The Skinny April 2024

The Skinny's back at the tent festival playlist

Pulp – Sorted for Es and Whizz

John Denver – Take Me Home, Country Roads

Daft Punk – Get Lucky

Vengaboys – We Like to Party

Empress Of – Femenine

Charli XCX – Von dutch

Jamie xx – KILL DEM

Beyoncé - Jolene

TNGHT – First Body

Calvin Harris – Acceptable in the 80s

The View – Same Jeans indiesleaze dundee

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

Issue 219, April 2024 © Radge Media C.I.C.

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Meet the team

Championing creativity in Scotland

We asked: What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever witnessed/experienced at a festival?

Rosamund West Editor-in-Chief

"My then-boyfriend trying and failing to throw a pint of his own urine at Jared Leto."

Cammy Gallagher Clubs Editor

"The behaviour of Fly Open Air's security."

Peter Simpson Deputy Editor, Food & Drink Editor

"A very well-behaved dog right up at the barrier during Yard Act's set at Doune the Rabbit Hole 2022."

Polly Glynn Comedy Editor

"Nae queues at the bar for the whole of the Friday at TRNSMT last year."

Harvey Dimond Art Editor N/A

Editorial Sales

George Sully

Sales and Brand Strategist

"Someone setting off a flare in the crowd during Biffy Clyro's headline T in the Park set."

Anahit Behrooz Events Editor, Books Editor "Me. In a tent. (This has never happened)."

Jamie Dunn Film Editor, Online Journalist

"I remember really enjoying Razorlight at T in the Park, which is weird because in retrospect they're objectively shite."

Rho Chung Theatre Editor "I am not fun enough to go to festivals."

Ellie Robertson Digital Editorial Assistant

"The poor woman at Glasgow Summer Sessions who didn't know what moshing was and assumed You Me At Six had just somehow magically incited a riot."

Sandy Park Commercial Director "The first aid tent at Creamfields in 2007."

Tallah Brash Music Editor

"During Skrillex's set at Primavera last year (don't @ me), a giant man appeared out of nowhere doing a continuous series of cartwheels. Everyone was very impressed until he landed square on the crotch of a napping man."

Eilidh Akilade Intersections Editor

"I think playing witness to your own incompetent self in a portaloo is always an experience."

Business

Laurie Presswood General Manager

"Primavera, 3am: Tallah was blootered on tequila and said she’d just got engaged. I’ve made a lot of brunch plans at that time of night so I know what it’s like, but fair play to her, she went through with it."

Ema Smekalova Media Sales Executive "Experiencing ego death during Beach House's set at Primavera."

Production

Dalila D'Amico Art Director, Production Manager

"What happens at the music festival, stays at the music festival."

Emilie Roberts Media Sales Executive

"Probs the time I saw a guy crowdsurf during a Blossoms set. That's like moshing at The Wi les. Just... Weird."

Phoebe Willison Designer

"This is making me think of all the weird and embarrasing things I've done at festivals so I'm just going to stop thinking about it now and not answer properly sorry xxx"

Gabrielle Loue

Media Sales Executive

"I don't know... ask the paramedics."

Editorial

Words: Rosamund West

The days are growing longer, the outside world is slightly less actively hostile and our thoughts turn to the stillmildly-inconceivable-concept of it one day being warm enough to stand outside and watch live music. Time for a music festivals special!

Our 2024 edition opens with a deep dive into the traditional music renaissance you are (consciously or not) currently living through. We meet some of the musicians leading the charge from the Highlands, and look ahead to a few of the trad-centred festivals arriving on these shores in the coming months, from Glasgow’s The Reeling to Orkney Folk Festival.

We talk to the folk behind Edinburgh dance festival Terminal V and their longtime collaborator Fraz.ier, as they prepare to launch in Croatia. Quintessential Scottish music festival T in the Park has slipped into legend – one writer looks back at what it meant to him and considers the country’s current festival landscape. Showcase festivals are an important cog in the music industry machine – we talk to Wide Days’ Olaf Furniss to learn more about Scotland’s music convention. We’ve got a festivals calendar, featuring recommendations at home and abroad, and genre-specific picks scattered through the pages. Finally, the special closes with some words from Brian d’Souza, aka Auntie Flo, whose new album features recordings of a range of mushrooms, work commissioned for an installation at Glastonbury.

Intersections provides a buffer between the special and other features, with a look at the burgeoning creativity of Scotland’s floristry scene. In a piece of perfect synergy, we have an article by Genevieve Ja er about local magic and queer communities centred around one magical tree in Glasgow’s Southside, alongside an interview with the very same Genevieve Ja er about her new vampire novel Fragile Animals

Art takes a trip to rural South West Scotland to explore the

Gabriella Boyd exhibition at CAMPLE LINE. And as RSA New Contemporaries returns with its most blockbuster exhibition to date, featuring the work of not one but two degree show years of graduates, we take a look at some of the artists whose work we’re looking forward to seeing in the galleries on the Mound. We also meet Rae-Yen Song 宋瑞渊 and tour life-bestowing cadaverous soooooooooooooooooooot, the artist’s multifaceted collaborative research-based exhibition currently on show in CCA.

Film meets former dancer Franz Rogowski ahead of his latest arthouse triumph, Disco Boy. Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival returns to Hawick this month – we meet Palestinian artist Noor Abed, the subject of a retrospective in the programme, to hear more about her work, informed by growing up in an occupied nation. Clubs takes us on a journey through the evolution of sound system culture in Scotland. Theatre looks at a radical new adaptation of Sunset Song, which uses Doric and English to delve into the human experience, and Comedy looks back on ten years of dark comedy Inside No. 9.

Our Design column examines the visionary work of furniture designer Nick Ross, currently on show in Custom Lane, while Food takes a trip to Glasgow for some excellent tacos. The back page features The Skinny On… Bikini Body, playing our stage at Kelburn Garden Party this July and ready to fight The Beatles en masse.

This month’s centrefold poster features some beautiful mushrooms by Jasmine Floyd, and ties together an unintentional sub-theme which emerged in the making of the magazine. As well as Brian d’Souza’s mushroom music, Rae-Yen Song’s exhibition features more mushroom recordings, this time of a fungus tea, by Tommy Perman, while Genevieve Ja er finds mushroom crystals in the magical Queen’s Park tree. April – extremely mushroomy.

Cover Artist

Nänni-Pää is primarily an illustrator focusing on a linear, isometric and minimal style of drawing. She looks at everyday experiences and picks up on several simultaneous moments that pose as layers in her work. From depicting empowered women to exploring inner turmoils, tribulations and human connection she's got it covered. If she isn't drawing she is tufting rugs, painting murals, making jewellery or cutting about on her moped. She founded and currently runs The Woom Room – a small shop in Glasgow that sells prints, jewellery and clothing created by Scottish artists. Its morals centre around sustainability and creating accessible work everyone can understand.

@nanni_paa nannipaa.bigcartel.com thewoomroom.com

Love Bites: Porridge For One

This month’s columnist reflects on heartbreak, reclaiming power, and oat-based sustenance

Words: Jordy Joans

Aged 29 and bossing life, I wrote a letter to another me – aged 27, with a broken heart. “Don’t worry queen, you’re gonna find a caring sweet guy off Hinge, who will love you. Instead of leaving you alone right now with an empty kitchen, and a box of porridge as your only source for dinner, he’s gonna help you paint those kitchen cabinets and make new memories instead.” I’d have never believed that back then. I remember that person – zero boundaries and self-worth. Eager for love and not loving myself enough.

I can’t stand porridge. The sight of it makes my stomach twist. I get queasy thinking about it, even writing about it. I do, however, love how I reclaimed my power while eating the bland stuff. March 2022, a break up; not eating, not sleeping, sinking into my duvet and watching old episodes of Sex and the City and once again feeling defeated by my dating choices. I remember eventually getting out of my bed, looking at the almost-empty porridge box and bursting into tears. It was the only thing I’d make him in the morning.

Something snapped in me, and this beast took over. I took the last sachet, making a bowl and after the last ravenous bite I said, “My porridge now, bitch.” That moment forever sits with me, a small act that gave Goldilocks a run for her money.

Two years on, I’ve swapped porridge for avocado toast, shared with my wonderful new partner. Whilst I still don’t love the stuff I can, however, love that porridge somehow gave me a single moment to start loving myself again.

Heads Up

Futuristic Folktales

Tramway, Glasgow, 26-27 Apr, various times

Acclaimed dancer and choreographer Charlotte Mclean takes her latest dance piece on tour this month, with a stop off in Tramway. Bringing together dance, theatre, microphone work, and experimental music, Futuristic Folktales places the audience in the shifting, oftentimes hostile environment of the womb, examining themes of reproductive justice, bodily autonomy and identity.

Coast 2 Coast

Le Freak Records, Dundee, 6 Apr, 6pm

Part of a short series of pop-ups to launch Breathe Glasgow’s new event series at Sub Club, Coast to Coast pops up (!) in Dundee's Le Freak Records this month, with a shop and live music from Breathe residents and guests McCart, Carmen Baía and DEMS. Find them in Sub Club on 18 April with the last one in the series.

It’s a music festival special but most of them haven’t started yet so uh, here’s a bunch of other events. Gigs! Exhibitions! Experimental performance! Put them together and it’s basically a festival.

Compiled by Anahit Behrooz

Seas of Stories

Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh, 16 Apr, 6:30pm

Crossover event of the century (Avengers who?): Lighthouse Bookshop and Queer Film Night are collaborating on a night of short films, discussion and performance themed around queer(ed) bodies of water. The film programme has a strong indigenous focus, with stories from Canada, Australia, the Pacific and Scottish and Nordic folklore, followed by spoken word by performer Niall Moorjani and an open mic slot.

Cosmo Sheldrake

Stereo, Glasgow, 18 Apr, 7pm

If you’ve ever wondered what the sun sounds like, or how an entire song created from rocks broken on a mountainside might work, then you’re in luck – experimental musician Cosmo Sheldrake is back in town in celebration of his new album Eye to the Ear. Expect ever more unlikely instruments, playful lyricism, and maybe one of the most wholesome gigs you’ve ever seen.

Sands: International Film

Festival of St Andrews

Various venues, St Andrews, 19-21 Apr

Mitski Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 27-28 Apr, 7pm

Academy Late

Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 19 Apr, 8:30pm

See this year’s RSA New Contemporaries, the annual exhibition celebrating the very best of groundbreaking and upand-coming Scottish art, after dark at RSA Lates. As well as a gorgeous meld of painting, installation, sculpture and moving image works, there’ll be live music, drinks from Heverlee and Dishoom, and weird and wacky performances by New Contemporaries artists Amy Strzoda, Cyrus Adrian Doherty, Daumantas Patamsis, Finn Rosenbaum and Rho McGuire.

TAQA: Plantainchipps + effua + DIJA

La Cheetah Club, Glasgow, 13 Apr, 11pm

TAQA resident DIJA returns to La Cheetah Club for another TAQA party, along with superstar DJs Plantainchipps and effua for a dazzling local lineup. Expect lively house, Afrobeats, and dancehall grooves, as well as heavy bass and Jersey club, perfect for getting up and on the dancefloor.

Pomegranates Festival of Dance

France-Lise McGurn: What Everyone Wants The Modern Institute, Glasgow, until 20 Apr

Achilles Farhad Delaram Mitski

Image: courtesy of Sands International Film Festival

Photo: Amanda Robertson

Image: courtesy of The Artist and The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd, Glasgow.

Photo: Patrick Jameson

Vengefully Changed Allegiance exhibition by Alison Harm of Psychomoda for Pomegranate Festival

Installation view, France-Lise McGurn, What Everyone Wants The Modern Institute, Aird’s Lane, 2024

Photo: Ebru Yildiz

Photo: Andy Catlin

Photo: Nicole Pfister.

Photo: Eilidh O’Brien @_ji ysaw

Image: courtesy of Lighthouse Bookshop

Image: courtesy of Stereo

Image: courtesy of artist and Riverside Festival

RSA New Contemporaries Academy Late

Charlotte Mclean, Futuristic Folktales

Carmen Baía for Breathe Dundee

Naji Finding Water for Seas of Stories

Cosmo Sheldrake

Plantainchipps

Clarinda Tse 雍記: womb gloop - Act 3 Toes

CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, 6 Apr, 12:30pm

Another womb-themed event (is this secretly the womb issue?), Hong Kong-born and Glasgow-based artist Clarinda Tse’s womb gloop is an experimental performance piece exploring ecological bodies and posthuman possibilities. The third and final performance in a series, Act 3 Toes explores the living, breathing and generative capabilities of sticky amphibian algae wombs.

Psweatpants

Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, 18 Apr, 7pm

Glasgow-based rapper Psweatpants is a rising star in the Scottish hip-hop scene, having won best hip-hop act at the Scottish Alternative Music Awards and been nominated for the Sound of Young Scotland at the Scottish Album of the Year Award. Head to Sneaky’s for a dynamic show, for fans of Bemz, Nova, Slowthai and Tyler, the Creator.

State of Print Generator Projects, Dundee, until 14 Apr

A collaboration between four artists based across Scotland and Ireland –Paul Harrison, Scott Hudson, Catherine Hehir and Noelle Noonan – State of Print is the first artist-led nation: a collective exhibition that examines histories of printing practices and their involvement in creating and concretising ideas of statehood. Having toured the likes of Barcelona, Bristol and Cork, it’s in Dundee for a couple more weeks.

Niamhy Mac

Summerhall, Edinburgh, 27 Apr, 7pm

The Girls of Slender Means

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, 13 Apr-4 May, various times

Four young women navigate the aftermath of the Second World War in this elegant adaptation of beloved Scottish novelist Muriel Spark’s blistering novel. Living in a shabby boarding house and looking ahead to an uncertain future, the eponymous girls experience love and tragedy against the shifting social, political, and economic landscape of 1945.

Various venues, Paisley, 25-28 Apr

Adrianne Lenker

Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, 24 Apr, 7pm

We’re only in April but it’s possible that the album of 2024 has already been released. Adrianne Lenker’s Bright Future is a masterwork of desire and heartbreak, charting the ebbs and flows of a relationship with delicate yet unflinching attention. Created in collaboration with many of Lenker’s Big Thief bandmates, Bright Future is a communion of hope –tickets to this show are sold out but beg, borrow or steal if you can.

Fruit Salad

The Mash House, Edinburgh, 18 Apr, Queer cabaret and burlesque group Fruit Salad are throwing one of their bi est parties yet, raising funds for mental health service Nightline. There’ll be drag, there’ll be burlesque, there’ll be incredible kooky and gay theatre, all wrapped up by an outrageously fun club night with a bow on top. Snap up your tickets before they sell out – it’s all for a great cause.

HOUSEGUEST

Various venues, Glasgow, 6 Apr, 3pm

Candice Lin: The Animal Husband Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, until 1 Jun

Paisley Book Festival

Parliamo

Image: courtesy of Paisley Book Festival

Image: courtesy of Summerhall

Photo: Sally Jubb, courtesy of Talbot Rice Gallery

Niamhy Mac

Len Pennie

Photo: Lauren Kellie

Candice Lin, The Animal Husband

Photo: Ellen Jennifer

Photo: Alan Dimmick

Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic

Photo: Germaine Dunes

Image: courtesy of Generator Projects

Photo: @hannahkdove

Psweatpants

Clarinda Tse

The Girls of Slender Means

Adrianne Lenker

State of Print Fruit Salad

What's On

Music

Straight out the gate, the new multi-venue Literal Fest (1 Apr) lands in Edinburgh with Usher playing the Usher Hall, Ross from Friends supporting actual Ross from Friends at the Ross Bandstand and St. Vincent at St. Vincent’s Chapel among its offerings. Pretty impressive stuff if you ask us. Other, perhaps more believable, festive happenings this month include the inaugural HOUSEGUEST (6 Apr) from DIY promoters Crowded Flat and Scottish Music Collective. The inaugural all-dayer will take over Nice N Sleazy, Variety Bar and the Garage Attic Bar with Tina Sandwich, Majesty Palm and Parliamo leading the charge. Local label Last Night From Glasgow host their first ever weekender this month too. Taking place in the Glasgow University Debating Chamber on 12 and 13 April, BMX Bandits, wojtek the bear, Xan Tyler and Annie Booth are all set to play.

