the catch of the day. Cook patiently observes the pop-up community that’s formed around Susie and The Bayview. Another key character in the film is Matt, Susie’s adopted son, who’s Tongan. “I had always liked the idea of hanging the film around Susie’s matriarchal personality,” says Cook. “There’s a nice synergy about all these characters when they are in a room together. Particularly Susie’s love for Matt as well as the younger men coming off the boats; they are like an extended family. I thought Matt’s uncertainty about The Bayview’s future acted as a bit of an allegory in parallel to the lives of the fishermen, who have precarious futures working in these uncertain times.” The film appears to take place across a single day, but in reality Cook had to spend a significant amount of time at The Bayview for its residents to get fully on board with what he was trying to achieve. “It was important that the people involved trusted me, felt respected and were happy with the arrangements,” he says. “I have lots of footage where people felt awkward or tried to break the silence by acknowledging my presence. But eventually, with time, I became good friends with those involved and they were able to relax in front of the camera.” Cook says his aim was to take us on an intriguing journey into the lives of others that people don’t necessarily know exist. “This is a traditional Scottish fishing village where locals have contrasting views about welcoming much needed migrant fishermen into the fold. So it’s a great thing to see Susie’s and Matt’s solidarity with the fishermen and their work within the community when times are hard and kindness much needed.”

danielcook.co

Bahar, Too Rough, Dùsgadh, Go Home and The Bayview screened at Glasgow Short Film Festival

glasgowshort.org

I like to be in Ibero-America

IberoDocs returns with a hybrid edition featuring in-person events in Glasgow and Edinburgh as well as online screenings across the UK. As usual, expect a sharply-curated selection of documentary from Spanish, Portuguese and Latin-American filmmakers

Words: Josh Slater-Williams

Ana. Untitled Spread Through Inland No Somos Nada

As with basically every UK arts festival in the first five months of 2021, the eighth edition of IberoDocs – Scotland’s main showcase for documentary works from Spanish, Portuguese and Latin-American filmmakers – went fully online in light of lockdowns. For the ninth edition, in-person events in Edinburgh and Glasgow are back on the cards, but lessons from last time haven’t been completely abandoned. Between 6 and 10 April there will be screenings at those cities’ participating venues, while between 11 and 17 April a selection of the festival programme will move online and be available across the UK. There’ll be one online-exclusive in the form of Bolingo. The Forest of Love – a documentary exploring the journey undertaken by women migrants from the heart of Africa to northern Morocco, searching for the ‘European dream’. Additional accessibility will also come via a number of post-film Q&As featuring BSL interpretation. IberoDocs’ programming tends to focus on a particular theme each year. Last year’s instalment saw ‘Art as a Need’ as the driving force, with documentaries challenging stereotypes concerning artists. In 2022, the festival programming is dedicated to territory, belonging and migrations, themes reported to be close to the hearts of the IberoDocs team. Representing the Beyond Docs strand, which showcases films blurring fiction and nonfiction, the festival will open with director Neus Ballús’ The Odd-Job Men at Edinburgh’s Filmhouse on 6 April. It’s described as a comedy following a young Moroccan plumber who’s navigating a hectic probationary week in a new job, where the colleagues are just as eccentric as the customers. Also repping Beyond Docs is Lucia Murat’s Ana. Untitled (Glasgow Film Theatre, 10 Apr), a road movie exploring letters exchanged between female Latin-American visual artists in the 1970s and 1980s. The director of the aforementioned Bolingo, Andalusian filmmaker Alejandro Salgado, has a second film at IberoDocs this year. Barzakh screens at both Filmhouse and GFT on 7 April, with an online screening window to follow later. The title references the Islamic culture term for the liminal realm between physical death and the afterlife, and the film evokes that same sense of indeterminacy, telling the story of young, undocumented Moroccan boys waiting and hoping to make their way across Europe from the coastline of Melilla. Experimental enthusiasts should seek out Rocío Huertas’ La Alameda 2018, which looks at the history of economic violence, class stru les and marginalisation in Seville, where the director and animator is based. Huertas is set to participate in a live Q&A during the festival, and will lead a free animation workshop prior to her film’s screening at Edinburgh’s Banshee Labyrinth on 8 April; a Glasgow screening, minus a workshop, takes place at the CCA on 9 April. Additional feature films on offer include António Aleixo’s Spread Through Inland (Filmhouse, 9 Apr), a Portuguese documentary about the Terras da Chanfana area, as framed through the eyes of musician Tiago Pereira and geographer Álvaro Domingues; Aleixo is down to participate in a Q&A after the film. Musicians have additional presence at the festival through No somos nada (Banshee Labyrinth, 8 Apr; CCA, 9 Apr). Javier Corcuera’s documentary shines a light on legendary punk rock band La Polla Records, returning to bid a farewell to fans. As a means of celebrating the band’s final tour, singer Evaristo Páramos revives 40 years of history from his hometown in the Basque Country. Following the film and a Q&A with Corcuera at Banshee Labyrinth’s Friday screening will be a party, which will be in the spirit of the celebrations and music audiences have just spent time with. Away from features, the short film programme – playing 8 April at Filmhouse and 9 April at CCA, before heading online from 11 April – offers a lineup curated by Edinburgh-based Spanish filmmakers Inma de Reyes and Nelisa Alcalde. The selections bear connections to the pair’s own short Isabel’s Independence, which also plays in the programme and follows a Spaniard migrating to Edinburgh for new opportunities. Among the other highlights in this shorts programme is the UK premiere of recent Goya Award-nominee Extra, which takes us into the world of a film and television extra. And speaking of extras, there’s one final bonus for this festival celebrating a return to in-person participation: a series of free, informal ‘Movie Gatherings’ in Edinburgh and Glasgow, where attendees can get together to discuss the films and themes of the exciting lineup.

IberoDocs runs 6-10 April in-person in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and 11-17 April online

Where’s all the art gone in Glasgow?