There’s also no shortage of local artists celebrating new releases this month. Roseanne Reid launches her Lawless single with a show at Òran Mór (3 Apr), Glasgow slackers Hound release their double EP Some Days Were Good...But Mostly It Was Grim with a show at The Old Hairdresser’s (5 Apr), Union of Knives celebrate Start From the Endless at The Hug & Pint (6 Apr), Kinbote launches Hemisphere at The Glad Cafe (14 Apr), Pearling unleashes her Lovelocket mixtape at Room 2 (18 Apr) and Broken Chanter plays a run of shows in honour of excellent new record, Chorus of Doubt, stopping in Edinburgh (Summerhall, 11 Apr), Aberdeen (Tunnels, 12 Apr), Dundee (Beat Generator Live!, 13 Apr), and Glasgow (Stereo, 20 Apr).

On Friday 19 April pick between launches for Carsick Charlie’s Angel EP (The Glad Cafe), Psweatpants’ AM/PM Radio EP (The Poetry Club), Bikini Body’s Weird Party EP (Stereo) or Fergus McCreadie’s Stream album (The Queen’s Hall), while later in the month Glasgow punks SOAPBOX release their Hawd That EP at King Tut’s (28 Apr). Other local shows worth your time this month include Kathryn Joseph at Albert Halls, Stirling (2 Apr), Broken Records at Summerhall (13 Apr) and The Hug & Pint (14 Apr), Majesty Palm at Sneaky Pete’s (26 Apr), C Duncan at Albert Halls (27 Apr), Brìghde Chaimbeul at Summerhall (28 Apr), while Brenda play Afternoon Delight that same day, part of a new series of daytime shows at Leith Depot.

Outwith all the local lovelies, catch raucous Pensylvannian punks Pissed Jeans at Stereo (2 Apr), the dry wit of Ariel Sharratt & Matthias Kom of Canadian outfit The Burning Hell at The Glad Cafe (12 Apr), the queer pop stylings of Lynks at Saint Luke’s (21 Apr), or on the same night in Edinburgh, Dutch party starters Personal Trainer at The Caves.

Finally, Record Store Day returns on 20 April, so be sure to keep the date free as alongside all the juicy limited edition vinyl releases coming your way, if past years are anything to go by, your favourite record shop will no doubt be hosting a banger of an in-store. [Tallah Brash]

Film

First up, let’s give a shout-out to several regular film clubs – old and new – on the Scottish film scene. The team behind the great Weird Weekend festival have begun a monthly film night at Offline (fka GAMIS), a newish venue in Glasgow’s Govanhill. Their second Weird Weekend night is a peach: Sogo Ishii’s wildly inventive 1984 black comedy The Crazy Family, which was part of the Weird Weekend festival in 2018 (26 Apr).

Cameo’s Film Club, where members get to see new and classic films for one whole pound, is always good value, particularly this month with films as

All details correct at the time of writing

Brìghde Chaimbeul

Personal Trainer

Lynks

Photo: Camille Lemoine

Photo: Tom van Huisstede

Photo: El Dodds

fine as Spike Lee’s blistering Do the Right Thing (14 Apr) and the Coen Brothers’ knockout noir debut Blood Simple (21 Apr) on offer.

In April, Glasgow Film Theatre launch their new Queer Film Night, which will be on the last Sunday of the month. They couldn’t have picked a better film to start than Andrew Haigh’s modern classic Weekend (28 Apr). And we’d be remiss not to mention The Skinny’s own film night: The CineSkinny Film Club. This month we’re showing Yannick, the latest comedy from mad French genius Quentin Dupieux (2 Apr, Summerhall, Edinburgh; 3 Apr, CCA, Glasgow). Tickets at theskinny.co.uk/tickets

Short films are on the menu at GFT this month with In Short, Europe: Best of Best, a festival of award-winning shorts from 28 European countries, from Ukraine to here in Scotland. The festival consists of five programmes screening 20 to 21 April, and the spread of films is impressive, with some smaller nations not particularly known for their cinema output, like the Faroe Islands, Flanders and Cyprus, included in the eclectic programme. Full details on GFT’s website.

The great Lynne Ramsay gets much love this month. Not only is her dreamy debut Ratcatcher receiving a 4K release to mark its 25th anniversary, the GFT are also crowning Ramsay this month’s CineMaster. The Glasgow director’s other three features – Morvern Callar (6 & 11 Apr), We Need to Talk About Kevin (20 & 24 Apr) and You Were Never Really Here (27 & 30 Apr) – all screen as part of the season.

We’ve a five-star review in the Film section this month, for Close Your Eyes, Victor Erice’s long-awaited return to fiction filmmaking. If you’re unfamiliar with this Spanish filmmaker’s small but brilliant body of work, GFT have timely screenings of his beguiling debut, The Spirit of the Beehive, to get you introduced (14, 17 & 18 Apr). [Jamie Dunn]

Clubs

On Friday 5 April, Marie Davidson lands with a rare live set at The Berkeley Suite, celebrating ten years of Shoot Your Shot in style. In Renfield Lane, Stereo presents Pineapple recs with Sam Binga b2b Addison Groove (5 Apr). Saturday 6 April showcases forward-thinking dance-pop icon Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs behind the decks at The Berkeley Suite. For a tasteful dose of techno purism check EXIT with Stefan Goldmann & Maria Chavez. In Dundee, anything goes for the medieval sell-out: Szentek’s Moving Castle 2024. On Sunday 7 April, expect Grime, Drill and all things 140 in Edinburgh for Postal: Oblig at Sneaky Pete’s.

Glasgow’s Thursday holds low-end in abundance, as FLIPSIDE host Henzo & Xivro at La Cheetah, while Midnight Bass are joined by SOUND (James Hometown, T-O-D, Izit, Wends) at Broadcast (11 Apr). That Friday, Return To Mono presents uncompromising techno from Berlin to Glasgow with Rødhåd & Slam. At Stereo, traversing the intersections of popular music and performance art, it’s CL!CK: softchaos (12 Apr). Meanwhile, Edinburgh’s Miss World bring the UK techno of Eich with miira + Feena to Sneaky Pete’s. On Saturday, dance the night away at Portobello’s beachside town hall with Messenger Sound System for the Grand Re ae Ball. Later in Glasgow, Loose Joints boasts Al Wootton (live), together with 140 merchant, Mia Koden, at The Berkeley Suite (13 Apr). Don’t sleep on Sunday’s album launch of Lost Map Records’ Kinbote – alongside support from Isa Gordon and Slide Cancel – at The Glad Café (14 Apr).

Continuing their 4th Birthday celebrations, Talkless return to La Cheetah on Wednesday with Bristol’s Fonzo (17 Apr). On Thursday, nil00 and Spent take the stage in Room 2 for dream-pop princess Pearling’s Lovelocket Release Party (18 Apr). Ease yourself into the weekend with performances by Hyperdawn, bunny hoova and Lupini for Pop Mutations at The Flying Duck on Friday, followed by an INDEX:Records Label Showcase at EXIT. Alternatively, Ezup with Jorg Kuning (Live) at La Cheetah’s basement. Further afield, techno royalty, Underground Resistance PRESENTS: DEPTH CHARGE (LIVE) at Paisley’s Club 69 – Rubadub DJs on support. For roots and re ae, Dubdee stack all six scoops of Edinburgh’s Mighty Oak Sound System at Kings (19 Apr). Slow things down on Sunday at The Old Hairdresser’s with Teresa Winter x NEY x Slowfoam (21 Apr).

Midweek, Proc Fiskal is joined by KAVARI and more for Shleekit Doss Wednesdays at Sneaky Pete’s (24 Apr). In Glasgow, celebrate South African Independence on Saturday with I$$A Lifestyle - We Rule Amapiano at 142b Lounge (27 Apr). [Cammy Gallagher]

Art

At Timespan, in Helmsdale, We Move As A Murmuration, which takes its name from the word meaning a flock of birds, explores the entangled relationship between humans and birds. Co-curated with Naoko Mabon, the exhibition will transform with new artworks and installation arrangements to bring fresh

Club 69

Ratcatcher

The Crazy Family

Image: courtesy of Loose Joints

Image: courtesy of Club 69

Loose Joints

Do The Right Thing

perspectives to audiences. Participating artists include Sethembile Msezane, Disarming Design for Palestine and adrienne maree brown. There’s plenty of time to catch this show – it continues until 30 September.

From 27 April until 4 August, Dundee Contemporary Arts hosts Sukaina Kubba for the artist’s first solo exhibition in the UK. Kubba’s multi-disciplinary practice is deeply rooted in material research, storytelling, and the drawing of connections between cultural histories.

At the CCA in Glasgow, Rae-Yen Song’s exhibition life-bestowing cadaverous soooooooooooooooooooot (until 18 May), a research exhibition with an ambitious live programme, promises visitors a kaleidoscopic, beguiling experience. Bringing together a plethora of artists, writers and performers, the exhibition sets the stage for a major exhibition of the artist’s work in Tramway in 2025.

Also in Glasgow, it’s your last chance to catch Pádraig Timoney’s exhibition Silts at The Modern Institute’s Aird’s Lane space (until 20 Apr). Timoney’s hand-poured and hand-etched mirror works are a meditation on appearance and reality by working against a stable view of the space or the self.

At iota in Glasgow’s West End, Colin Robertson’s exhibition North, South, East & West (until 27 Apr) draws on a range of inspirations as diverse as Sinéad O’Connor, the royal family and pop music.

Continuing until 2 June, Gabriella Boyd’s exhibition Presser at Cample Line builds upon recent shows in London, New York and San Francisco, accompanied by new works on paper that explore the interactions that tether us both loosely and tightly to each other and to the world around us. [Harvey Dimond]

Theatre

April in Scotland offers a variety of opportunities to see and make theatre.

Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre continues its run of This is Memorial Device, a co-production with Traverse Theatre and Ayr Gaiety. The production first ran at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2022, where it won a Fringe First Award. The play follows fictional post-punk band Memorial Device against the backdrop of the lively Airdrie music scene of the 1980s. (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 3-6 Apr; Aberdeen Performing Arts, 18-20 Apr; Riverside Studios, London, 23 Apr-11 May)

A Play, A Pie, and A Pint begins the month with Tamám Shud (1-6 Apr), a dark comedy inspired by the real-life murder of the ‘Somerton Man’. In collaboration with Sanctuary Queer Arts, new playwright Hannah McGregor debuts their queer, heartfelt comedy, Ness (8-13 Apr). The following week, lunchtime theatregoers can catch Who Pays the Piper (15-20 Apr), a tragicomedy by Jen McGregor.

Later this month, the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland will run its third Pomegranates Festival in Edinburgh. The festival celebrates Scottish traditional dance, as well as cultural dance forms from migrant communities in Scotland. In addition to performances, the festival offers ceilidhs, workshops, and other opportunities for festival goers to get involved on a free or pay-what-you-can basis (25-30 Apr).

This month, National Theatre of Scotland opens a call to South Asian artists for a short film. The £12,000 commission will go to an artist or team for a diverse range of narrative-driven short film ideas, including scripted, nonverbal, movement, creative documentary, animation, immersive, experimental or abstract. The deadline is listed as 9am on 29 April 2024. [Rho Chung]

Books

Let’s start big: Paisley Book Festival is on this month, with a stunning programme of authors and bookish events for your (reading) pleasure running from 25-28 April. Check out the likes of Andrew McMillan on working class literature, poetry sensation Len Pennie, playwright and poet Imogen Stirling and Olumide Popoola launching her new novel Like Water Like Sea. There’re also more book launches in both Edinburgh and Glasgow: the former sees acclaimed rapper George the Poet launch their memoir Track Record: Me, Music and the War on Blackness at Assembly Rooms in association with The Portobello Bookshop (23 Apr), while the latter sees lauded poet Jackie Kay launch their highly anticipated new collection May Day at Glasgow Women’s Library (23 Apr). Over at Lighthouse Bookshop, meanwhile, there’s two excellent activist events: Shanice Octavia McBean discusses ideas from her book Abolition Revolution in a public meeting hosted at Augustine United (3 Apr), while writers Jenni Daiches, Colin Donati, Lizzie Eldridge, David Manderson and Mario Relich explore ideas of freedom in Scotland and Palestine in a solidarity event in association with Scottish PEN (5Apr).

If storytelling is your thing, meanwhile, acclaimed Kenyan-Scottish storyteller Mara Menzies is at the Scottish Storytelling Centre for a magical evening (10 Apr), while at the same venue there’s also a Queer Folk Tales night (11 Apr) and an evening of readings and stories in celebration of their

Photo: Josef Konczak

Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic

Image: courtesy the artist and The Modern Institute. Photo: Patrick Jameson

Gabriella Boyd, Carriage 2023, oil on linen, 40 x 50cm

Memorial Device

Pádraig Timoney, Silts The Modern Institute, Glasgow.

Mara Menzies

Photo: Kat Gollock

Pomegranates Festival

Image: courtesy of Pomegranates Festival

current Word of Mouth exhibition (5 Apr). And for something more hands-on, poet Annie Muir is running a series of six-week poetry workshops both online and off through April and May (16 Apr-23 May), and there’s also drop-in zine making if you want to get super crafty (17 Apr). [Anahit Behrooz]

Comedy

On 6 April, you’ll have to make tough choices between three excellent comics: Ashley Manning, this month’s Dream Gig imaginer, brings her sugar-coated show about sex and shame to Glasgow Stand (Candyfloss, 5pm); Janey Godley comes to Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall with a stand-up-cross-screening gig of JANEY, her documentary fresh from Glasgow Film Festival (JANEY: On Screen & On-Stage, 8pm); while just up the road Krystal Evans performs her acclaimed debut hour The Hottest Girl at Burn Camp for the final time in Edinburgh (Monkey Barrel, 8pm).

A week later, there’s another brilliant triple bill of shows waiting for you. Start with Paul Sinha’s latest hour, Pauly Bengali, which is set to be a breezy look at politics and pop culture (The Stand, Glasgow, 4pm); squeeze in Stuart Laws’ Is That Guy Still Going?, which spans a wide range of topics from vasectomies to a self-started urban legend about Leicester Square’s M&M’s World (Monkey Barrel, 6pm); then finish your day with a lighthearted confessional from Sikisa and her sophomore show, Hear Me Out (Monkey Barrel, 8pm). For a sweet little treat the day after, return to Monkey Barrel for Chris Cantrill’s new WIP, Easily Swayed (14 April, 8pm). The show, from one half of The Delightful Sausage, will be a deliciously daft tale of a reunion gone awry. Elsewhere in the month, make sure to catch Sam Lake (Aspiring Dilf, 4 Apr, The Stand, Glasgow 8.30pm), who we recently saw knock it out the park as support for Marjolein Robertson, as well as another outing for her show Marj (8 Apr, The Stand, Glasgow 8.30pm). Finally, at the end of the month, viral posh-boy rapper MC Hammersmith will spit bars and belly laughs in Straight Outta Brompton (24 Apr, The Stand, Glasgow, 8.30pm), while Luisa Omielan’s back in town with Bitter, her first solo show since What Would Beyoncé Do?!, which exposes the entertainment industry in her trademark down-to-earth style (25 Apr, Monkey Barrel, 7.30pm). [Polly Glynn]

Photo: Corinne Cumming –Captured by Corrine

Photo: Jean Yuzheng Sam Lake

Annie Muir Luisa Omielan

Photo: Karla Gowlett

Features

20 The 2024 Music Festivals special opens with a deep dive into the Scottish traditional music boom.

23 As Terminal V take on Croatia, we sit down with the techno festival’s founders and long-time collaborator Fraz.ier

26 A look back at what made T in the Park so special, and what Scotland’s festival scene looks like in 2024.

33 Brian d’Souza on making music with mushrooms as he releases his own-label debut Mycorrhizal Fungi

37 Genevieve Ja er on her vampire novel Fragile Animals

42 A look at some of the artists exhibiting in this year’s mega double-year edition of RSA New Contemporaries

44 We meet Rae-Yen Song 宋瑞渊 at CCA Glasgow to discuss the artist’s new show.

47 Former dancer and one of Europe’s most in-demand actors Franz Rogowski talks Disco Boy

48 Palestinian artist Noor Abed discusses her work, featuring at Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival in Hawick this month.