Art event listings in Glasgow have been decreasing for a while. Why? What’s happening on the ground, and what does this mean for art activity as a whole in the city? Eight of the city’s most active artists, curators and organisers share their insights

Interviews: Adam Benmakhlouf

‘What’s happening in Glasgow’ is the subject of the email that comes through from Rosamund, the Editorin-Chief. Listings for Art have been gradually shrinking since pre-COVID times, and they’ve not bounced back in the same way as the other sections. More galleries are closing than opening, and as much as the grassroots arts culture in Glasgow is often paid lip service, how stable a foundation is this for the city’s art activity? Eight interviewees have been brought together here to look for some answers to this broad and lowkey dreadful question: where’s the art activity gone in Glasgow? Poet, educator and artist Robert Thomas James Mills was last on these pages as he rowed down the Clyde for Glasgow International 2018. He su ested we meet in Ushi’s Coffee Corner, the brand new “and only DIY queer vegan filter coffee spot in G2 (or the UK for that matter).” He admits he didn’t plan to go to this place deliberately, but that it’s a topical setting. “Coincidentally, this feels like a space where we would have done events.” Maybe the city’s butting into this conversation. New spaces are opening, people are still making shit happen. Speaking about the idea of the ‘just do it’ DIY attitude, Mills says: “I’m for people getting paid. I come from a working-class background. People can say they’re working class if they want, I’m not here to gatekeep that but I will have my private opinion.” Same. “If someone says ‘I’m doing an event tomorrow, do you want to come along slash help out slash play at it?’ No, because from 1pm 'til 4pm I’m going to have my youth work job then from 5pm 'til 12am I’m going to my restaurant job. Unless you give me three weeks notice, and unless you pay me, I’m going to lose money.” As well as money being tighter than ever, there are also issues of distance. “Not everyone’s a five-minute walk from the West End anymore. People are on social media less and everyone’s dispersed. Where are the community notice boards? There are so many spam emails and newsletters. If I didn’t bump into that person or someone didn’t come into my work and get a coffee [and happen to ask] ‘Are you going along tonight …?’ I wouldn’t know what was on.” Memo: check The Skinny. But still, the point stands. Rent hikes have meant people are shifting all around the city

“Maybe the city’s butting into this conversation... people are still making shit happen”

and beyond to find a place where they’re not going to get kicked out whenever the property bubble has swollen enough for the landlord to decide to sell up. Shout out to all the new Paisley residents. This isn’t the only time the subject of property comes up. Glasgow Women’s Library cofounder Adele Patrick mentions the serious effects for the city’s DIY art scene of the transfer of the council’s properties to City Property Glasgow LLP and the subsequent requirement that market rent would be demanded for previously publicly held buildings and shop fronts. “How many creative epiphanies, connections, moments of insight and passion have been fomented in visiting each other’s spaces? [They were] ramshackle but exciting. Glasgow Women’s Library could not have started now.” For Patrick, this is an example of the absence of working knowhow within the Council on what a cultural scene needs to thrive, and part of an extended 30-year period of negligence in relation to arts in the city. “We have to say it’s a failed leadership at work here. And the fact that the political and cultural guardians have not reflected on what gave rise to that sense of blossoming and flourishing. A particular stressor has been this resistance to developing cultural literacy within the council. Where there are councillors – they might be well-meaning and lovely – unless there are people who are deeply knowledgeable about culture and the arts and deeply aware of what’s happening in the world, deeply committed to the city, it’s going nowhere.” Alongside city politics, insidious changes to immigration regulations for international students are cited as another stressor on the artist network in the city. Francis McKee is Director of the Centre of Contemporary Art and a tutor and research fellow at Glasgow School of Art. He describes the “brilliant networks of students who have studied here from all around the world. They love Glasgow and they have friends here… They want to give something to the city, it’s not like they’re going to make a fortune from staying in Glasgow [and working] in the art scene. It’s this unbelievable gift they keep on offering.” They’re forced to leave: an extension of the same system that prides itself on making a ‘hostile environment’. Also working in the Glasgow School of Art, artist and lecturer Marianne Greated teaches on the Painting and Printmaking course. Greated embeds (and this is speaking from firsthand experience) an ethic of cooperation throughout her teaching, and she encourages students not just to feel excited about their own work but also each other’s. Greated tells the story of what’s been happening since COVID restrictions have been relaxed in the previous months. “We have had so many pop-up student exhibitions, there has been absolutely loads.” Greated admits that she’s genuinely “not sure if this is followed through in the sector more widely.” Nevertheless, when it

Image: Courtesy of the artist

“Glasgow Women’s Library could not have started now”