51 We sit down with some of the country’s unsung sound system pioneers to hear about bringing the culture to Scotland.

55 Morna Young and Finn den Hertog on their radical new stage adaptation of Sunset Song

56 Looking back on ten years of dark comedy from Inside No. 9

On the website...

A recap of this year’s Glasgow Short Film Festival, a chat with the curator of food/art crossover exhibition Word Of Mouth, a bunch of gig reviews (Yard Act, Creeper, and Madison Beer, together at last!), plus playlists, podcasts, and – apologies for the language – a shitload of great competitions

Image Credits: (Left to right, top to bottom) Magnus Graham; Tim Craig; Holly Conyers; Chris Keenan; David Ronan; Samuel Edwards; Alan Dimmick; Disco Boy; Noor Abed; Messenger Sound System; Dundee Rep Theatre; BBC Studios/James Stack

Shot of the month

Across 8. Live fast (anag) (8)

9. Titling (6)

10. Mountain range (in Nevada?) (6)

11. Highest quality (3-5)

12. Immobilise (8)

13. Held – presented (6)

14. Bad immune response (7)

16. Fashionable (7)

19. The classic 'telephone' fruit (6)

21. Corporate necklaces (8)

23. Setting on fire (8)

24. Punk hairstyle (6)

25. Gluten-free grain (6)

26. They're for butts (8)

Down

1. Be comfortably relaxed – inhale total glut (anag) (3,2,3,4,3)

2. Look for constellations (8)

3. Big birdcage (6)

4. Sparkle (7)

5. Glimpse – quick photo (8)

6. Stamp – besoms (anag) (6)

7. Blown away – weed candy kiosks (anag) (7,8)

15. Seriousness (8)

17. Tough – lay there (anag) (8)

18. Mournful (7)

20. Extraterrestrials (6)

22. Spirits – P.S. hymn (anag) (6)

Feedback? Email crossword@theskinny.co.uk

Turn to page 7 for the solutions

Compiled by George Sully

The Smile @ SEC Armadillo, Glasgow, 20 Mar by Serena Milesi

In this month’s advice column, one reader asks how they can talk about their new drinking ban without being annoying

I’ve recently stopped drinking and have on the whole been loving it – it’s hard but it’s made my life better. But I feel so smug & sanctimonious when I’m talking about it, which is often because I find it motivates me to keep going. How do I share my new improved life without sounding like a dick?

I don’t know how many times I can play the Iran card before it becomes truly annoying (hey, maybe we’re not so different, you and I!), but coming from a country where drinking and drugs are framed entirely through morality and the carceral state, I am super wary of any kind of puritanical approach to sobriety. I’m not saying you’re doing this (hey, I don’t know you!) but I guess the way you’re framing it as smug and sanctimonious in your mind, even if it’s more a fear of being those things, makes me wonder what your relationship to your sobriety is. Does it come from a deeply personal, this-iswhat-works-for-me kind of place? Or do you deep down believe that it is a better way of life, and maybe something that other people will benefit from?

It’s tricky because – again! – I don’t know you, so I don’t know if this has been a hard-won victory and it’s entirely natural to want to be proud of it. But that pride has to be tethered to your own personal journey rather than pride at having discovered a more transcendent way of life that others just aren’t enlightened enough to get. Let me put it this way: would you keep bringing this up about something different? I go to the gym (lmao) and every few months I might be like, isn’t it crazy how I have a barely discernable bicep and my back doesn’t hurt anymore, but I don’t bring it up every week. And if someone was super into drinking and doing drugs, if they kept bringing it up it would be deeply loser behaviour. I don’t know… I don’t want to be like ‘maybe we should all just shut the fuck up’ but maybe we do need to tread the line between sharing our selves with our friends and being the main character of their lives. Maybe try and let the Diet Pepsi speak for itself a little bit? And when you do bring it up, make sure it is – really and truly – just about you.

POSTER ARTIST (p40-41)

Jasmine Floyd is a freelance illustrator and printmaker who lives in Shropshire. Her illustration style is influenced by her experiences studying illustration in Liverpool, with vibrant colours and psychedelic vibes informed by the city's art scene.

jasminesillustrations.co.uk @jasminefloyd

WWords: Tallah Brash

Illustration: Nänni-Pää

ith the first big music-filled weekends of the year just around the corner, it’s time to air out your tents, get your wellies out the back of the cupboard and get stuck into our annual music festivals special – welcome! Across the next few pages, in amongst lots of (hopefully) festival inspiration, and a whole ga le of important dates for the year ahead, our lead feature explores the Scottish trad music scene and how trad festivals continue to evolve and grow, while at the other end of the scale, we chat to the team behind Edinburgh’s top tier techno and house festival Terminal V about their expansion to Croatia.

Elsewhere, eight years after its last edition, one writer explains why he still misses T in the Park, highlighting some other festivals near and far that can maybe help fill the void; we speak to Scottish music convention Wide Days to help understand the importance of showcase music festivals in connecting the music industry, and helping propel young artists to new heights; and we speak to Brian d’Souza, aka Auntie Flo, about his new mycelium-based music project born out of a commission at last year’s Glastonbury Festival.

Keep It Reel

Scottish traditional music is experiencing a boom, with major trad and folk festivals taking centre stage. We speak to three people at the heart of the movement to find out what it’s like on the inside

Scotland’s seeing a trad boom at the moment – research commissioned by Visit Scotland su ests that 34 per cent of Scots have been listening to the genre more in the past year, while bands like Talisk are enjoying a folkspecific form of Beatlemania. Last year the team behind Skye Live launched their sister festival, The Reeling, bringing their trad and celtic fusion programming to the central belt. But perhaps most importantly, Greg Davies was spotted at a late night gig during last year’s Celtic Connections. If the host of the nation’s most beloved domestic TV show is a fan of trad music festivals, anything could be happening.

Allan MacDonald plays pipes and synths in Niteworks, one of the integral acts of this cultural

More trad festivals for your 2024

Edinburgh Tradfest

Edinburgh, Scotland, 3-13 May

Lineup: Malin Lewis, Bruce Ncube, Birdvox + Kate Young

renaissance. He thinks people are less embarrassed by Scottish trad now – and although he asks whether ‘embarrassed’ is putting it too strongly, this is probably the best way to describe many Scots’ relationship with the genre. “A while back, there was a perception that trad music was quite twee and not that cool – I think that has changed,” he says. “For us, there was an arc of it becoming more accepted and also more cool that we were traditional musicians.”

Celtic fusion acts like Niteworks make up the bulk of the new generation of successful trad acts – their sound is markedly different to previous iterations of the genre. The last wave of Celtic fusion and ‘acid croft’ music in the 90s was characterised by the same downtempo stylings as other electronic music at the turn of the millennium (it makes sense, given how many electronic acts were working with acoustic sounds). After that there was a bit of a lull, and into that lull stepped Niteworks, blending traditional melodic forms, structures and instruments with the synthesised beats of deep house and electronica.

Skye Live has been bringing Scots trad and electronic dance music together since its inception, but in recent years their programming has focused more so on the trad and Celtic fusion side. Michael Pellegrotti, Director and Programmer of Skye Live and The Reeling, says this is because the trad side of the programme is what’s drawing the crowds.

“Dance and trad have always been the key pillars of Skye Live,” he says. “As genres they have a lot of similarities; there’s a tribalism to both of them and that’s something we like to explore in our programming. In terms of how much of either we programme these days, we’ve certainly tweaked the balance over the years based on what the audiences want [...] There’s also a lot more crossover on the trad side than there was when the festival started, with more artists drawing on contemporary sounds.”

Orkney Folk Festival

Orkney, Scotland, 23-26 May

Lineup: The Chair, Charm of Finches, Erika Shearer &

The Gathering

Bught Park, Inverness, Scotland, 1 Jun

Lineup: Croft No. 5, Sian, Cala

Words: Laurie Presswood

“A while back, there was a perception that trad music was quite twee and not that cool – I think that has changed”

Allan MacDonald, Niteworks

Malin Lewis is another Skye piper who has forged their own approach to trad music – they compose for instruments like the kantele and saxophone, and play a new adaptation of Scottish smallpipes which they crafted themselves based on a 3D-printed design. They’re returning home to play Skye Live next month.

“In the Highlands there’s something beautiful about the way that folk music/Celtic music is pop music in that sense,” says Lewis. “It's the mainstream of what’s happening.” The influx of trad fans must be coming from the central belt, since support from up north is a constant.

Pellegrotti points out, however, that there was an audience here already; for him the decision to launch The Reeling has been a long time coming. “Glasgow is the epicentre of traditional music in Scotland, as evidenced by the size and popularity of Celtic Connections. All the bi est gigs happen here, and with the growth of festivals as a medium, it always felt surprising that there wasn’t a large-scale summer event in the central belt that catered for these audiences. It got to the point where the idea felt like a bit of a no-brainer.”

MacDonald keeps coming back to the energy of the current generation of trad acts as a reason for their popularity: acts that have a fiery drive when you see them in concert; acts that give you

Førde International Folk Music Festival

Førde, Norway, 3-7 Jul

Lineup: Aziza Brahim, Lina, Ímar

Kaustinen Folk Music Festival

Kaustinen, Finland, 8-14 Jul

Lineup: Antti Paalanen, Piirpauke, Ánnámáret

Karen Tweed

Edinburgh Tradfest Orkney Folk Festival Førde International Folk Music Festival

Photo: Douglas Robertson

Photo: Lieve Boussauw

Photo: Knut Utler

Photo: Ryan Buchanan

Peatbog Faeries at The Reeling

the energy to stand in a field all day. It seems like a natural outlet for a Lowlands audience, especially in Glasgow – one that is equally energetic and willing to dance.

For MacDonald, this energy is, if not created then at least facilitated by an increase in quality: “I was watching the Six Nations the other day and it got me thinking […] way back in the day, the people who used to play televised rugby just looked pathetic compared to what it is today. It’s so much slicker today, it’s so professional [...] the quality and the standard of everything has gotten much higher... Is that because the players are better or just because of the surroundings and the atmosphere? I think it’s the latter.”

Niteworks are disbanding this year – they’ve built up a sizeable audience, but their success has brought them to a crossroads where they either have to double down or take a step back. All four have full-time jobs and couldn’t take a more intense schedule – music has always been a hobby for them.

The next generation of trad musicians coming through have come up in an era of increasing ‘professionalisation’ of the scene – the Traditional Music degree at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and The National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music at Plockton High School means that some of the acts breaking through today have been studying music intensely since they were 12 years old.

“Benny’s [Benedict Morris] the perfect example. He’s an absolutely phenomenal player,” states MacDonald. “It’s pretty cool that he’s playing with Talisk. He could be playing with anyone, but the fact that the three of them are able to headline festivals with a fiddle, guitar and concertina? On paper, that ain’t happening… but in reality it works.”

He continues: “That definitely factored into why we’re kind of drawing a line under things, because there’s gonna very quickly be a point

Tiree Music Festival

Tiree, Scotland, 12-14 Jul

Lineup: TBC

where we just can’t keep up with folks that are doing it all the time [...] We certainly wouldn’t want to be in a position where we’re slipping more and more down on the bill. Not that the aim is to headline or what have you – I think we just wanted to avoid that.”

Lewis studied at both Plockton and RCS, as well as a year at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and they say there’s a lot of conversations taking place in those schools around authenticity and ownership of stories. “When you take something out of the context and then study it in a formal way, you’re not learning through that oral tradition in the same way. RCS are very considerate when they do that. And they do try to do all that oral tradition and that oral learning and that community and that folk storytelling [...] it’s not black and white. It’s not good or bad. But it’s really interesting [...] When you institutionalise a folk idiom is it still folk? [...] That in itself is PhD material.”

Lewis says all of this has encouraged them to make a debut album that is totally their own – inspired by the raw, unpolished sound of the bands they loved as a teenager (Belle and Sebastian’s out of tune singing as much as the expressive fiddle compositions of Duncan

Cambridge Folk Festival

Cherry Hinton Hall, Cambridge, England, 2528 Jul

Lineup: Fantastic Negrito, Nitin Sawhney, Talisk

Lorient Interceltic Festival

Lorient, France, 12-18 Aug

Lineup: Julie Fowlis, Valtos, Cherish the Ladies

Chisholm). When it comes to the festival circuit this summer, Lewis won’t have a sax or a seven-piece band, so will have to recreate the album’s intricacies through pedals and careful repurposing of parts.

“As much as I love big bands and that wall of sound that you can create, there’s also something I really love about little groups, like three or four people. I think live music is so much about the human connection on stage,” Lewis says, “It’s about people looking at each other and engaging.”

Niteworks release An Toll Dubh on 25 Apr via Comann Music | niteworksband.com

Malin Lewis releases Halocline on 3 May via Hudson Records | malinlewis.co.uk

Skye Live takes place on Portree, Isle of Skye, 9-11 May; Niteworks play Fri 10 May; Malin Lewis plays Sat 11 May | skyelive.co.uk

The Reeling takes place in Rouken Glen Park, Glasgow, 8-9 Jun; Niteworks play Sat 8 Jun | thereeling.com

Ceòl Cholasa

Colonsay, Scotland, 1922 Sep

Lineup: Amy Laurenson Quartet, Miguel Girão, Rura

Lochaber Live

Fort William, Scotland, 20-22 Sep

Lineup: Mànran, Shooglenifty, Hò-rò

Cambridge Folk Festival

Lorient Interceltic Festival

Gary Innes at Lochaber Live

Photo: Martin Bond

Image: courtesy of the festival

Image: courtesy of the festival

Photo: Magnus Graham

Skye Live

Garden View

This summer Edinburgh’s Terminal V festival set sail into Tisno’s sunset with a brand new annual techno excursion. We find out more

This summer marks the launch of Terminal V Croatia, a new annual techno excursion set to sail the electric energy of Edinburgh’s Royal Highland Centre into Tisno’s summer sunset (18-22 Jul). As EE Live’s biannual bank holiday party, recently awarded DJ Mag’s 2023 Best British Festival, approaches ten editions this April, we sit down with founders Derek Martin and Simon McGrath, together with long-time collaborator Fraz.ier, to explore the harmonic rise of the two musical outlets.

Having previously tested Terminal V Berlin, a pandemic-affected project aimed at providing UK audiences with a European home from home, McGrath stresses the overdue nature of a Scottish destination festival: “Being on the verge of selling out 40,000 tickets seemed like the perfect opportunity to dip our feet in the water somewhere else.” Docking at The Garden, an established home to Dimensions, Dekmantel Selectors and Outlook Origins, “there’s nothing that really crosses over with Terminal V,” says Martin, “as much as there’s techno there in many shapes and forms… the range of techno and contemporary sounds you get at Terminal V is not something being done on the resort currently.” Besides offering Scots an alternative to Edinburgh’s inconsistently tepid temperatures, the advent of a novel techno-centric summer festival has pricked ears throughout Central and Eastern Europe.

Curated across four open-air stages, B2B boat parties, and an after-hours at Barbarella’s Discotheque, Terminal V Croatia boasts a stacked lineup of local faces – including Aisha, FRANCK, Hannah Laing – alongside international names like Kobosil, FJAAK and Rødhåd – a techno heavyweight returning for the first time in six years. “That was the first time you played for us?” McGrath asks Fraz.ier. “Yeah, 2018,” the Scottish DJ and producer replies. “Derek and I had been chatting as I had an EP coming out on Pan Pot’s label, so it was quite a natural connection.” Martin recalls: “The timing was good. We were launching Terminal V as a new brand, and looking for younger Scottish artists pushing boundaries… We’ve never looked back – he’s played almost every Terminal V since then.”

On remembering 2019’s freak April heatwave which lined up with that year’s event, Martin tells us: “It was the best day of the year! Everyone was taps aff on the grass,” set to the backdrop of Andrew Weatherall and Richie Hawtin, while Fraz. ier closed The Ambulance stage. “Someone recently sent me a video of that,” Fraz.ier add, “it looked like I was playing a burger van or something!”

Words: Cammy Gallagher

In the five years since, both Terminal V and Fraz.ier have matured, amidst a fruitful techno scene, ever-growing in popular accessibility and event capacities. Albeit physically adjourned by COVID, lockdown accelerated a digital revolution enabling artists and events to reach new heights of recognition through virality. In hindsight, for Fraz.ier “those two years were at least five of musical transition… everything happened so quick. So many legends [were forgotten], and it became a whole new market. It should be fully focused on the music, but in a digital world, it doesn’t work like that.” Entering an economically plagued post-pandemic world, “the main problem is the cost of living… people are picking and choosing instead of clubbing every weekend,” he theorises, in discussing the unfortunate closure of his club SYMBØL that he opened in 2022 – a venue venture that sought to “bring focus back on artists and not ticket sales. It was the right idea at the wrong time,” he says, “I don’t regret trying it.”

Behind the scenes, the temporary cessation of parties provided Terminal V “breathing space to pull things together and nail the development of production.” Being perfectionists at heart, McGrath admits that “before the pandemic, we’d never been able to emulate the high levels envisioned due to the speed at which we were growing.”

Fraz.ier relates: “Once you do one big production, you don’t want to drop the standard, it’s a

never-ending cycle of trying to push the limitations of what you can do.” Though, in contrast to the large lighting rigs and LED screens, “Croatia is a boutique festival compared to what we do in [the empty warehouse spaces of the Royal Highland Centre in] Edinburgh,” Martin explains, offering travel plans and onsite accommodation to 6000 ticketholders. “With Tisno, it’s such a scenic place, right on the waterfront – we approach the production to complement the space, the site sells itself really.”

Ever passionate about platforming upcoming Scottish artists and scenes, Terminal V’s record label is set to return over the next few months with releases to reflect the various stages of the festival, both from local and international artists. “There’s a lot of new talent that’s been [overlooked],” citing Glasgow’s Outflight and young vinyl selectors Liam Capello and Eubo, alongside Edinburgh’s E.DN – an early proprietor of the hardgroove sound, “so hopefully we can give back some opportunities,” adds Fraz.ier, who’s also just launched his own label Parallel Visions, with an inaugural four-track EP due from himself on 4 May.

Terminal V takes place at Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh, 13-14 Apr; Tisno, Croatia, 18-22 Jul; Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh, Oct TBC

terminalv.co.uk ee-live.co.uk instagram.com/frazi.er

Photo: images courtesy of Terminal V

Dance Dates

Our top picks of the festivals taking dance music out of the clubs this season

Queen’s Park Spring Weekender

Queen’s Park Recreation Ground, Glasgow, Scotland, 4-5 May

All roads head to the southside for Melting Pot and Optimo’s Queen’s Park Spring Weekender, as dance acts ESG and Aba Shanti-I touch down for live performances in the Big Top Tent, joined by DJ sets from Todd Terje, Joy Orbison, and Glasgow’s Ribeka, across two days in Queen’s Park. meltingpotglasgow.com

Riverside Festival

Riverside Museum, Glasgow, Scotland, 25-26 May

Riverside returns to the transport and technology museum for two days of techno, house and high production across four stages on the Clyde’s waterfront, consisting of local legends Slam (Live), Frankie Elyse B2B Van Damn and TAAHLIAH, together with international highflyers Dax J, Green Velvet, and Eliza Rose. riversidefestivalglasgow.com

Watching Trees

Location sent to ticketholders, Wiltshire, England, 1-2 Jun

Dance music royalty Optimo and Ransom Note join forces in sharing their musical odyssey of bands, DJs, and live acts with 500 ticketholders. Rent a tent, bring your own, or go without for a 24-hour sonic ramble in the North Wiltshire countryside. Not to be slept on. watchingtrees.com

Gottwood

Carreglwyd Estate, Anglesey, Wales, 13-16 Jun

The mystical little party hidden in the middle of the woods that is Gottwood welcomes a plethora of DJs, including Ploy, Peach, Red Axes, Mia Koden, and many more to Wales for four days of underground electronic music. gottwood.co.uk

PLTFRM

West Street, Glasgow, Scotland, 29-30 Jun

Fresh off a rebrand, PLFTRM – now under the reigns of techno heavyweight Fraz.ier – stops at West Street for two days, hosting Estella Boersma, Chlär, and Narciss, alongside Farnaz, Domenic Cappello, and E.DN underneath Paisley’s railway bridge. instagram.com/pltfrm.fstvl

Big Smoke Festival

Crystal Palace Park, London, England, 6 Jul

Skepta presents a two-stage, one-day festival, with live performances from The Streets, K Trap, and Lancey Foux, alongside DJ sets from Más Tiempo –his latest tech house endeavour with Jammer – and friends. bigsmokefest.london

Words: Cammy Gallagher

Love International

The Garden, Tisno, Croatia, 10-16 Jul

Witness an impressively exhaustive lineup of carefully curated underground dance music DJs from around the globe at Tisno’s Garden resort over six days of certified fun. Notable billings include Batu B2B Leon Vynehall, Eris Drew B2B Octo Octa, Ron Morelli, Avalon Emerson, and Scotland’s 12th Isle. loveinternationalfestival.com

Re ae Land Festival

The National Bowl, Milton Keynes, England, 3-4 Aug

For dub and dancehall lovers, see Burning Spear, Shabba Ranks, and Dawn Penn, amidst the sounds of King Tubby’s, Mount Sinai’s, and Mungo’s Hi Fi’s systems at the UK’s largest Re ae celebration. Grab some memorabilia at the on-site flea market or refreshments from the Caribbean food village. re aeland.co.uk

Field Maneuvers

Secret Location, Norfolk, England, 16-18 Aug

An intimate no-frills rave. Despite the lineup yet to be announced, you can categorically count on excellent DJs playing excellent sound systems to an excellent crowd. Be sure to celebrate the tenth anniversary and final year in its current form before downsizing from 2025 onwards. fieldmaneuvers.com

We Out Here

Wimborne St Giles, Dorset, England, 15-18 Aug

Gilles Peterson curates four days of jazz, hip-hop, electronica and everything in between, presenting DJ sets from the likes of KODE9 B2B Sherelle and Nick León, together with live performances from André 3000, Mount Kimbie, Floating Points, and Scotland’s own corto.alto. weoutherefestival.com

Riverside Gottwood Field Maneuvers

Queen’s Park Spring Weekender Image: courtesy of the festival Image: courtesy of the festival

Photo: Khris Cowley

Photo: Tim Craig

T-Time

T in the Park was Scotland’s flagship music festival for over 20 years before the plug was pulled in 2016. We look back on what made it so special, and what Scotland’s festival scene looks like now

Growing up in Scotland, you are likely to go through a series of events which could all fairly be described as rites of passage. These can include (but are not limited to) telling your parents you are staying over at a friend’s house when in reality you’re drinking cheap vodka in a farmer’s field; standing outside the off-licence trying to convince strangers to buy you and your friends alcohol; or passing your driving test at 17 and ferrying all your pals to and from the nearest drive-thru.

“If T in the Park was a melting pot in terms of the artists it booked, it was even more so for the people it attracted”

Another rite of passage, and one I was fortunate enough to undertake myself, was to go to T in the Park. For those unaware, T in the Park was an annual music festival that ran between 1994 and 2016. For the majority of those years, it took place at Balado (an old disused airfield near Kinross), before worries over unstable gas pipes forced it to move location for its last few editions. Having to move because the festival site was sat over what was essentially a ticking timebomb perhaps sums up T in the Park better than I ever could. It was a special festival that always seemed to be teetering right on the brink, bringing out the best in people and creating a real sense of community and camaraderie among devotees in the mud and the sun and the rain, and offering those who were so inclined an opportunity to act on their worst instincts.

Words: Logan Walker

I went to T in the Park in 2014, shortly after I had turned 18 and left school. My friends and I were going to see some of our musical heroes that weekend, the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Biffy Clyro, Kaiser Chiefs and Calvin Harris – this was before we had a chance to develop our tastes, I promise you we have all expanded our audio horizons now. I remember after we had all made it through security (where several of my friends who were unlucky enough to be under 18 had their weekend supply of booze confiscated) being a bit overawed by the sheer scale of the site. It was a solid 40-minute walk from security to the main campsite, and as we walked through the sun-scorched and trampled grass on the way to pitch our tents, you could easily tell the first timers apart from the TITP veterans, who had a sort of thousand-yard stare. To our young impressionable minds, it was like we had just stumbled into Woodstock.

Once we’d made it to the campsite, decanted our various spirits and beers from their cardboard crates and set up our cheap foldaway camping chairs, that’s when the magic began. If T in the Park was a melting pot in terms of the artists it booked, from Rage Against the Machine to Beyoncé, it was even more so for the people it attracted. A varying cast of characters would wander in and out during the day, including one gentleman with a panda hat and face paint who offered to help me wash my hair, some guy with a [professional footballer] Daniel Sturridge cardboard face mask who had a beer bong and decided to scarper after someone su ested they use it as a urinal, and the world’s least subtle drug dealers openly displaying their wares.

There was something this ragtag group of miscreants shared in common however, and that was that they were all there to have a good time. Everywhere you turned to look, you could see people who had decided just to go with the flow

Photo: Katherine Maclennan

Photo: Holly Conyers

Primavera Sound

Barcelona, Spain, 29 May-2 Jun

Lineup: Pulp, SZA, Amyl & The Sniffers

Rock in Rio Lisboa Lisbon, Portugal, 15-16 & 22-23 Jun

Lineup: Doja Cat, Evanescence, Ed Sheeran

Isle of Wight Festival

Isle of Wight, England, 20-23 Jun

Lineup: Green Day, The Darkness, The Prodigy

Bergenfest Bergen, Norway, 12-15 Jun

Lineup: Stormzy, PJ Harvey, CMAT

Primavera Sound Rock in Rio Lisboa

Photo: Magdalena Zehetmayr

Photo: David Rutherford

Photo: Jarle H. Moe

Isle of Wight Festival Bergenfest

Photo: Agência Zero

Festivals to help plug the TITP gap

even if just for a weekend. These were your brothers in arms, you marched down through the muck to the mainstage with them, drank overpriced warm beer and screamed your lungs out for 12 hours with them, then trudged back to your tent, drank some more, slept for a few hours then got up and did it all over again. It was impossible not to feel some sort of connection and form a bond with those around you. Although I did want to kill whoever had brought in a vuvuzela and used it like an alarm clock every morning at 7am.

We even met one punter who told us he had been coming to TITP for over a decade and had never seen a single band, instead choosing to spend his time getting fucked up at the campsite and dancing at the Slam Tent. Speaking of which, The Slam Tent was another T in the Park institution that set it apart from other festivals. Not fancying going down to watch the Red Hot Chili Peppers? Ed Sheeran not doing it for you? You always had the option of going down to the Slam Tent and relaxing by dancing wildly to some 130bpm trance music instead. I spent a brief few moments in the Slam Tent, and the combination of 100 decibel dance tunes combined with thousands of sweaty bodies leaping all around me proved to be just a bit too much, but if that was your scene, I can’t imagine anywhere else doing it better.

But now, T in the Park has sadly gone the way of the dodo. Increasing incidents of antisocial behaviour, violence and drug-related deaths forced the hands of the organisers, and the 2016 edition proved to be its last.

T in the Park isn’t the only Scottish festival in recent years to be axed. There was RockNess, a sort of mini TITP in the Scottish Highlands, which ran from 2006 to 2013.

Electric Fields in Dumfries & Galloway came and went, with its fifth and final outing in 2018. See also Doune the Rabbit Hole, a festival in Stirlingshire that managed to pull in some decent names before they decided against paying any of their artists and were boycotted into oblivion. There’s also Connect. Initially running on the grounds of Inverary Castle in 2007 and 2008, the festival made its surprise return in 2022 and 2023 at Edinburgh’s Royal

Highland Centre Showgrounds. Offering more upmarket camping, it probably came closest to TITP, but this year has seen the organisers opt to sadly take a fallow year “to take the time to build the next edition of the festival”. All these losses have left a black hole in Scotland’s annual festival scene, with only one real big dog remaining in the yard – TRNSMT.

TRNSMT ran its first edition in 2017, the year following TITP’s dissolution. While the organisers have stated that it is categorically not a replacement for the beloved festival, many see it as, at the very least, a spiritual successor (or, depending who you ask, a pale imitation). TRNSMT shares some similarities that can’t be denied. It has featured many of the same artists that played T over the years and takes place over a long weekend with a variety of stages showcasing bands at different

“It was impossible not to feel some sort of connection and form a bond with those around you”

stages of their careers, from upstarts to global superstars (and Liam Gallagher three times in seven years). It does not, however, offer camping, and this is what really prevents it from recapturing some of that T in the Park magic. There’s no traipsing through the mud back to your halfcollapsed and water lo ed tent to discuss the meaning of life with a stranger you just met in the crowd at Pixies – instead you’re hopping on a train or a bus back home. The feeling dissipates all too quickly, and that is perhaps what is most missed from T in the Park.

While TITP is gone, and unlikely to ever return (despite what recent online rumours might tell you), there are thankfully a few festival options at home and further afield that might help scratch the itch, even if only temporarily. I can’t promise you that any of these will fill the TITP-shaped hole in your heart, but it’s better than nothing. Just remember if you are jetting off to pack the sun

Photo: Katherine Maclennan

Photo: Holly Conyers

Pinkpop Festival Landgraaf, The Netherlands, 21-23 Jun

Lineup: Calvin Harris, Måneskin, Avril Lavigne

Party at the Palace Linlithgow, Scotland, 10-11 Aug

Lineup: UB40, Big Country, Ronan Keating

Reading and Leeds

Reading and Leeds, UK, 21-25 Aug

Lineup: Blink-182, Lana Del Rey, Viagra Boys

Roskilde Festival Roskilde, Denmark, 29 Jun-6 Jul

Lineup: Foo Fighters, Ice Spice, Khruangbin

Reading

Photo: Stiig Hougesen

Photo: DYLAN

Photo: A West

Pinkpop Festival

Roskilde Festival

Photo: Luke Dyson

Party at the Palace

Hot Dates

As if we haven’t already provided you with enough festival inspiration, here are some more picks for 2024’s impending season

More In Scotland

Stag & Da er

Various, Edinburgh & Glasgow, 4 & 5 May

Established in 2009, this year’s multi-venue festival sees local talent Hamish Hawk top the bill at both ends of the M8, with Teesside’s political punks Benefits, Glasgow indie-rockers Lucia and the Best Boys and London-based electro post-punks Snapped Ankles helping prop up the rest of the top line. A great way to kick off festival season. @staganddagfest

Houses Festival

SWG3, Glasgow, 11 May

A collaboration between SWG3 and new music champions Tenement TV, this May sees the inaugural Houses festival take over the full SWG3 complex for an all-day indoor and outdoor festival with a focus on local indie, hip-hop and electronic artists. Alice Faye, EYVE, JusHarry, Pearling, Psweatpants, Queen of Harps and loads more are set to play. @housesfestival

Knockengorroch

Galloway, S.W. Scotland, 23-26 May

Set in the beautiful surrounds of the Carsphairn Hills in the south west of Scotland, Knockengorroch is Scotland’s longest running greenhills festival, and its first big camping festival of the season. Known for its community ethos and celebration of roots music, this year’s lineup includes Peatbog Faeries, N’famady Kouyaté, Both Hands and Nightwave. knockengorroch.org.uk

Eden Festival

Raehills Meadows, nr Moffat, Dumfries & Galloway, 13-16 Jun

Shortlisted for Best Family Festival in the 2023 UK Festival Awards, Eden Festival is another beaut with community at the core of everything it does. From its sustainability practices to wellness workshops, and with a focus on diversity in its lineup there’s lots to like. Amadou & Mariam top this year’s bill, with Mr Scruff, Jamz Supernova and corto.alto also playing. edenfestival.co.uk

Big City

Queen’s Park, Glasgow, 29 Jun

Curated by Glasgow post-rockers Mogwai, this brand new all-dayer takes over Queen’s Park in the Glasgow Southside at the end of June, with a stacked lineup featuring Slowdive, Nadine Shah, Beak> and Michael Rother, alongside a ga le of Rock Action-signed acts like Kathryn Joseph, Cloth, Sacred Paws, bdrmm and, of course, Mogwai themselves. bigcity.scot

Kelburn Garden Party

Kelburn Castle, nr Fairlie, 4-8 Jul

Hosted on the grounds of Kelburn Castle, Kelburn Garden Party is a family friendly, community focused festival on the west coast of Scotland near Largs. Genre-agnostic when it comes to its lineup, this is a highlight of the year for us, and we’re honoured to be back curating The Pyramid Stage with Bikini Body, LVRA and rEDOLENT topping the bill. kelburngardenparty.com

Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival

Belladrum Estate, by Beauly, Inverness-shire, 25-27 Jul

What do Deacon Blue, Sugababes, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Bill Bailey, King Creosote and The Futureheads all have in common? They’re all performing at this year’s Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival, with the rest of this family friendly festival in the Highlands similarly varied for what is set to be one heck of an eclectic 20th anniversary celebration. tartanheartfestival.com

Words: Tallah Brash

A Bowlie Event, Belle and Sebastian present ‘The Glasgow Weekender’

SWG3 Galvanizers Yard, Glasgow, 2-3 Aug

Another newbie for 2024 comes to you courtesy of everyone’s favourite indie-pop brigade Belle and Sebastian who are bringing one of their famed Bowlie events to SWG3’s Galvanizers Yard this August. With B&S playing both days, you can also catch CMAT, Camera Obscura, BIS and The Joy Hotel over the course of the weekend. belleandsebastian.com core.