Adele Patrick, Glasgow Women's Library

comes to the students, they are “just desperate to do live events, and get that experience and have a live audience. It’s been really busy, there’s been tonnes of stuff going on.” This seems to hold true for 2020 GSA graduate Robert McCormack. Since he graduated without a degree show, he’s been running events and exhibitions – whether he’s in them or not – whenever and however COVID regulations allow, including a cross-city multi-venue Alt Degree Show, the Graduate Drive Thru exhibition for him and his peers on the rooftop of a carpark, and group shows in Transmission and CCA. For McCormack, the idea that there’s been a downtick in art in the city doesn’t match onto his last couple of years, but the experience has been intense. “For the car park we got ourselves paid, not by the art school [who funded most of the shows McCormack mentions] but by a different funder. Not very much and definitely not enough, but I think we would have lost our shit early on if we weren’t being paid. For the CCA one and the Transmission, we weren’t being paid… I work five days a week in a care job at the moment. So I was going to the school [where McCormack works], coming home, going on my laptop, making food, going on my laptop, going to bed and doing it again.” To manage to pull the car park show together, McCormack had to leave one job and start another one and time it so the show was in the middle. McCormack mentions how the people he worked closest with have also felt some severe effects of burnout since that time. “Now I’ve had to say no to a few projects.” While graduate group shows might traditionally be one sign of an active art scene, another less-visible indication of continuing artistic activity in the city is brought up by Director of The Common Guild Katrina Brown. “There are waiting lists for studios… and there are new studios cropping up. [I visited] Strangefield Space on French Street in Dalmarnock and there were ten to 12 people in a space there. I’d never been there before, and it only opened during the pandemic time. There is a long waiting list at Glasgow Sculpture Studios, too.” This idea comes up again that artistic activity is going on even if not in the form of public-facing shows and events. Visual artist, teacher and researcher Ashanti Harris describes some of her work as co-lead artist for Project X – “a creative education programme, platforming the dances of the African diaspora.” Harris says that through the pandemic, Project X have been doing several projects. “They’ve been less outward, we’ve been in conversation with the artists we work with about what they want. At the start of the year, we were talking to artists who normally teach for Project X about what they need to continue their teaching practice and… the artists we were working with were saying they wanted more time and support to figure out what they’re doing and what they’re Graduate Drive Thru , Robert McCormack working on… But what actually happened was when we created the time and space for people… all everyone wanted to do was to create events and performances and put them in the world. So people ended up putting on film screenings of what they’ve been doing, and sharings… It’s a rocky road; what you think you need one week might be completely different to what you need the next.” This experience of the last two years has led to new ways of structuring ways of working with artists for Harris at Project X. “If anything, what we’ve taken forward in how we’re going to work collaboratively or collectively with others [is that] we need to form projects and activities that are really flexible to change. Every project doesn’t necessarily have a public expectation, but always having a pot for a public outcome if that feels appropriate in the moment.” All eight interviewees are generous with their time, including artist Danny Pagarani who cycles over to my place on a Sunday morning because I’m looking after a nervous greyhound. Maybe because we’re in my living room, I can admit when it comes to this enquiry I’m not just an observer. I could have featured more events, I could have commissioned more reviews of what’s been going on in

Glasgow during the last seven years that I’ve been running the Art section. This is my last article as

Art Editor, so the balance sheet is final: have I done enough to platform all the tireless efforts that go into making Glasgow a place I like living?

“No,” Pagarani answers. “But also yes. ‘Not enough’ from each person… together that’s hopefully enough.”

The Glasgow Musical

Theatre-makers Cora Bissett and Douglas Maxwell have joined forces with songwriters Roddy Hart and Tommy Reilly, and the National Theatre of Scotland, to transform Peter Mullan’s cult film into a stage musical

Interview: Eliza Gearty

When it comes to creating musicals, Cora Bissett has never played it safe. In 2011, the Fife-born theatre director came up with the idea for Glasgow Girls - an all-singing, all-dancing show inspired by the seven schoolgirls who took on the government and led a campaign against dawn raids on asylum seekers. It burst onto stages in 2012, a defiant retort to the Home Office just as their Hostile Environment Policy was coming into effect. Later, in 2017, Bissett worked with author Emma Donoghue and singer-songwriter Kathryn Joseph on an adaptation of Donoghue’s novel Room. A story about abduction and captivity might not seem like the most instinctive choice for a musical, but Bissett has a knack for turning unlikely or less obvious tales into smash hits. “We think of musicals as being a bit fluffy and glitzy, but most of the musicals that have lasted for 50 or more years are very brutal,” she explains. “You think of your Sweeney Todds and your Les Miz. It’s all about dying and death and destruction and anarchy! The emotions are just so big and raw and primal. [That’s what] everyone can relate to.” Even with her fearless track record, there was one thing about Bissett’s latest idea for a project that made her feel slightly nervous. She wanted to make a musical version of Orphans, Peter Mullan’s 1998 film about four Glaswegian siblings dealing with the death of their mother. Sitting down to pitch it to the man himself was a bit daunting. “I know Peter from way back so he wasn’t a stranger to me, but it was a pretty bold offering,” Bissett recalls. “I mean – you know that really big cult movie you did? Gonna turn it into a musical ... showtime!” Mullan, however, was very open-minded. “I put my cards on the table and tried to explain why I thought it was a good idea,” Bissett says. “He created a bulletproof structure, with such a good spine for songs and dance sequences to come into it. I also think it’s a brilliant, Scottish piece of work that is slightly undersung [in this country] – it has a cult following, but I think it should be one of those Scottish films we all know about. I think he could feel my passion for it and knew that I had a real vision for it. He also liked the boldness of going musical with it. He said, ‘I love a musical, my maw loved ‘em.’ He got it.” Someone who needed a little more convincing was playwright Douglas Maxwell, who Bissett approached to adapt the script shortly after recruiting songwriters Roddy Hart and Tommy Reilly to write the music. When they met in a cafe, Maxwell wasn’t sure but was swayed by Bissett’s vision and what he calls her “Cora-ness”. “I mean, Cora was a bit like one of those people out of Ocean’s Eleven with this,” he says proudly. “Putting a team together, and everyone she went to see was like ‘ooh, I don’t know’.” Maxwell wasn’t fully won over though until he met with Hart and Reilly at St Luke’s in Glasgow. “They already had some songs written, and one of them was A Storm Is Coming, which is in the show,” he says. “I heard it, and I thought man, this could totally work. I wasn’t unconvinced for long. Now I’m at the point where, when John screams ‘I’m gonna kill Duncan! There’s a storm coming!’ it would feel weird if he didn’t start singing.”

Orphans follows brothers Michael, Thomas, John and their sister Sheila as they wander

Image: Peter Dibdin

“The question in a musical is always, why are they singing? Why would they sing? Because they can’t say any of these things”