Woodside Hall & The Hug and Pint, Glasgow, 2-4 Aug

After the success of last year’s first ever festival of noise in Glasgow, core. returns this August for a weekender split between two beautifully walkable West End locations, The Hug & Pint and Woodside Hall. Show Me the Body, Gilla Band and Empire State Bastard top the bill. Earplugs at the ready. corethefestival.com

Edinburgh Psych Fest

The Queen’s Hall & Summerhall, Edinburgh, 1 Sep

Back for a second stab after the sell-out success of its first outing last year, Edinburgh Psych Fest returns to the capital’s southside taking over Summerhall once again as well as The Queen’s Hall, just around the corner. The first wave of this year’s lineup includes Pigs x7, NewDad, Temples, The Bug Club, Holly Macve and Juniore. edinburghpsychfest.com

Edinburgh Psych Fest

Knockengorroch

Deafhaven at core.

Belle and Sebastian at A Bowlie Event

Warm Digits at Stag & Da er

Photo: Martyna Maz

Photo: Will Byington

Image: coutesy of core

Photo: Douglas Robertson and ReCompose

Image: coutesy of Edinburgh Psych Fest

Outwith Scotland

Wide Awake

Brockwell Park, London, England, 25 May

Celebrating its fourth year, London independent festival Wide Awake signals the start of outdoor festival season in the south. An environmentally conscious festival, with an aim for gender equality across its lineup, this year King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard lead the charge with Slowdive, Young Fathers, Sevdaliza and Alice Glass also playing. wideawakelondon.co.uk

North Sea Jazz Festival

Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 12-14 Jul

Taking over the Rotterdam Ahoy Centre, the North Sea Jazz Festival is the world’s largest indoor music festival. Launched in 1976, it’s hosted countless icons over the years, and 2024 is no different with multi-Brit Award winner RAYE and unexpected flautist André 3000 both set to play alongside the likes of Corinne Bailey Rae, Noname, Sampha and corto. alto. northseajazz.com

WOMAD

Charlton Park, Malmesbury, England, 25-28 Jul

Founded by Peter Gabriel of Genesis fame, WOMAD has been running since the early 80s with a music focus that isn’t defined by genre or geographical location. Alongside workshops, great food, art and more, Young Fathers top this year’s music bill which also features Amadou & Mariam, Gogol Bordello, Sampa the Great and Baaba Maal. womad.co.uk

Flow Festival

Helsinki, Finland, 9-11 Aug

Hosted on the former site of Finland’s Suvilahti power plant, this industrial setting makes for a unique festival experience. Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, RAYE, IDLES, PJ Harvey, Alvvays, Overmono, Pulp and Jessie Ware are all set to perform at this festival which celebrates culture, music, arts and debate. flowfestival.com

End of the Road

Larmer Tree Gardens, England, 29 Aug-1 Sep

End of the Road returns to the idyllic surrounds of Larmer Tree Gardens in north Dorset, signalling the end of UK summer festival season. Celebrated for its unique and friendly atmosphere and gorgeous art installations, musically EOTR is led by focusing on what excites them each year; IDLES, Fever Ray, Sleater-Kinney, Mdou Moctar and Camera Obscura all play this autumn. endoftheroadfestival.com

Supersonic Festival

Digbeth, Birmingham, England, 30 Aug-1 Sep

Birmingham’s Supersonic Festival is an internationally renowned frontrunner when it comes to its penchant for new and experimental music and art, and in 2024 celebrates its 21st outing. Their first wave announcement includes Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Gazelle Twin, Emma Ruth Rundle, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Mary Lattimore and Melt-Banana. supersonicfestival.com

FORWARDS

Bristol, England, 31 Aug-1 Sep

“A music festival in Bristol, for the future” so goes FORWARDS’ tagline. Having only launched in 2022, this year sees the inner city Bristol Downs festival really ramp things up with some pretty big names. London rapper Loyle Carner headlines Saturday, with New York dance punk icons LCD Soundsystem dusting off their disco ball on Sunday. forwardsbristol.co.uk

Hidden Notes Festival, vol. 4

Stroud, Gloucestershire, England, 21-22 Sep

Celebrating its fourth edition this autumn, Good On Paper’s Hidden Notes Festival returns to the churches, galleries, art centres, and independent record shops of Stroud. With a focus on contemporary classical, folk, electronic and avant-garde composers, this year’s festival is headlined by Suzanne Ciani and the Will Gregory Moog Ensemble. hiddennotes.co.uk

C2C Festival

Turin, Italy, 31 Oct-3 Nov

The largest indoor music festival in Italy, C2C festival celebrates its 22nd edition this year, taking place during Turin’s prestigious Contemporary Art Week, giving you twice as many reasons to visit the north of Italy this year, if C2C’s lineup isn’t enough to tempt you. Arca, Bicep, billy woods, Mandy, Indiana, Romy, Shabaka and Sofia Kourtesis are amongst the first wave. clubtoclub.it

Iceland Airwaves

Reykjavík, Iceland, 7-9 Nov

Celebrating its 25th anniversary, Iceland Airwaves’ first wave lineup includes Shygirl, bar italia, Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul, Magdalena Bay and Saya Gray. They celebrate local talent too, with disco trio Inspector Spacetime, hip-hop duo Úlfur Úlfur and composer, performer, artist, and carpenter Klemens Hannigan announced so far. icelandairwaves.is

Some more dates closer to home:

Rise Up, Aberdeen, 2-4 May; Pavilion Festival, Ayr, 4-5 May; Fly Summer of Love ‘92, Secret Edinburgh Location, 18 May; Glasgow Jazz Festival, Glasgow, Jun TBC; Spit It Out, Edinburgh & Glasgow, 6-16 Jun; Solas Festival, Errol Park, Perthshire, 14-16 Jun; Young Fathers all-dayer, Stirling City Park, 29 Jun; The Speyside Fantastic Party, Aviemore, 20 Jul; Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival, Edinburgh, 12-21 Jul; M4 Festival, BAaD, Glasgow, 3 Aug; Jupiter Rising x EAF, Jupiter Artland, Nr. Edinburgh, 17 Aug; Pitch Scotland, Glasgow, 22-23 Aug; Outwith Festival, Dunfermline, 4-8 Sep; Fly Open Air, Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, 21-22 Sep; Sonica, Glasgow, 19-29 Sep; Tenement Trail, Glasgow, 12 Oct

End of the Road

Supersonic Festival

Flow Festival

Photo: Konstantin Kondrukhov

Photo: @snaprockandpop

Photo: Andy Ford

Sound Business

To find out more about the importance of showcase festivals for the music industry and artists alike, we speak to Olaf Furniss from Scotland’s Music Convention – Wide Days

If you’ve attended a showcase festival before, you’ll know the tell-tale signs. On every street corner, inside every coffee shop are collections of lanyard-clad figures huddled over their clashfinders. Performers and punters alike are here to do business. Spearheaded by the Stateside forerunner SXSW in 1987, it was British record label owner, nightclub manager, and impresario Tony Wilson who brought the model to the UK. Manchester’s In The City was a groundbreaking music conference that ran for almost two decades.

Fast forward to 2006 and new music mecca, The Great Escape launched on the Brighton beachfront. The seaside staple has since become Europe’s leading festival for new music, hosting 500 bands across 30 venues throughout the city. By the end of the noughties (and closer to home) award-winning Edinburgh-based convention Wide Days began its programme of talent development, connecting Scottish artists with some of its international counterparts.

When we approach the team, co-founder Michael Lambert is en route to SXSW for this year’s Scottish showcase which will present an array of emerging talent; Edinburgh-born multiinstrumentalist Iona Zajac, Acid Jazz-signed ensemble Mama Terra and Glaswegian alt-rockers Spyres will all join Lambert in Austin. Meanwhile, co-founder Olaf Furniss is gearing up to attend Future Echoes in Sweden. One of the many benefits of attending an event like Wide Days is the cross-collaboration opportunities, as Furniss explains. “We’re the week before FOCUS Wales [9-11 May], so we can share a couple of speakers [and] if anyone’s sticking around another week, then they can go to The Great Escape [15-18 May]. We [often] work with festivals and co-curate to give a snapshot of Scottish music.”

He’s not wrong. In 2022, Wide Days announced a record number of 17 artists would be performing under the Scotland at The Great Escape banner, supported by Creative Scotland. For 2024, the team will return to the Brighton-based weekender with a slew of Scottish artists across two daytime showcases alongside hosting their annual networking reception, connecting Scotland’s music industry with over 500 international delegates.

Tallinn Music Week

Tallinn, Estonia, 3-7 Apr

Last year marked 15 years for this acclaimed new music and city culture festival taking place every April. tmw.ee

SPOT Aarhus, Denmark, 3-4 May

Words: Cheri Amour

But it’s not just cross-pollinating performances that make these events such a hub of opportunity, they’re also the perfect 101 in launching a sustainable music career. “It’s a totally different dynamic to a regular gig,” continues Furniss. “It’s going to secure you an agent or get you a manager, or if you’re more advanced, a festival slot.” From Texas to Tallinn, the showcase festival is about accessing industry linchpins that can advance an artist into the next stage of their trajectory.

Take Edinburgh indie trio Swim School, who played Wide Days in 2021. The following year, the festival secured them a slot at The Great Escape Festival before signing to tastemaker LAB Records, and they’ll perform at Mad Cool this summer. Gourock fivesome Slix will also appear at the Madrid music experience after their appearance at Wide Days last year. It’s not just European adventures open to the Wide Days alumni though.

Launched in 1994, for three decades this Danish festival has been dedicated to celebrating and platforming local talent first and foremost. spotfestival.dk

Waves Vienna Vienna, Austria, 5-7 Sep

A yearly international showcase festival for pop music in the country’s capital every September. This year’s Artists’ Applications are open now. wavesvienna.com

Lambert and Furniss continue to create international connections and export opportunities, recently adding a festival showcase for Quebec event M For Montreal. The Great Escape Festival is no stranger to success stories either with artists like Rina Sawayama, Fontaines D.C., and Aitch all having showcased there in the past.

Whether it’s the early aspirations of Tony Wilson positioning breaking bands in front of music industry moguls to the continuing connections between the Barrowlands and Brighton, showcase festivals have been propelling new artists to fresh terrains for over 30 years. And with another summer of music ahead of us, they just might be responsible for your new favourite band.

Wide Days takes place in Edinburgh, 1-3 May; tickets and information available at widedays.com

Reepherbahn Hamburg, Germany, 18-21 Sep

Since its first edition in 2006, this Hamburg haven has grown into one of the leading meeting spots for the music industry in Europe. reeperbahnfestival.com

Eurosonic Groningen, The Netherlands, 15-18 Jan 2025

A staple in Groningen since the late 90s, the event is normally the first of the year for showcase festivals across Europe taking place every January. esns.nl

Photo: Jannica Honey

Five more European showcase festivals for your diary

Iona Zajac live at Wide Days 2023

Magic Mushrooms

Ahead of releasing Mycorrhizal Fungi, the debut on his A State of Flo label, we chat all things mushroom music with Brian d’Souza, aka Auntie Flo

In 2023 Glastonbury Festival’s Silver Hayes dance music area celebrated its tenth anniversary with three new stage creations, alongside an area for debate and forward-thinking discussions as well as an experimental art installation called the Hayes Pavilion. Designed by festival set designer Simon Carroll, the structure was made from salvaged timber and mycelium, the root-like structure of mushrooms, to explore whether mycelium could be used as a way to build more sustainable sets and stages for festivals in the future.

An exciting byproduct of this installation was the music created especially for the Pavilion by Scottish DJ, producer and sound artist Brian d’Souza, aka Auntie Flo, and Irish techno DJ Or:la in collaboration with harpist Róisín Berkeley. Almost a year on, the resulting Mycorrhizal Fungi is set to be the first release on d’Souza’s A State of Flo label this April. With bespoke artwork from multi-award winning artist Jana Nicole, which includes a special scratch and sniff scent component. Part of the design is also reactive to UV light, just as some mushrooms have bioluminescent properties.

Known more in musical circles for his uplifting, dancefloor-ready highlife rhythms, on Mycorrhizal Fungi, d’Souza takes on something far more experimental and unpredictable. But it’s not the first time d’Souza has worked with mushrooms. Following the launch of his 24-hour Ambient Flo radio station dedicated to relaxation and music being used as a form of therapy, in 2021 d’Souza was approached by Imperial College London to curate music for a psychedelic research project involving psilocybin, more commonly known as magic mushrooms. Having heard about this, the team behind Silver Hayes got in touch, and the resulting mushroom-inspired commissions that both Or:la and d’Souza created were looped in

the Pavilion for the entirety of 2023’s Glastonbury Festival.

To create his four pieces of music he captured electrical activity from four very different species of mushroom – oyster, reishi, lion’s mane and shiitake – some of which was recorded during a commission at the 2023 Chelsea Flower Show in their mushroom den. But even that wasn’t his first time recording sound from a living plant. In 2022, for Scotland’s Dandelion Project, he used PlantWave technology on a selection of herbs. “That was my first foray into this whole kind of bio-electrical, bio-sonification world, using the electricity that plants, fungi and living things create to turn that into musical notes – MIDI – to create pieces of music inspired by that.

Words: Tallah Brash

“It allows the plant to be the composer”

Brian d’Souza

“It’s kind of like a duet between myself and the plant, or the fungi, or the living thing.” D’Souza continues: “That creatively for me was quite enlightening because it removes a huge part of the creative compositional process when you’re trying to put together music. It allows the plant to be the composer; it’ll just spit out all these random notes as an indication that it’s alive.”

There’s an undeniably exciting unpredictability to this kind of music-making process, and by “eavesdropping in a way” on these fungi and their mycelium networks, d’Souza’s four mushroom collaborations, with no discernible notes or rhythms, are ambient extraterrestrial works; Oyster has ominous undertones, Reishi a magical twinkle, Lion’s Mane an unsettling bubble, while Shiitake has a bending effervescence.

What we can hear is the product of d’Souza’s digital manipulation of the mushrooms’ biodata as he designates certain sounds to each mushroom’s unique set of electronic signals. “The challenge is to take what it gives you and then turn it into something that humans can listen to and that’s palatable,” he tells us. “A lot was to do with trying to preserve the essence of what [each] mushroom was giving to me through the electricity, and then making artistic decisions that were kind of sympathetic to the mushroom’s characteristics.”