Cora Bissett

separately around Glasgow, each experiencing one long dark night of the soul before their mother’s funeral. As a sardonic, occasionally bleak black comedy with a 90s kitchen sink drama vibe, it doesn’t superficially scream ‘musical.’ But one of Bissett’s greatest talents is her creative foresight – as with Room, she was able to envision exactly how the raw material in Orphans could translate fantastically into song. “It’s a gift to make this a musical because you’ve got four characters who are all quite emotionally repressed,” she says. “It’s a loving family, but the men especially have that classic west coast inability to share that they love each other. That gives you fantastic licence in a musical. The question in a musical is always, why are they singing? Why would they sing? Because they can’t say any of these things.” What’s more, Orphans is full of self-contained, epic moments – the moment when John screams on the street, the moment when Thomas sobs during karaoke, the moment when the storm blows off the roof of the cathedral – that seem almost made for musical numbers. Bissett and Maxwell found the natural ‘gaps’ for songs, while maintaining the story’s Glaswegian spirit and essential ‘Orphan-ness.’ The first “big massive choral song”, developed from an early scene in the film when an exhilarated new father espouses positivity in a pub bathroom, is called Every Cunt Should Love Every Cunt. “If we get the authenticity right, and we’re loyal to it – and there’s not a bit of us going ‘oh god, what will our London audience think, or an audience in New York’ – then there will be some universality in it,” reasons Maxwell. Bissett agrees. “You look at musicals like Billy Elliot and Blood Brothers, and the specificity of these stories and the fact that they are so rooted in the place where they’re from gives them their power,” she says. “I hope that Orphans might be the big Glasgow musical.” Orphans tours Greenock, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness, 1-30 Apr

Self Improv-ment

This month, we speak to MC Hammersmith, Scotland’s number one freestyle comedy rapper as he embarks on his first solo tour

Interview: Polly Glynn

“I used to sit and download Whose Line is it Anyway? videos off Limewire”, says Will Naameh, aka MC Hammersmith. “The first half of them would be Whose Line is it Anyway?, the second half would always be something dreadful like Spongebob Squarepants porn.” He’s been doing improvised comedy for half his life, after being introduced to it at school as a teenager. “What a waste of time,” he laughs. He’s since seen success as a Scottish Comedy Award winning solo act, and as part of Men With Coconuts and Spontaneous Potter. After moving to Edinburgh in 2010 and performing improv “that really sucked” within the tiny Scottish scene, he arrived at Second City in Chicago four years later. “It was amazing seeing a city full of tens of thousands of people that are very, very good at it with a thriving scene.” In the US and Canada, improv is almost built into the school curriculum, so audiences immediately understand the comedy format. Because of this, Naameh says, “there is a permission in places like LA, Chicago, New York or Toronto, to be experimental and do different kinds of improv because there’s an understanding that most people in the crowd will have seen it.” That said, you’d think familiarity with the form would result in audience originality. Su estions tend to converge, regardless of where you are. “It’ll always be the same three things: spatula, pineapple and dildo. Audiences always default to those same three things here and in the States and I don’t know why.” So think of something different if you want to show off to the man. And if you reckon a controversial su estion will get some stage-time, Naameh isn’t afraid to shut you down: “There is no need to be polite about it. I used to feel like you had to politely refuse a racist su estion, or a Trump su estion or a Jimmy Savile su estion. I think what being on the stand-up circuit has taught me is that you own the stage and the buck stops with you... Improv is seen as a very wholesome, approachable artform full of delightful wholesome vibes, and while that’s true, a little bit of edge and establishing dominance in the first minute of the set while taking the su estion, as any standup would do, doesn’t hurt.” Alongside his teenage love for improv, he also developed a taste for hip-hop. “When I was growing up, I loved Akala especially, and now I’m older, my favourite rappers are probably Big L, Supernatural, MC Juice, RA the Ru ed Man, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane - the golden age hip-hop.” Naameh learned to rap in 12 months after setting himself and his best mate the challenge: he practised every day, while his pal forgot. To improve his skills, he listens to “East Coast rhyme dense vibes cos not only do I find it very cool, it’s good material to remember and absorb for learning rhymes.” Despite his success, Naameh su ests that improv is still maligned as part of the wider comedy landscape. For one, it’s hugely difficult to get quality press recognition: “The standard review you’ll get of improv, when it is given four stars, is ‘I thought it was a five star show, but I can’t be guaranteed it’ll be this good every night.’” He argues that acts such as TJ and Dave (“probably regarded in comedy circles in thick inverted commas as ‘the best improv show in the world’”) are clearly off the scale compared to a bunch of graduates who are only just moving into longform improv, but could receive the same write-ups. Secondly, it’s not eligible for any of the major Fringe Comedy Awards. He recalls long-running Jane Austen-themed improv, Austentatious, running into that problem when they debuted. “I remember going to that show four times and having to queue for two hours to get in... and it was incredible. There was this rumour about ‘Why has Austentatious not been nominated? It is THE breakout hit. It is the show that every single person seems to be talking about, even if you don’t like Jane Austen and improv, like most people.’” But Naameh is hopeful that change is on its way. “Give it 10 years,” he says. “I think a lot of people will be screaming for it to be eligible for things alongside clown, 'cause like Doc Brown won it for a clown show which is semi-improvised, so it’s getting there.”

Photo: David Wilkinson

MC Hammersmith: 1 Man 8 Mile

The Stand Edinburgh, 24 Apr, 8.30pm, £10

The Stand Glasgow, 25 Apr, 8.30pm, £10

Music Now

New music continues to come in thick and fast across Scotland this month – we take a closer look at releases from Jill Lorean, Swiss Portrait, Conscious Route and more

Words: Tallah Brash

Photo: Ben Glasgow Photo: Andy Monaghan

Conscious Route and Scott Bathgate Jill Lorean

The end of March saw new music and announcements from Gentle Sinners (James Graham and Aidan Moffat’s new band), Phillip Jon Taylor (PAWS) and AMUNDA (Bossy Love), and April is also packed to the gunnels with new releases. One of the records we’re most excited about comes from Glasgow supergroup Jill Lorean, featuring Jill O’Sullivan (Sparrow and the Workshop, BDY_PRTS), Andy Monaghan (Frightened Rabbit) and Peter Kelly (The Kills, Jonnie Common). The trio release their debut album, This Rock, on 1 April via Monaghan’s own Monohands Records label. Its ten tracks place O’Sullivan’s voice front and centre as she documents “motherhood, memory, human nature and grief to some degree”. As well as O’Sullivan’s always astounding vocals, This Rock is filled with infectious choruses and an abundance of hypnotic drums, strings, and bass and guitar lines; it is atmospheric and utterly engrossing from start to finish. Next up, Swiss Portrait is the musical project of Edinburgh-based artist Michael Kay Terence, who writes and records all of his music in his spare room, such is the DIY ethos of his practice. On 25 April he’s set to release Safe House, his latest EP as Swiss Portrait, and it is the most summer-ready collection of tunes we’ve heard in a long time – dream pop at its finest with sparkling guitars, catchy refrains, handclaps in all the right places and gorgeous vocals throughout. What’s more, there’s a softness to Kay Terence’s voice that feels as if you’re almost viewing the music through sunglasses; each song feels like a warm, hazy mid-summer afternoon. You can almost smell a sea breeze, fresh cut grass, sun cream. Safe House is the perfect soundtrack to warmer days, summer holidays, road trips with pals, trips to the beach and garden gatherings, and if the weather’s shit outside, Safe House is sure to transport you to where you’d rather be. Following the release of his collaborative Lost Routes album in 2020, Edinburgh-based rapper Conscious Route returns with another collaborative effort, this time working alongside producer Scott Bathgate to release Pyramid, which sees Conscious calling out the government, exploring life’s stru les and the highs and lows of relationships. Due for release on 7 April via True Hold Records, the EP sees Conscious and Bathgate masterfully melding classic hip-hops beats with grime, dancehall, afro-pop and electronica, with features from the likes of Sean Focus and Kryptik. From hip-hop to trad, Edinburgh party band Yoko Pwno also return this month with Part Machine (8 Apr) via Iain Copeland’s Skye Records. The album is inspired by everything from our reliance on technology to groundbreaking female swimmers via Leith watering holes, and musically it’s just as diverse. With their trad influences not solely fished from the shores of Scotland, and their beats mined from disco, house, drum’n’bass and more, we’d say Yoko Pwno should be high up your agenda should you find them on a festival bill near you this summer. Shortly after The Spook School went to the moon, the band’s drummer Niall McCamley returned as a mental healthfighting superhero going by the name Squi les. His mantra? “You are not alone. You are a Squi le. Together we are Squi les. Squi les is not a band. Squi les is a cult.” Three years on, Squi les releases his debut EP, Look What We Have Done (2 Apr) via Alcopop! Records. Its four tracks, which race by in just over 11 minutes, take you on an upbeat, rambunctious emo romp, featuring mosh-worthy drums, grungy guitars, pleasingly discordant lead vocals and sublime backing harmonies. A common topic being explored these days in music is the climate crisis. Just last month Steg G released his urgent collaborative album Surface Pressure, while this month the latest response comes from Glasgow-based multi-instrumentalist and composer Duncan Sutherland, aka These Southern Lands, who incidentally has a PhD in Renewable Energy. By combining his musical knowhow with his knowledge of the natural environment – and working alongside talented sound artist, musician and composer Kim Moore, aka WOLF – Sutherland has created a beautiful collection of songs, which more than a few times bring to mind the indie-pop joy of US supergroup The Postal Service. But there’s more to Midnight Oil than that, as it genre-hops over the course of its ten tracks, combining warm synths with classical elements. Some parts feel like you’ve been sucked into a Broadway musical, while others bring together beautiful found sounds and ethereal ambient soundscapes, never sounding trite. The bi est release this month comes from SAY Awardwinner Kathryn Joseph, whose third album, for you who are the wronged, arrives on 22 April via Rock Action, while Glasgow’s Walt Disco release their debut, Unlearning, on 1 April via Lucky Number (read full reviews for both overleaf). Also on 1 April, West Lothian’s Megan Black releases Deadly Is the Woman, before Edinburgh-based producer Ravelston releases a six-track mix of cosmic and Balearic beats via Paradise Palms Records (8 Apr), while Glasgow-based Rebecca Vasmant releases her Dance Yourself Free EP for Record Store Day on 23 April.

Kae Tempest The Line Is a Curve Fiction Records, 8 Apr rrrrr

Listen to: Salt Coast, No Prizes (ft. Lianne La Havas), More Pressure (ft. Kevin Abstract) Kae Tempest is a wordsmith of our modern times. The London musician, novelist, poet and playwright has a way with words that’s so endearing, it’s no wonder their previous albums have gained such high critical acclaim. In 2020, Tempest came out as non-binary, which they described as being a “beautiful but difficult” process. Now their latest album, The Line Is a Curve, sees Tempest at their most grounded, unashamed and unafraid yet. Collaboration is a core element to the record; features from Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten on I Saw Light to the velvety smoothness of Lianne La Havas on No Prizes give the album an added sheen. Sonically, punchy synths pair with live, acoustic setups which fluctuate the dynamic. But of course, Tempest’s lyrics are the star of the show. Their ability to produce such profound, poetic one-liners at any given moment is second to none. Pairing this with much more personal themes than they’ve ever explored before – from shame to disillusionment, love, anxiety and growth – it is both vulnerable and beautiful. Tempest fully opens up on This Line Is a Curve and it continues to blossom with every listen. [Jamie Wilde] Kathryn Joseph for you who are the wronged Rock Action, 22 Apr rrrrr

Listen to: of all the broken, until the truth of you, the burning of us all On her latest record, for you who are the wronged, Kathryn Joseph’s voice is barely above a whisper, accompanied by sparse keys and understated reverb. These lullaby-like compositions mask a quiet rage throughout, reflecting the internal discord of those who live with abuse. Joseph may be fae-like, but she doesn’t mince her words. ‘The way they make you eat the shit out of their hands’, she croons on the burning of us all, her fusion of the ethereal and corporeal finding a new potency in images of abusive love. She styles herself as a place of refuge, a friend who will lick your wounds clean, even as she harbours vengeful thoughts like ‘Makes me want to kill them’. More than just a sympathetic ear, Joseph offers herself up as a channel for the downtrodden. The refrain ‘I like it, I hate it all’ gives voice to the emotional entrapment of toxic relationships. Unleashing the album’s pent-up sorrow in the penultimate track, she cries: ‘Are you screaming out into the dark side of your insides?’ Ever the documentarian of devastating emotions, Joseph’s latest release sounds newly communal, with a sense of gathering closer those who share the same pain. [Becca Inglis]