Creating music this way obviously comes with its risks, so you can imagine how risky doing it live might be. At last year’s All Things Fungi Festival, having only practised in his studio with

the reishi mushroom, an opportunity to also perform with lion’s mane on the day, thanks to the Bristol Fungarium, was too tempting for d’Souza to turn down. But the mushroom was giving him different outputs – it wasn’t how he’d practised. “I felt like it was kind of like playing with me a little bit, because I plu ed in my little electrodes, and it sort of made a few sounds and then it stopped… What it should do is continually generate electricity and then therefore you’ve got the sound source,” but it didn’t go to plan, he tells us, recalling the stress of 200 pairs of eyes watching him try to make it work. “So there’s a beauty of live improvised performances, but that took me by surprise,” he says. “Eventually it did start working, and I was like, ‘this mushroom’s really sort of playing with me here.’”

With a live biosonification set planned to mark the launch Mycorrhizal Fungi at EartH Hackney this month, and a return to the All Things Fungi Festival later in the year, sadly it might be a while before d’Souza’s mushroom music finds it way to Scotland.

Mycorrhizal Fungi is set for release on 19 Apr via A State of Flo; Brian d’Souza plays EartH Hackney, London, 19 Apr; All Things Fungi Festival, East Sussex, England, 13-15 Sep; Auntie Flo plays Hidden Door 10th Birthday Party, Secret Edinburgh Location TBC, 10-11 May briandsouza.in

Photo: Brian d’Souza

Photo: Chris Keenan

Modular Mushroom Setup

Brian d'Souza

Business in Bloom

A nice bunch of flowers never goes amiss – but this isn’t quite your usual bouquet. As spring arrives, we speak to some of the leading practitioners in Scotland’s evolving florals industry

It’s idyllic, really: a neatly trimmed garden, floppy hat, iced tea in one hand, pruning shears in the other – and a perfectly ribboned bouquet to show for the afternoon’s leisure. This prim and proper vision of floristry and botanicals is an aged, misguided one, firmly put to rights by Scotland’s innovative practitioners experimenting in all things floral.

“It’s so physical,” says Fiona Inglis of Pyrus. “It’s very labour intensive.” In 2011, Inglis and Natalya Ayers founded Pyrus, an East Lothianbased botanical studio and cut flower garden. Now working with a small team, Pyrus sells to wholesalers and florists, as well as creating designs and installation art for events.

The inception of Pyrus coincided with the rise of Instagram and Pinterest, encouraging experimentation through cross-pollination of ideas and practices. “Coming from art college, you had that slightly more rebellious streak where you wanted to try different things and break rules,” says Inglis. Certainly, Pyrus has since redefined the industry in Scotland. Branches, seedlings, stones, mosses, seaweed – anything from and of the land finds a place. “We’ve been known to use the odd skull,” she says.

Glasgow-based Sophie Mahandru of Studio Kumari didn’t envision florals as a career path. While volunteering at a community garden throughout university, she picked up the basics. Graduating as the pandemic hit, Mahandru applied for Universal Credit; the slim “financial freedom” allowed her to take on unpaid work assisting freelancers working in florals and botanicals, before founding Studio Kumari.

Mahandru’s practice – florals and creative direction – encompasses installation, events, set design, and styling. Bright pink and orange blooms, understated single-stemmed arrangements, fresh wreaths; Mahandru’s work plays with floral expectations, often bringing in the odd cake, candle, or vegetable. “Nature does nature. I don’t feel I have to re-create nature,” says Mahandru. “I like fashion, architecture, paintings. I think that’s far easier to draw on when you’ve got something that’s larger than just a bouquet.” Spatial designer, botanical stylist, land artist – as practitioners depart from traditional floristry, new titles create new possibilities.

“Nature does nature. I don’t feel I have to re-create nature”

Sophie Mahandru, Studio Kumari

The practice itself demands collaboration – with nature and with each other. Whether it’s an installation for a brand or bouquets for a wedding,

practitioners often employ other freelancers to lend a helping hand. Community grows from there. “They love what they do and maybe that just makes you a happy person who wants to share and support other people,” says Inglis. Within the florals industry, there’s a unity fostered through a genuine appreciation for each other’s work. “It’s not just Scotland – it’s all over the world,” she adds, reflecting on past warm welcomes in New Zealand and America.

However, as Mahandru says, the industry is already “very saturated”. Brand or event work is all-too often London-based, offering limited opportunities for Scotland-based practitioners. Such limitations don’t exactly help with its historic diversity issue. “It is a very white, middle class industry on the whole,” continues Mahandru. Access to a garden, specifically one in which you’re able to grow and cut from, is an increasingly rare privilege which allows those lucky few to develop their practice. Others may embark on a “career course”, usually costing a few grand, something many don’t exactly have to hand. Florals, therefore, can become somewhat exclusive. “The only way we change that is if we allow knowledge sharing and don’t hoard information or resources,” Mahandru adds.

Words: Eilidh Akilade

It’s an uncertain time for the industry. As many flowers sold in the UK are imported from the Netherlands, Brexit will likely see stems increase in price. Nowadays, Mahandru notes, practitioners are often working from studios, rather than retail premises. As everyday necessities’ prices are hiked further and further out of reach, our collective spending power is limited. “Flowers aren’t essential.”

Of course, the climate crisis is also “such a dark cloud” for Pyrus and the industry at large. “We’re having to work out ways to be adaptable because the weather is so unpredictable and so extreme,” says Inglis. Nowadays, Pyrus can no longer rely on a select number of crops and strains due to the uncertainty of each year’s weather – it’s uncharted terrain.

But the industry also has a responsibility towards the environment: less plastic packaging, more local growing. Supermarket flowers may suffice for a scarily low price, but their environmental cost is a burdensome one due to heavy pesticide use and travel emissions. For Inglis, perceptions of locally grown flowers can be troublesome – “old fashioned, short-stemmed, weedy, lesser quality.” In reality, shorter travel distances means fresher flowers. Adopting the environmental option isn’t a compromise, it’s simply a lot better.

Amid demise and decay, we’re keen to bring ourselves closer to nature, even if just for a moment. “It’s really beautiful to have a changing palette – as soon as you get fed up with using one material, the seasons change,” says Inglis. It’s an impermanent practice, by nature. Flowers sprout, bloom, die – and Scotland’s floral industry is re-imagining each and every second.

Photo: Sophie Mahandru of Studio Kumari

Amazing new art for Scotland

There’s always something to discover in the National, Portrait and Modern galleries in Edinburgh. In this new series we’re shining a light on some of the artworks being added to Scotland’s national art collection

The National Galleries of Scotland takes care of our country’s incredible art collection, a collection which contains thousands of works spanning several centuries, including paintings, drawings, sculptures and more. A big part of caring for the collection is ensuring the people of Scotland know that these works are there to be discovered, explored, and loved. They belong to everyone in Scotland, and are on show at the National Galleries’ four Edinburgh locations – Portrait on Queen Street, National on the Mound, Modern One and Modern Two to the west on Belford Road – each with free-to-enter permanent displays as well as a year-round programme of exhibitions and events.

In the next few issues, we’re going to be taking a closer look at some of the Galleries’ recent acquisitions and nding out more about these incredible works of art. This month we’re focussing on a vibrant work currently on display to see in the Portrait gallery: renowned photographer Robert Wilson’s portrait of Scottish-Rwandan actor Ncuti Gatwa, who shot to fame in Net ix’s Sex Education and now holds one of this country’s most-loved roles as the Doctor in Doctor Who.

Liz Louis, European, Scottish art and Portraiture curator, explains what drew her to this particular artwork. “We knew we wanted to add a portrait of Ncuti Gatwa to the national collection and this photograph by Robert Wilson perfectly captures his warm personality, that comes across in interviews. The setting is a very traditional studio background, but the image breaks out of the constraints of portrait photography. It feels like a picture that has caught the sitter in an unposed moment. And the yellow suit just pops!”

The portrait is an important contribution both visually and contextually. Says Louis, “We want to re ect the diversity of Scotland’s people in our collection and displays. Our portraiture collection focuses not only those who were born here but those who have made an important contribution to Scotland’s place in the world. In Ncuti Gatwa’s case, this also means showcasing the talent that comes out of Scotland’s cultural scene.”

You’ll nd the work hanging on the rst oor of the Portrait gallery, alongside famous faces including Billy Connolly, Muriel Spark, Joan Eardley, Jackie Kay, Horse McDonald and Nicola Benedetti. All free to visit and enjoy.

To delve further into what the National Galleries of Scotland look for in a new acquisition, we talk to Imogen Gibbon, Co-Director of Collection and Research. She explains, “We look to ll gaps in the collection, complement existing strengths, o er new contexts for our existing artwork holdings and keep pace with new contemporary art. When we decide whether to add an artwork to the collection, we also think about its signi cance, quality and authenticity, as well as its potential for research and learning.” While Scottish art is a focus, the collection is not limited to work produced within our borders. “Acquisitions are made across several areas, including European and Scottish art, portraiture, modern and contemporary art, and photography, all supported by our extensive library and archive materials.”

The collection as a whole includes over 120,000 objects dating from 1300 to present day – with so many works to draw from, the selection on display at any one time is carefully considered. Says Gibbon, “When we acquire an artwork it permanently belongs to the Scottish public, both now and in the future. We put new acquisitions on display in our Galleries, so that as many visitors as possible can enjoy them.”

Artworks’ accessibility doesn’t end with the physical sites, though. As Gibbon explains, the National Galleries of Scotland’s website is a rich resource of imagery and research. “When we acquire a new artwork, we also catalogue it, photograph it and publish it on our website. This means that anyone, anywhere in the world, can nd out about this artwork, do research on it or be inspired by it. That’s what we mean by: ‘Art for Scotland, inspiration for the world.’”

Works can enter the collections through a variety of routes. Says Gibbon, “Sometimes we’re o ered works as gifts or purchases by members of the public, or owners might let us know that they intend to leave an artwork to us in their will. We have a process which ensures that we consider each potential acquisition carefully, not only looking at what will be popular.” Visitors to the National on the Mound may be familiar with Callum, a Dandie Dinmont terrier whose portrait by John Emms is on permanent display. His owner bequeathed £55,000 to the Galleries in 1919, an enormous sum which formed an important trust fund for acquisitions. The bequest had a condition – that Callum’s portrait should always hang in the Galleries, and so there he remains. You can visit him, and the rest of the national collections, for free, any day of the week.

To find out more visit www.nationalgalleries.org

National Galleries Scotland: Portrait, National and Modern

Open daily 10am-5pm, Free

Image: Courtesy of National Galleries of Scotland. Purchased 2023

Robert Wilson, Ncuti Gatwa, 2020

Under the Spell Tree

There’s magic in the everyday – from the joy & perseverance of queer communities to a tree in the nearby park. One writer explores local magic and shared secrets in Glasgow’s Southside

Queen’s Park, the Southside of Glasgow. A bustling community hub, speckled with duck ponds and swaying trees. A safe-haven for barbecuers, winter sledgers, duck feeders, sun bathers, late-night ravers, and hangover-weary queers. Built on a proud hill with a billowing flag pole, the park is surprisingly large – it’s easy to tumble down a wild mud path and end up lost, forever losing and finding your bearings.

Here’s what I know: Queen’s Park swells with secrets. Secrets shifting beneath the shadows. Secrets bursting into flame during hot summer’s nights. Secret party kids dancing moon-drunk. Secret teenagers beneath the bandstand, vaping and hiding from the rain. And, of course, the secret of the Queen’s Park Spell Tree.

The Southside is known casually as the ‘queer area’ of Glasgow. It’s safe for the gays to wander freely, immaculately dressed in disastrously clashing patterns. With queerness comes camp and with camp comes a love for the fanciful, that which flips the finger to accepted societal norms. Perhaps this is what draws the presence of so many mystics to the Southside. Spirituals, tarot readers, wiccans –identities that refuse ‘logical’ beliefs and seem so often to intersect with queerness.

I live at this very intersection – an astrological bisexual, existential in nature and commanded by fantastical whims. My Scorpio sun makes me brooding and moody. My Sagittarius moon compels an innate love of mystery. What’s more, I’m a proud lover of the Southside.

“The objects appear, then disappear, and are replaced. The only constant has been the mushroom crystals”

Spring last year, an indulgent melancholia dra ed me to the park. Disinterested in my usual loop, I strolled into a grove of sapling trees. There, I found a pair of magpies fluttering together. I’ve always viewed magpies as mystical birds. ‘One for sorrow, two for joy’ – a superstition to which I abide. And so, when the magpie duo chittered as if acknowledging me, then fluttered into a nearby copse of trees, it seemed my duty to follow. They flew to a branch in the distance then looked back, waiting for me to catch up on human legs. We continued this dance until, finally, they took to the sky and flew in a perfect circle around the top of a beautiful beech tree, as if to say, “You’re here.”

The tree itself is magnificent. Roots cascading down a short, steep hill, trunk engraved with

Words: Genevieve Ja er Illustration: Magda Michalak

initials by lovers long ago. At the base, a small cave is hollowed into the trunk. Poking out was a bouquet of pink petals.

I climbed the roots to investigate, wondering who the flowers had been left for – a memorial perhaps, but there was no card to tell me such. As I sat at the base of the tree, I realised the flowers were not alone. Inside the cave sat a strange collection of objects: three moonstone crystals, tiny and mushroom-shaped; a trinket box covered in mirrors and beads. Maybe it was gauche of me to open it but the magpies were settled in the branches and I couldn’t escape the feeling that they wanted me to. Magpies are thieves after all, treasure hunters. I pulled off the lid. Inside was a strange, silver coin, hand-pressed and carved with a mushroom symbol.

At that moment, I was certain: I was holding someone’s spell. Witches often use ritual objects to hold magickal intentions. The coin had been placed there to make something happen. Another secret.

I had a little bag of runes in my backpack. I drew one, seeking a sign of confirmation: it was the rune symbolising the world tree, algiz. Upon sight of it, I decided to believe that the tree was magick. A grand realisation blossomed – I was not the only witch in town.

I visit the spell tree often. I have left and found myriad objects there. A tiny goat statue, bundles of thyme, a handful of coffee beans, cat fur, little candles. Once, a large, handwoven wreath of holly and pine. The objects appear, then disappear, and are replaced. The only constant

has been the mushroom crystals. There must be a mushroom witch in our midst.

I wonder who I might be communicating with. (The potential for pixies and fairies cannot be easily dismissed.) A large part of me assumes that whoever they are, they’re queer. Both Queen’s Park and witchcraft have long roots in queerness: historically, Queen’s Park has been a cruising ground for gay sex. This lineage stretches back to the 1880s, 100 years before Scotland legalised homosexuality. Meanwhile, witchcraft was once used as an excuse to commit violence against marginalised groups. As such, the practice has been reclaimed as an expression of queer power. When the straight-laced government refuses you any tangible authority, where else to go but the campy realm of whimsy? Local trees. Little candles. Incantations. Luminescent mushrooms, lovingly placed.

Perhaps I simply hope that they’re queer –out of love for my community, one I know needs joy more than most. May their spells bring miraculous blessings. Or even disastrous curses.

Whatever they need, I endorse.

I have considered leaving a letter to be found. But receiving a response may destroy the joy of the secret. I’m afraid of collapsing the magick. Without mystery we’re back in reality. That’s why I can’t give you directions to the spell tree. Seekers must face the unknown. I’d advise befriending two kindly magpies.

Genevieve Ja er’s debut novel, Fragile Animals, is out with 404 Ink on 25 Apr

Bite Me

In celebration of her debut novel Fragile Animals, we sit down to talk with Scottish author Genevieve Ja er about vampires, literary influences, neurodivergence and tarot readings

As I sit down with Genevieve Ja er to discuss her inspiring debut Fragile Animals, the phone reception (iffy on both ends, in spite of my end being a city centre) becomes a third voice in the conversation. It isn’t quite an obstruction, but it feels immersive in some way: Ja er’s Fragile Animals, after all, is a wild and windy account of a young woman, Noelle, who escapes to the isolation of the Isle of Bute and into the companionship of a vampire called Moses. Visceral, vivacious, and delightfully –though certainly not conventionally – vampiric, Fragile Animals is as atmospheric as you might expect a lustful supernatural novel to be, yet undergirded by a subversive approach that originally drew Ja er to the genre.