Confidence Man TILT Heavenly Recordings, 1 Apr rrrrr

Listen to: Holiday, Push it Up, What I Like The Oz group’s second record, TILT, is a euphoric album that audaciously borrows from early 90s dance anthems (think Dreamer by Livin’ Joy or Gala’s Freed from Desire). It is great fun; the production expertly reproduces the sounds of a particularly interesting time for electronic music without taking itself too seriously. On Luvin U is Easy, a nostalgic familiarity is created through the dirty bassline, tinny hi-hat trills, rhythmic piano riffs and nonsensical pop clichés: ‘Don’t wait for me in heaven / Too beautiful for that / Everyday feels so, feels so real’. Throughout the album, lyrics imitate pop phraseology with the group’s classic wink and grin: ‘With a face like that you don’t need to work hard / With an ass like that you don’t need to work’, Janet Planet expertly delivers on Toy Boy via her half pop-princess, half Kardashian-Valley girl persona. Granted, Planet’s voice is a bit thin at times, and TILT is definitely missing the cool, camp interjections of Sugar Bones that were more prominent on their debut. Still, Conman has delivered yet another non-stop album that is guaranteed to raise the bar of your next party. [Niamh Carey] Warmduscher At the Hotspot Bella Union, 1 Apr rrrrr

Listen to: Fatso, Wild Flowers Warmduscher welcome us back into their weird and sketchy world as expected, with the spoken-word title track from ‘Tramp-pa’ inviting all the ‘little pi ies’ to the Hotspot, followed by a loungey instrumental overloaded with non-sequiturs. This album is a lot more chilled than previous efforts, due in no small part to the production of Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard and Al Doyle. This makes for a spacey, disco vibe, though there’s still time for some harder-hitting rockers. Twitchin’ in the Kitchen splits the difference with a frenetic, energised vocal and a loping, funky arrangement – complete with a schoolyard chant for a chorus. Clams Baker Jr has a few stylistic modes; sometimes he’s David Berman spouting nonsense instead of poetry, sometimes Mark ‘E’ Everett delivering noisebox irony, but you never know if you’re gonna get shithousery or a perfectly rendered bit of subversion: ‘Everybody’s laughing because they don’t want to drown in tears... of joy’. The madcap experience of Warmduscher is still probably best on the stage, but this album proves that given the time to let their ideas gestate, they can actually produce something that sounds good on the stereo, as well as the back room of a pub. [Lewis Wade]

Wet Leg Wet Leg Domino, 8 Apr rrrrr

Listen to: I Don’t Wanna Go Out, Ur Mum, Too Late Now For a lot of people, there reaches a point in your late 20s when you start to realise that life isn’t panning out exactly as you’d imagined when you were younger. On their debut, self-titled record, Wet Leg have captured that difficult feeling of drifting through life in early adulthood, but always with a wry smile. The Isle of Wight duo of Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers take us through days spent aimlessly lounging about (Chaise Longue), evenings spent aimlessly getting high at parties (Angelica), and late nights spent aimlessly scrolling through our phones (Oh No). There’s the times that you’re desperate to get out of any and all social plans (I Don’t Wanna Go Out), and there’s the times you fantasise about just simply making it out to the shop (Supermarket). When it feels like life’s moving too fast, and that things are starting to get away from you, it doesn’t hurt to revel in the small things. Across their debut album, Wet Leg do exactly that and it makes those precious moments of nothingness feel that little bit more special. [Nadia Younes] Walt Disco Unlearning Lucky Number, 1 Apr rrrrr

Listen to: Cut Your Hair, Be An Actor Glasgow-based six-piece Walt Disco are known to lean into the theatrics, and on their debut album, Unlearning, it feels very much like they’ve had their ears to the West End of Glasgow and their eyes on the West End of London. Never ones to conform to tradition, however, Walt Disco’s musical takes more tips from Leos Carax than it does Stephen Sondheim – even the album’s artwork feels like more than a slight nod to Carax’s 2021 rock opera Annette. And much like Annette, Unlearning is gritty, melodramatic, and a little bit batshit. The album is split into two halves, separated by the aptly-titled and suitably eerie instrumental track, The Costume Change. But as much as there’s the kind of zesty glam-rock Walt Disco do so well, there are also hints of the influence of hyperpop sprinkled throughout, from album opener Weightless, through to Hold Yourself As High As Her, and album closer If I Had a Perfect Life.

Unlearning is a daring and ambitious debut from a band who aren’t afraid to take risks in order to achieve their vision, and for Walt Disco it’s a risk that’s paid off. [Nadia Younes]

The Linda Lindas Growing Up Epitaph, 8 Apr rrrrr

Listen to: Oh!, Growing Up, Remember A recent New York Times opinion headline read ‘There Are Almost Too Many Things to Worry About’. I’m 30 and I feel utterly helpless to impact those worries, living by the whims of unseen powers. Imagine being The Linda Lindas, aged between 11 and 17. On Oh!, Growing Up’s opener, the refrain goes: ‘What can I do? What can I say? Nothing changes, it’s all the same’. Bursting into public consciousness through a viral video from a performance of their brilliant Racist, Sexist Boy – included here, and retaining the same gut punch effect of their live version – they were quickly signed. Four talented youngsters from LA of Asian and Latinx descent, wearing their influences on their sleeves, have produced a light-of-foot album of fun riffs and effectively simple ideas. Channelling riot grrrl fury and the kind of catchy garage pop melodies the Pixies haven’t written since the 90s, it would take the hardest of hearts, the most cynical among us, to find this record, filled with their wants and fears, worries and wins, as anything but a joyous good time and open window into their youthful outlook on modern life and everything they face going forward. [Tony Inglis] Toro y Moi MAHAL Dead Oceans, 29 Apr rrrrr

Listen to: Magazine, The Loop, Way Too Hot Seemingly inspired by the Filipino jeepney celebrated on the album’s front cover, Chaz Bear’s seventh record as Toro y Moi, MAHAL, plays out like a warm summer road trip with the radio up full blast. It leans into this vibe hard too, with regular crackles of static, crunchy dials navigating the chatter of static and the passing fog of general car noise throughout. As a result, songs dip and dive in and out of focus, smothered in a swooping filter one minute, breaking into glorious groove or melodic joy the next, like changing channels on the fly. At its best, it helps amplify the freewheeling feeling of momentum and movement but more often than not, it detracts from the quality of the tunes themselves. And the record has plenty: from the righteous 60s psych rock of opener The Medium (ft. Unknown Mortal Orchestra) to the squelchy funk of Postman, the lush grooves of Magazine (ft. Salami Rose Joe Louis) and The Loop, and the slow jam of Mississippi. It’s a smooth ride for the most part but sometimes you just wish whoever’s driving this thing would find a decent station and stick with it. [Ryan Drever]

Scotland on Screen: Bryan M. Ferguson

We catch up with Bryan M. Ferguson, one of the most distinct voices on the Scottish short film scene, to discuss his ridiculously prolific filmmaking practice and hear about the funeral home-set coming-of-age feature he has in the works

Interview: Jamie Dunn

Videography (selected): Alice Glass: Love Is Violence (2022), Alice Glass: Fair Game (2021), Ross from Friends: Love Divide, Arab Strap: Here Comes Comus! (2021), Sega Bodega & Låpsley: Make U Stay (2020), The Ninth Wave: I’m Only Going to Hurt You (2020), Fish Narc: New Medication (2020), Fish Narc: So Long! (2020), Sega Bodega: U Suck (2019), Ladytron: Deadzone (2019), The Ninth Wave: This Broken Design (2019), Ladytron: The Island (2018)

Filmography (selected): Red Room (2021), Insecticide (2020), Satanic Panic ‘87 (2019), Toxic Haircut (2018), Umbilical Glue (2017), Blockhead (2017), Rubber Guillotine (2016), Flamingo (2016), Caustic Gulp (2015), The Misbehaviour of Polly Paper Cut (2013), Sockets (2012)

bryanmferguson.co.uk i: @bryanmferguson If while watching the films of Bryan M. Ferguson you come to the conclusion, ‘that’s a born director!’, you’d kinda be right. “I’m not sure if there was any sort of real defining moment that made me realise I wanted to be a filmmaker,” he tells us. “It genuinely felt like it came naturally.” From an early age he was surrounded by movies in the form of his parents’ VHS tapes that covered the shelves at home (“I’d nearly have an anxiety attack when I’d go to mates’ houses and their folks only had like seven tapes near their telly”). Not only was the collection vast, it was classy. “I’d watch Psycho, Rear Window and The Birds when I was in early primary school and just became completely compelled by how Hitchcock fucked with form in mainstream cinema. Then from there I had a real appetite for films that were unusual in narrative but also in how they were crafted.” What hits you first in a BMF joint is the aesthetic. His expressive mise en scène, vivid colour design and scrupulous framing delights the eye. Your reaction to his work’s troubling subject matter is likely to be more complicated – just ask the two burly guys who fainted during the premiere of 2016’s Flamingo, Ferguson’s sensual film that takes us into the world of self-amputation fetishists. But it’s the contrast of the pleasing form with the peccadillo content that makes his films so thrilling. “I’m naturally attracted to transgressive subject matter,” Ferguson says, when we ask how he developed his idiosyncratic style. “It’s just how my brain is wired. I get excited by the juxtaposition of things that are normal or picturesque but have a real warped undercurrent that sort of fucks an audience’s perception of even the most banal thing.” It’s an aesthetic that’s instantly distinctive but don’t be too quick to file Ferguson away in any auteurist box. When The Skinny first encountered his work in the mid-2010s, he was trading in candy-coloured, sun-scorched films like Caustic Gulp (2015), a deadpan drama about a small cult dedicated to the consumption of chlorinated water, and the aforementioned Flamingo. More playful were his micro-comedy-horrors like Rubber Guillotine (2016), about a young woman who wants to be transformed into a lime jelly, and Toxic Haircut (2018), featuring a heavy-handed barber. Since the Sam Raimi-influenced Satanic

Bryan M. Ferguson

Panic ‘87 (2019), Ferguson has been playing in a more nocturnal horror universe that persists in his most recent short Red Room. Commissioned by Edinburgh International Book Festival and based on Helen McClory’s novel Bitterhall, it’s a moody and mysterious short dripping in an atmosphere of paranoia and dread. “My early stuff was me using what I had to hand and then trying to make the best of a bad situation,” says Ferguson. “I would have a script, a million ideas of what I could do technically within the limitations I had and lean heavily into the production design to give it its own identity. I remember reading Chris Cunningham mention that his first music video was the first thing he ever made and it was like ‘learning in public’ and thats how I feel with my early work, I was learning each job behind the camera and fucking around with form and transgressive subject matter but taking it completely seriously.” Like Cunningham, Ferguson has also shown a talent for creating wildly imaginative and provocative music videos. He’s made a string of startling promos – 15 in four years – for artists like Ladytron, The Ninth Wave, and Arab Strap. His latest music vid, for Alice Glass’s Love Is Violence, is his best yet, and brings to mind the violent sexual desire that often bubbles up in Claire Denis’s work, particularly her horny vampire yarn Trouble Every Day. The next chapter in Ferguson’s history will be the feature Funeral Home. It’s still very much in development, but he can reveal it’s set in 2002 and centres on a rebellious teenage boy who’s forced to pick up some of the slack at his crumbling family-run funeral home after his father’s death. “It’s all based on my own teen years and experiences when I was a funeral director,” he says. “It’s really a coming-of-age film about death.” If you’re worried Ferguson’s shift to teen coming-of-age tale, which he says will be filled with “angst, awkward romance and a lot of dead people”, will make him go soft, forget it. “There will naturally be a change in sensibility as it’s feature length but the characters are definitely transgressive and the story goes to some very dark places,” he says. “It’s a very personal story to me with my fingerprints all over it so my wild style from my previous work will definitely be driving the visuals.”