“The vampire is such an obvious trope,” Ja er says, laughing, “so I didn’t really want to go into it just to say more – it’s all been said, so I had a lot of fun deliberately not probing the lore. A lot of the novel is about Catholicism and religion, which to me, it seems like it would be just as reasonable to believe in a vampire.” In Fragile Animals, Noelle’s acceptance of Moses’ claim of being inhuman is casual and matter-of-fact, a delightful juxtaposition with her own religious upbringing.

“Much of the novel,” Ja er adds, “hinges on the idea of the church being an unreliable narrator, like what rules and history were dictated to Noelle. There’s a lot of secrecy, omission and misdirection in the novel and maybe Noelle is trying to push through all of it to become honest. I think that is her genuine intent but it’s blocked by trauma, memory and religion as well.”

In spite of the confidence with which this novel asserts itself, Ja er had never written fiction until a trip to Bute sparked the early rumblings of Fragile Animals within her. “My mental health wasn’t great at the time,” she explains, “and that’s definitely where Noelle came from. We’d gone on this trip to get away for a bit and be distracted but there was just no distraction whatsoever, and I felt very confronted with myself and how I felt. At this point I’d never written fiction before, just plays and poetry and I

Words: Jo Hi s

thought I’d have a crack at a short story.

“And it grew,” she continues, “but it just felt like this story needed to come out of me. I was very much in touch with the physicality of my mental health, which is something I think Noelle thinks about a lot: how it feels to be tearful, how your organs feel in their place.”

While Noelle is by no means a fictional version of her creator, Ja er does highlight some of her protagonist’s behaviours that might resonate as neurodivergent, in representation of her own autism. “Noelle shows characteristics like masking or reflecting people back to them. She also accepts people for what they say they are, and can yield to others just because they act like they know more than her.”

It’s a subtle act of representation for neurodivergent folk, but one that is direly needed within a world that so often makes a character’s

neurodivergence their primary traits at best, or objectifies them at worst. On her own autism, Ja er points out that autistic people are consistently infantilised and portrayed as uncreative, which are narratives that being literary can challenge.

“I had a wonderful time reading Naoise Dolan’s Exciting Times,” she explains. “It was delicious to me, as you can read that she’s autistic throughout the novel, through a texture of character maybe, even though it wasn’t the main theme.”

Elle Nash, who has also been published by 404 Ink, became a source of inspiration for Ja er after she picked up Animals Eat Each Other on the cult-fiction table at Waterstones. “I ended up taking her writing classes – they were mind-blowing,” she says. “Then she coincidentally moved from Arkansas to Glasgow, and soon enough I was babysitting her kid and we became great friends.”

As well as being an author, Ja er reads tarot cards “as a sort of side thing.” Upon asking her to ask herself a question, she immediately queries what kind of tarot spread Fragile Animals might be. “I feel it would be the tower, the devil, the moon and the hierophant,” she says. “Lots of shadowy collapsing cards. The moon is like immense emotion, the devil is obviously the devil but also the state of being limited by your own internal beliefs, and the tower is when everything is collapsing around you. The hierophant is institutions like church.”

As the Fragile Animals tarot spread su ests, Ja er’s debut novel is a rich and colourful work, marked by chaos and tragedy (often self-imposed). Drawing from both the gruesome vampires of the classics and the slick, sexy, silver vampires of the Twilight era, Ja er finds a wonderfully uneasy middle-ground in a novel that tears at flesh with kisses and tenderly tickles with the sharpest of teeth.

Fragile Animals is out with 404 Ink on 25 Apr

Genevieve Ja er will be at Paisley Book Festival on 28 Apr, in conversation with Camilla Grudova Genevieve Ja er

Photo: David Ronan

Familiar Unfamiliarity

Gabriella Boyd's new exhibition at Cample Line encourages us to witness the beauty of ambiguities in communication and perception

Words: Eilidh Akilade

On first look, most is uncertain. There are figures reaching out to one another. Strange objects appear, seemingly incongruous. Organs rest easy outwith a body. Corners become vantage points. Walls bend to the will of emotions unsaid. Muted colours pile atop one another while a sharp pink or alarmed orange refracts the scene. “I often work out what my paintings are doing after I’ve made them,” says Gabriella Boyd.

Presser, at Cample Line, is Boyd’s first solo exhibition in Scotland. Born in Glasgow, Boyd moved to London as a child, before returning to attend Glasgow School of Art. Although now based in London full-time, Scotland has always felt like home.

Presser includes both new work from the last year, as well as paintings from Boyd’s recent solo exhibitions. Although it’s the first time she’s done this, she found it “quite natural to reintroduce them.” Boyd’s body of work stretches into one, returning to similar themes and frequencies throughout. “I don’t really work in a project-based way,” she says.

In Boyd’s work, a tether – between people, places, principles – calls for our attention and

calls us to attention, with a grace quite unspeakable. “I like trying to bear witness to the role connection plays in living and in our lives, and the ultimate clunkiness and impossibility of communicating that in a painting, or even in language,” says Boyd, over a grainy phone line. “It’s something that consumes us.”

Boyd’s practice is studio-based, most days. She notes that being an artist can be such a “soupy” existence. The studio provides a structure to that un-structure, a structure which can then be restructured from within. “Often when I get there, I’ll move my paintings around. I’m often working on multiple paintings at once – maybe ten to 15 – so I’ll play with combinations and see what they do to each other.” Placement and replacement isn’t intended to form a collection – nor a polyptych of any sort. Rather, for Boyd, the process can allow each work to become more “itself” when placed in relation to another. “Sometimes, what a work needs is to be left alone.”

Early on, she’s working intuitively; as the project progresses, it becomes more particular, more solution-based, even. “There’ll often be an affection of the painting that’s stopping the rest of the work from working – and that’s what I’m

drawn to. And then I’ll let the whole painting operate around that.”

A constant in her process, the show also includes pencil and watercolour on paper. “They’re not preliminary drawings – they’re alongside my practice, sometimes saying goodbye to potential versions of paintings or working out something quickly. Or it could be a texture on a piece of paper that I like and it’s on the wall for a year.”

Whether looking to a photograph, a painting, a song, or a text – Boyd allows her peripheries to fill up, before taking them to the studio and working with the overflow. Childhood cartoons, even, come out to play. “Even cartoons I watched growing up somehow resurface – Tom and Jerry or Ren and Stimpy with their organs on the outside of their bodies – every episode was based on some sort of power relation.”

Such references – however pressing – are rarely all that evident on first meeting; rather, each painting tugs the knowing into the unknowing, and back again. Abstract and representational at once, her paintings and practice speak to an “oscillation between the two.”

“It’s like when you say a familiar word over and over again, it loses its sense of solidity and starts to disintegrate,” she continues. Boyd isn’t interested in replication – “worldbuilding” however, pulls her in. She considers her paintings as “psychological spaces”, allowing for the discrepancies between the experiences of our mental and physical states. As such, the spaces – whether a bus, a bedroom, a street – of her paintings are oftentimes stretched, spilling into and scratching upon each other. “I like the awkwardness of painting them, sometimes literally painting them on top of one another,” she says. “The room is just a vessel to catch that invisible but often palpable feeling.”

Cample Line, located in rural southwest Scotland, seemingly gives itself to Presser as a fruitful companion. During the installation, there was much Boyd didn’t expect, such as, “The colours of the beam picking up certain things in paintings, and the concrete floor having a slightly different effect on the paintings and choosing which works to put there.” Outside, Cample Line will lend itself also – from the fresh cusp of spring to the mild and greening summer. Such shifts will spill in from the windows, almost at painting height, throughout the show. Boyd is excited about the spatial possibilities, passing light invited in with welcome and ease.

Gabriella Boyd: Presser, Cample Line, until 2 Jun, for more detailed opening times visit campleline.org.uk/gabriella-boyd

Gabriella Boyd, Carriage, 2023

Photo: Josef Konczak

Mushie Jasmine Floyd

Double Trouble

This year’s RSA New Contemporaries celebrates two ambitious cohorts of Scottish art school graduates from both 2022 and 2023

Words: Harvey Dimond

Oh, what a time to be an art school graduate. The combination of the COVID-19 pandemic, uncertain funding landscape and the ongoing cost of living crisis makes navigating arts education (and sustaining a practice) particularly challenging in the present moment. Despite this, the graduates selected for RSA’s New Contemporaries this year have not only produced work of an exceptional standard, but have also exercised great tact, resilience and perseverance.

Marly Merle graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (DJCAD) in 2022 and is now based in Glasgow. Merle’s wearable sculptures focus on creating a space for discussing ideas of ‘otherness’ and the questioning of societal norms. She is interested in speculating about new worlds, cities and civic spaces, creating physical artworks that provoke ideas around new and better ways in which to exist. Merle’s ongoing Thestra project delves into geological history and the notion of a lost land of the same name that existed in the Iapetus Ocean, which closed 400 million years ago as continental

Ammna Sheikh, The Richer A Persian, The Finer His Rugs, 2023

Image: courtesy of the artist

plates shifted. Thestra was separate from other civilisations and had the freedom to evolve its own geology independently; however, its location is unknown. The project aims to establish a human connection with this forgotten land through an archive of fragmented replica pieces of this lost continent, represented by the four wearable sculptures. These sculptures invite the audience to physically interact with this geological anomaly; particularly fitting in our current era of climate crisis and ecological catastrophe.

Sara Pakdel-Cherry also graduated from DJCAD in 2022 and uses photographic techniques to examine forms of misogyny experienced by women, as well as methods of resistance.

Photographic installation Six Feet Under is the continuation of Take Back Your Voice (2021), and depicts Persian women from ancient times to Iranian women of today. Meanwhile, in Restore My Hymen, the artist conveys a message of encouraging women to be brave and strong, to speak up and stand in solidarity with one another. PakdelCherry works with the term ‘kafan-e siah’ – used by women to fight against the Islamic state laws imposing mandatory hijab in Iran. The kafan is a length of white cloth in which the deceased is wrapped for burial, while siah means ‘black’ in Farsi; therefore ‘Kafan-e Siah’ is a pejorative reference to the black chador. The artist’s 2022 work, Kafan-e Siah, is a visual concept of this term: the chadors symbolise the restrictive laws imposed on women. The suspended chadors evoke the challenges and discrimination Iranian women face in their daily lives. Pakdel-Cherry’s work is also currently on display as part of the exhibition

Crafted Selves: The Unfinished Conversation at Kirkcaldy Galleries. Beth Radic’s performance practice bravely reflects on her experience as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and a newly diagnosed autistic woman. Radic uses her practice to revisit her childhood experiences through a new lens, highlighting the present impact that her past experiences and autism has on her. Since graduating in 2022, Radic has been highly commended for a joint application to Dundee University’s Honorary Graduates Award for Inclusive Practice 22/23 and received the Boom Graduates Neurodiversity Award for her dissertation exploring autism within the art industry. Beth currently works within DJCAD and is a passionate activist for the inclusion of autistic artists.

Graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 2023, Ammna Sheikh’s work celebrates Pakistani cultural heritage, emphasising and promoting handmade craft techniques that have been passed down through generations. Sheikh received recognition from the Edinburgh University Purchase Prize 2023, while being shortlisted for the Global Design Graduate Show 2023 and long-listed for the Aesthetica Art Prize in 2024. The artist emphasises the significance of preserving handmade crafts amidst the growing dominance of digital technology. Her vibrant work explores colour, pattern, language and comments on colonial displacement. Her fascination with handmade craft evolved through understanding its historical importance as a form of expression for self-taught artisans like the women in her family. Influenced by Pakistan’s vivid cultural backdrop, she draws inspiration from the vibrancy of decorated trucks, buses, and rickshaws that infuse colour and pattern into otherwise mundane settings.

Khadija Moustafa graduated from Glasgow School of Art with a degree in Fine Art Photography in 2023. The artist often uses her artwork as a form of intervention in a space, combining her experience as a musician and DJ with her visual arts practice. Moustafa’s Ritual Resonance is a video and sound installation inspired by the underground music scenes of Los Angeles and Glasgow, paying homage to the cultural significance of dance music and club culture in both cities.

Meanwhile, Samuel Temple works with photography and filmmaking to examine queer intimacies. By The Bedside, made in collaboration with Scotland-based artist Grunvold, explores

momentary recollections of moments of intimacy or romance with someone. The film acts as an ‘audio and visual landscape of tranquillity and tensions’, somewhere between lust and longing, expressed by the subtle shifts through sounds, tonality and the interplay of light and dark. The catalyst for this piece was the discovery of the filming process as a form of foreplay; a moment of connection became no longer just a recollection, but was also now recorded in a piece of footage. Temple works extensively with writing, which the artist says ‘often provides body and dimension to the visuals in my practice’.

Rho McGuire graduated from the BA (Hons) Contemporary Art Practice at Gray’s School of Art in 2023. They are an interdisciplinary artist who work with performance, movement, spoken word and happenings. They use endurance running, walking, skateboarding and wild swimming as a form of documentation and creation, allowing them to ‘deep map’ their local landscapes. They work to disrupt using participatory and co-creation methods, to collaborate with others and create conversation between people and the planet. Since graduating, McGuire has gained a place on Dance Base’s Dancers Emerging Bursary Scheme. They have also exhibited at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, responding to caring for Alberta Whittle’s work at the 2022 Venice Biennale.

Academy Late, 19 Apr, 8.30-10.30pm, £15

RSA New Contemporaries, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, until 24 Apr, £5-8

Marly Merle, Thestra, 2023

Beth Radic, Untitled, 2022

Photo: Samuel Edwards

Image: courtesy of the artist

Ancestral Ecologies

The Skinny meets Rae-Yen Song 宋瑞渊 at CCA Glasgow to discuss the artist’s new show, which draws a constellation of artists and thinkers into a multi-faceted research exhibition and live programme

Words: Harvey Dimond

Entering the first, dimly lit space in the CCA, the curious visitor is seemingly submerged into the depths of the ocean. Aquatic forms, cast in an array of materials, lie on the floor and suspended in mid-air. In the background, Anne Duk Hee Jordan’s film Zi y and the Starfish features delectably colourful and kaleidoscopic coral reefs and sea creatures, accompanied by a lackadaisical soundtrack. The stillness of the sculptural works, in contrast with Jordan’s hypnotic film plays with our perception of time. This submerged space draws our attention away from ‘linear’, Western perceptions of time and perhaps towards an oceanic time, a subliminal and subconscious time. This is something that CCA’s curator Sabrina Henry hints at in the exhibition text, with an excerpt from K.K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau’s essay in the anthology Time in the Black Experience by Joseph K. Adjaye.

Marking a change in direction from previous solo exhibition projects for Rae-Yen Song, life-bestowing cadaverous soooooooooooooooooooot invests in a set of artists and thinkers, who are brought together in cacophonous and colourful research exhibition and extensive live programme. The process of putting together the exhibition all began with a drawing, which sits in the first space as you enter the exhibition.

Titled (T_T), Rae-Yen Song describes it as “a map~blueprint~dream”, or alternatively “an open-ended thinking-drawing”. The artist explains how the drawing created an outline for putting together the exhibition: “It was a way for me to approach and begin sharing my entangled thoughts with thinkers across many different disciplines. Perhaps nervous that I didn’t have an academic tongue or brain, I used (T_T) as a way to explore my own language – one that I could share with others in order for them to navigate and pick at ideas with me in more visual, sensual, imaginative ways.”

The exhibition brings together over 20 artists and thinkers and is accompanied by an extensive and ambitious live programme: “I’m interested in an array of thoughts~particles becoming entangled to create an ecosystem of ideas – based on feminist and decolonial thinking, and ideas of ecological power and more-than-human politics. This ecosystem is one which I imagine growing beyond my limited conceptions of time and space, and in which I like to imagine alternative, hopeful modes of existence.”