Red Room screened at Glasgow Short Film Festival

Happening

Director: Audrey Diwan Starring: Anamaria Vartolomei rrrrr

Three weeks, then seven, then twelve: in Audrey Diwan’s Happening, time is a pitiless and unrelenting thing. Its ticking clock marks the days since Annie (a remarkable Anamaria Vartolomei) had her last period, be ed a doctor for help, armed herself with a knitting needle and lighter. The year is 1963 and in France abortion is illegal, but for Annie – a star pupil set on university – going without is unthinkable. There is barely a shot where Vartolomei is not in frame, and her performance – taut and sinuous and forceful – grounds Happening in the intimate trauma of patriarchal control. Yet Diwan’s film is less a character study, visceral and personal though it is, than a portrait of a universal predicament. In fields, dorms and bars, Annie’s schoolmates whisper about men and coyly mimic sex positions, their desires a girlish fantasy until the reality of bodies and an indifferent state come crashing down; the softly suffused pastel of school life is suddenly bloodied and sweat-stained. Diwan’s camera is tight on tense young faces, crumpled underwear and splattered sheets, the film’s boxy aspect ratio near-suffocating as she soberly charts the imposed bodily risk of female desire, the impossibility of lust when so much punishment might ensue. “Agere, ago, agis, agit,” chorus Annie’s friends during Latin revision, oblivious of her plight. Yet when “agere” – to act – might mean prison, death or condemned domesticity, Happening is a harrowing reminder that such agency can never be taken for granted. [Anahit Behrooz]

Released 22 Apr by Picturehouse; certificate 15

Director: Lauren Hadaway Starring: Isabelle Fuhrman rrrrr

Elitism in rowing goes further than its entrenchment in Oxbridge and Ivy League universities – in the world of this punishing endurance sport, it’s easy for stru ling rowers to convince themselves that their competitors’ bodies are simply better than theirs. For novice Alex (a powerful Isabelle Fuhrman), a freshman at an excessively brutalist mid-tier college, the solution to such performance anxieties is to push herself past all reasonable breaking points. After joining her school’s all-female rowing team, she never sees her fellow oarswomen as anything but obstacles to be vaulted over in her obsessive, relentless pursuit of being the best. Why? Debut writer-director Lauren Hadaway doesn’t sit the audience down to explain the origins of Alex’s fixations. Her actions, feverish and manic, explain her interiority, aided by a taut and operatic filmmaking style that pulls us along Alex’s descent into psychosis and self-destruction. The cuts are sharp and the sound is impactful (Hadaway was a sound editor on several Zack Snyder films) – all landing like gut punches as we powerlessly witness Alex punishing her body.

The Novice isn’t just a film about obsession. It’s about abuse, of the self-inflicted variety, and how competitive ideologies can be damaging for young people who don’t have a healthy understanding of their self-worth. Audiences alien to the technical lexicon and toxic atmosphere of the sport may stru le to feel the stakes of Alex’s climb to the top. Yet it becomes clear the goal is not for Alex to row the best, but to avoid destroying herself in the process. [Rory Doherty]

Released 1 Apr by Vertigo; certificate 15

Happening Benedetta The Novice Murina

Benedetta

Director: Paul Verhoeven Starring: Virginie Efira, Charlotte Rampling, Daphné Patakia rrrrr

“Your worst enemy is your body,” a nun tells a young Benedetta upon her arrival at a convent in Pescia. “Best not to feel too at home with it.” Oddly, however, Benedetta’s relationship with faith is rather bodily: while other nuns at the convent speak of miracles in the abstract, Benedetta seems to have Jesus on the spiritual 17th century equivalent of speed dial. Colloquially known as the ‘lesbian nun movie’, Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta (starring Virginie Efira in a pitch-perfect, hammy performance) is based on the true story of a nun who rises to power in her convent after a series of miraculous events mark her as Christ’s chosen bride, all while having an affair with novice nun Sister Bartolomea (a horny, wide-eyed Daphné Patakia). The film is predictably provocative – featuring a very creative use of a Virgin Mary statuette – but alongside its wicked comedy at the expense of the church’s hypocrisy, Benedetta asks whether it’s really so hard to believe that intense religious devotion spills over into eroticism. Sister Benedetta’s telenovelaesque visions of Jesus are delightfully camp in sensibility, yet Verhoeven’s film balances overwrought hilarity with a complex exploration of truth, politics, and the subjective interpretation of God’s will. It’s left ambiguous whether Benedetta’s miracles are divinely ordained or the result of skilful design – but after all, as Benedetta reminds those who accuse her of blasphemy, God works in mysterious ways. Someone needs to do his work on this earth: why shouldn’t it be a lesbian nun? [Xuanlin Tham]

Released on 15 Apr by MUBI; certificate 18 Murina

Director: Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović Starring: Gracija Filipovic, Leon Lucev, Danica Curcic, Cliff Curtis rrrrr

Julija (Gracija Filipović) is a teenage girl who lives upon an idyllic Croatian isle, diving for Muraena eels and dreaming of the world that lies beyond the horizons of island life and adolescence. Her would-be paradise is tainted by the presence of her father, Ante (Leon Lučev) – a beast of a man who spends his days barking orders and spitting insults. Julija’s mother, Nela (Danica Curcic), tries to keep the peace through appeasement and apologies, both a victim of Ante’s abuse and an enabler of it. When a rich friend of Ante’s named Javier (Cliff Curtis) swa ers into town, all three of them spy a life-changing opportunity. Ante hopes to sell his old friend some land while Nela quietly expresses hopes that a good payday and a change of scenery might soften her husband’s brutal nature, although whether she truly believes this is unclear. Julija doesn’t – one way or another, she believes that Javier can offer her with an escape route into a life of her own. Throughout the movie, Kusijanović cleverly contrasts Julija’s heavy, suffocating home life with the stillness and grace she finds while diving, allowing for some truly stunning underwater photography. Between that and the sharply-drawn psychological drama playing out on the shore, Murina announces Kusijanović as a filmmaker to be reckoned with. [Ross McIndoe]

Released 8 Apr by Modern Films; certificate 15