I ask the artist about the decision to develop such a dynamic research exhibition and to invite this plethora of artists to participate: “Coming into this project a year and a half ago, I felt I was at a shifting point in my practice, a porous space full of

questions and desires to dig deeper into personal fragmented ancestral memories that have ultimately affected my existence, and make me curious about other ways of living,” the artist explains. “I’m interested in ways of living that jettison colonial, patriarchal logics and power structures, and instead find resistance in morethan-human politics and multispecies interdependency, spiritual imaginations, and speculative worlding. In order to explore this porous space, I felt the urge to connect and learn from others – to nourish these lively thoughts and begin a dialogue that would further fabulate them in unexpected and experimental ways.”

The exhibition could be seen almost as a constellation of experiences, reflections and thoughts, an ecosystem that creates new ecologies, which is how Rae-Yen Song understood the development of the exhibition and live programme. One installation in particular embodies this interest: “Ecology and growth are important aspects of the new installation that I have created in the space, ○ squigoda song cycle ● water~land~air ○, which I see as an experiment in multispecies collaboration. It incorporates a

pool of tea fungus which is connected to contact mics, a hydrophone and other sensors. Sonic inputs – such as those caused by the movements of viewers – pass through it; and as it slowly ferments, the tea fungus itself generates changing signals and audio inputs. These inputs all feed into three ever-changing live soundscapes that flow through the three exhibition realms: water, land, and air. This becomes a collaboration not only with human sound artist Tommy Perman, but with the tea fungus itself.”

Reflecting on the exhibition, Rae-Yen Song says: “The exhibition raises many questions for me: how do I want to affect my environment? How do I want to be part of it/inhabit it? How do I collaborate with others (human and beyond human) to exist and grow together, harmoniously?... All of this matter has settled as a testingground; a new culture of thought for me to learn from, and to inspire further thinking towards the following cycle, a solo exhibition at Tramway in 2025.”

Rae-Yen Song 宋瑞渊: life-bestowing cadaverous soooooooooooooooooooot, CCA, Glasgow, until 18 May

Rae-Yen Song 宋瑞渊 life-bestowing cadaverous soooooooooooooooooooot CCA Glasgow, 2024

Photo: Alan Dimmick

Lord of the Dance

Former dancer Franz Rogowski (Passages, Transit, The Great Freedom) is one of the most exciting and in-demand actors in Europe. Ahead of his latest arthouse triumph, Disco Boy, he discusses his singular approach to acting

Few actors seem as at ease in movement and silence as Franz Rogowski. Despite his striking presence and graceful physicality on camera, the German actor has not purposefully sought out this reputation. “I guess I am drawn to projects that don’t put everything into dialogue,” he says, speaking over Zoom before the UK release of Giacomo Abbruzzese’s Disco Boy. He reckons that characters who verbalise everything can be onedimensional; therefore, he prefers to be cast as an observer and listener in stories about complex, universal situations. “Some of us are surrounded by structural violence, some of us are born on the bright side of life,” he says. “But stories about the human condition are about solitude and togetherness. What I’m inspired by are movies that create space for layers of cinematography. I stru le with films that serve the actor to show off skills he acquired at an acting academy.”

Disco Boy, with its night-vision battles and hallucinogenic fractured realities, is certainly cinematographic. It follows two lives colliding against their better wishes and plans. After a dangerous illegal border crossing, Belarusian Aleksei (played by Rogowski) joins the French Foreign Legion as a path to naturalisation. Simultaneously, Nigerian Jomo leads a guerrilla band against a multinational industrial development. A Faustian bargain and anti-colonial action are presented within oppressive systems of power.

“Some of us are surrounded by structural violence, some of us are born on the bright side of life”

Franz Rogowski

Abbruzzese first presented the project to Rogowski seven years ago, but the actor wasn’t certain it was ready. “Giacomo’s production company wanted to rewrite the script,” Rogowski explains. “I felt he wasn’t safe – he wasn’t surrounded by people that supported his vision. Then three years ago, we met again, and I felt like we should do this project. I was convinced it was dear to Giacomo and he would do anything to make it happen.”

Many events in Disco Boy are open to interpretation. Rogowski sees the film’s second half as an introspective result of Aleksei’s trauma. “We’re not sure how many things are actually happening

Words: Carmen Paddock

and how much is his psyche,” says Rogowski. “But if you talk to Giacomo, these people and ghosts are real.” Art can go beyond the literal, he explains: “When you create a dance, movie, or book, you can create a space where boundaries, rules, or perception can be bent. I guess that’s helped me to survive and find happy places.”

In Disco Boy, Rogowski speaks Russian, a new “beautiful” language for him. Is acting different across languages? “Yes, and no,” he explains. “The lines you say as an actor are never yours and never real to a certain extent. It helps to have one more layer of alienation or distortion because it emphasises the fiction. Reality within fiction can’t be a reproduction of reality – it is a mixture of lines, lives, textures, textiles, and photography. This mixture allows you to feel the underlying bi er reality of a scene instead of getting lost in the meaning of a sentence. It’s a discovery to play in languages that are not yours and to realise you don’t really miss anything. I enter a scene, create an intimate moment with someone, and create a soundscape of the human condition.” This, he stresses, is also where silences between lines come into play.

Disco Boy’s final dance scene makes this communication wordless. “We started our process with three weeks of dance rehearsal every day,” Rogowski says. “That was a beautiful way to get to know each other and this vocabulary that wasn’t ours.” This night-long disco scene shoot was challenging. “You have to scream at each other, surrounded by extremely loud music,” he recalls. “I don’t hear very well, so I’m basically deaf for ten hours of work, pretending it’s fun, but all I want is to go home. Then once the cameras are rolling you

have to somehow find curiosity and vulnerability in all this madness.” He compares his contemporary dance background to an “architectural installation-like way of using your body” rather than the “dramatic, sometimes cheesy, and almost always passionate” emotions of cinematic dance. “There’s a certain layer of insecurity or vulnerability that makes it sometimes hard for me to be a performer perceived as super physical. The truth is I never feel less physical than in dancing.”

But this is neither about meaning nor movement for movement’s sake. “It’s totally meaningless that we’re doing movies,” Rogowski says, “but you can make a choice and find your own. What I find interesting is to structure time and space and somehow create a transmittable form of your thoughts that you can exchange. I always find it interesting to take the risk and meet with strangers and come up with something beautiful. All you have in that moment is your breath, gravity, and body in space.”

These are not restrictions, but scaffolding to find little freedoms, turning simplicity into momentum. “I often use anger as a basic energy and blame my character,” he says. “So it’s not my anger, it’s my character’s, and that’s already a relief. Then I can wonder, ‘why is this guy so angry?’, and I can think about my own misery but again, blame it on my character. It’s as if you expand yourself and start using the material that you’re made of. Often in daily life, you are trapped in who you are and who you’re supposed to be. When I’m in a scene, I try to use that material but to be less rigid about it, and start modulating that melody.”

Disco Boy is in cinemas now via Conic

Franz Rogowski in Disco Boy

Imaginative Histories

Ahead of a retrospective of her work at Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Palestinian artist Noor Abed reflects on how growing up in an occupied nation has informed her practice, which intersects performance art, folklore and filmmaking

In the spring and summer of last year, Palestinian artist Noor Abed was shooting what would become her latest film, A Night We Held Between, on ancient sites on the outskirts of Jerusalem. She returned to Amsterdam in September, where she’s completing a residency at the Rijksakademie, to edit the footage. Then, in October, everything changed.

“I couldn’t look at the footage of these sites that I couldn’t access anymore,” says Abed when we speak to her over Zoom. “My days became checking on my parents, family, and friends and trying to help with what I can.” She attended protests and fundraisers for Gaza, but this wasn’t enough. “I was on strike on my own for October, November and then I decided ‘what am I doing here in Europe?’ I had to go there; I want to be with my community.”

Abed returned to the Netherlands in the new year to complete the film. She felt more grounded on her return. “It was really hard to enter and exit Palestine,” she explains, “but at least I got to have the deep conversations I needed to have with my family and friends. We need each other at this time.” But she was also altered by the trip: “I filtered a lot of what people said to me on that trip into my work. I think I work differently now.”

This has been Abed’s experience since childhood: she’s forever being reshaped by the social-political situation in her homeland. From a young age, she thought visually – “I had this imagery I wanted to put out of my head somehow” – and she always wanted to be an artist. Although perhaps ‘wanted’ isn’t quite the right word. “It had

to be,” she says. “It’s not a choice. If it were a choice, then I would doubt myself.”

Abed’s first foray into art was drawing and painting, but then she discovered performance art when she was a teenager, around the time the apartheid wall was built in Jerusalem. Since nursery, she had attended school in the city, but in her final year of high school, she was cut off. “They told us you cannot go to Jerusalem any more,” Abed recalls. “You have to go to the West Bank. I was 18 years old and I was like, but why? How? All my friends I love, all the cafes we go to, are in that city. I finished high school and went to university in Ramallah, but it felt like I’d travelled to another country.”

The link between this restriction of Abed’s movement and her interest in the movement of the body is clear to see, but she was also drawn to performance art’s immateriality. “In Palestine, artists don’t know on which day soldiers will come and ruin a painting,” she says. “So I wanted a form that is my body, and I can do with it whatever I want.”

The final wrinkle to building her practice came after attending a festival in Norway while she was still at art college. “I don’t know how I got the invite really, because I was a nobody; I was just a student,” she recalls. “But I went and I performed and then two weeks later they sent me the photos, and that was it for me.” Seeing her body framed in action was a revelation. “I started to think in framing images, so I started to work with a camera. And when I realised that the camera can move, then I started to do the mix of choreography and film you see in my work.”

The three films in Alchemy’s upcoming Abed focus – Penelope (2014), our songs were ready for all wars to come (2021) and A Night We Held Between (2024) – see the artist creating haunting choreography and imagery delving into myth and folklore, modes that Abed see as intrinsic to being Palestinian. “If you talk to any Palestinian, they’ll tell you we’re famous for just telling random stories; all my friends do this. It’s part of the way we deal with the social-political situation around us.”

Words: Jamie Dunn

“In Palestine, artists don’t know on which day soldiers will come and ruin a painting”

Noor Abed

Abed’s films at Alchemy are also distinguished by their exploration of the textures and materiality of analogue film. Each is shot on different film formats (Penelope on 35mm, our songs were ready for all wars to come on Super8 and A Night We Held Between on 16mm) but collectively they evoke a sense of timelessness as well as a nostalgia for a past that does not exist anymore. Abed’s initial instinct to shoot on film was to play with these aesthetic possibilities, but on reflection, she feels there’s a deeper meaning to working with celluloid.

“In Palestine, we live in permanent temporality,” she tells me. “Just look at how life changed completely in October. You never know if you will live the same routine again, live in the same house. You’re always on edge that something might happen. And I think this medium is honest to that feeling somehow. Because with analogue, you don’t know if you caught the scene or not. I have to wait to develop the reels and see if I like them. So I think, psychologically, this waiting, this tension, it just reflects the political reality of my home.”

Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, 2-5 May, various venues, Hawick

Focus: Noor Abed, Heart of Hawick, 4 May, 7.30pm i: @noor_abed

Penelope

Rockin’ The Roots

We sit down with some of the country’s unsung sound system pioneers, exploring the trails they’ve blazed and continue to navigate in amplifying new sounds nationally

Words: Cammy Gallagher

Sound system culture has long had a home in Scotland, and is championed locally by a cluster of crews, festivals and club nights. Establishing itself as Scotland’s Original Roots advertiser since 1987, Messenger Sound System, familial at its core, consists of Stevie and his two sons Lawrie and Curtis, alongside Steadfast Sylvatica, MC Ista, MC Afrikan Simba, MC Yah IsReal and Craig the cashier.

Before setting up shop in the capital, Stevie – residing in Dundee – kept a keen eye on opportunities to share his spirit as a young re ae fan. Barely old enough to enter local nightspots, he recalls, “I used to take my records down to play at parks, the art school… anywhere I could really.” In these days, “we only had discotheques… they were pretty dire man. I was like, where’s the B-Line?” Following Bob Marley & The Wailers’ burst onto the mainstream with Exodus on Island Records, Stevie remembers an upsurge of live bands who would gig university and college circuits, “but in terms of sound systems, they didn’t get north of the border for a few years.” In the early 80s, Papa Swi and the Ital Club ran in an upstairs room in Edinburgh’s Playhouse, but – disappointed by the in-house PA that awaited punters – Stevie headed south.

"It’s the younger generations’ input that helps us move forward”

Stevie, Messenger Sound System

“Back then, in London, re ae was king. It was the starting point for sound systems,” he explains. “Folks from the Caribbean generally weren’t welcome at nightclubs, so partly to carry on Jamaican traditional sound system culture [and equally out of necessity], they built their own.” Gravitating towards the sounds of Jah Shaka and without a place to stay in London, he laughs, “if the dance went on til six in the morning, that was great.” It would leave just enough time to hit Brixton before returning home with fresh records. Still, ever stru ling with the sub-par playback systems that awaited in Scotland, he realised that “the best way to get the full package, is to bring the full package.”

By this period, regularly playing out of The Bongo Club, Stevie had lu ed Mancunian bass boxes to the Cowgate, acquired an effects unit, and a preamp. “That’s the fundamental thing for us. It’s the brain the turntable goes into,” he explains.

He’s now operating mark four of his custom-built model, designed with assistance from good friend Mostec. For Messenger, “it’s not about the skill of the beat mixing”; Stevie’s crew position boxes around venues, “standing shoulder to shoulder with crowds,” and actively tweaking equalisers for maximum musical effect. “The onus is on the sound,” he explains. “You want to hear your rig have the characteristics you enjoy, and make them

Image: courtesy Hometown

James Whelan

“It’s about being here in the community, sharing our resources”

James Whelan

work in the place,” whether that be the compact cellars of Lost in Leith or the high ceilings of Summerhall.

Stevie rebuilt the system during lockdown with the help of son Lawrie. “I couldn’t have done it without him. It’s the younger generations’ input that helps us move forward.” He beams, “I’m glad they see a need for a sound like us,” reminiscing about early Music House trips to cut Curtis’ productions to acetate dubplates. “It’s a special little something. It’s heavy, cold, and smells a certain way in the sleeve.” You’ll need to attend a future session, such as Portobello’s Grand Re ae Ball (13 Apr), to experience the sounds of their studio on the system they were informed by and engineered for. “There’s nothing else like it,” he says, “that’s why I’m still doing it.”

It’s clear that there remains more to be done to bring sound system culture to the public. “I’m very much for the idea of bringing people together for free. Look at all the parks we’ve got, and yet they’re not very well utilised. The grassroots people ain’t getting represented,” Stevie adds. “We want to see some of the decision-makers realise the cohesive value that music events put on by locals for their communities can have.”

Rub a Dub Rocker’s Hometown Promotion Sound System – one feature of James Whelan’s multifaceted Ra amuffin outlet – forecasts hope for the future of bass music under Glasgow’s techno mafia monopoly. Alienated at O2 ABC nights as a teen, in 2007 Whelan heard whispers of Record

Playerz electro offerings and Boom Monk Ben’s Mixed Bizness at the Art School. He recalls the ferocious vibrations of Mungo’s Hi Fi that shook the venue’s shutters: “I felt like I’d found something. I remember standing in front of the kick bins all night, putting my head in them.”

He soon became a regular at Blackfriars’ Argonaut Sounds nights, and in between flyering for Optimo would scout Lee Perry CDs to spin at Chambre 69 (now Room 2) in promotional collaboration with Mungo’s. He “ended up serving an apprenticeship with them in 2012, touring sound system sessions across Europe,” before returning to The Berkeley Suite, often accompanied by vocalists circulating Scotch Bonnet’s studio, for Walk n Skank. “That was a really important night for the development of bass music in Glasgow,” he says – pointing to the bins of 527 situated in his studio. “I don’t think they would exist without it.” Eventually passing the baton to Tom Spirals of An Dannsa Dub and BBC Introducing Scotland’s Vixen Sound for the party’s final few years, Whelan left to form Hometown. “It’s in the name right… Hometown Hi-Fi” – an homage to dub legend King Tubby, and also representative of the duty he feels towards Glasgow. “It’s about being here in the community, sharing our resources.”

Ra amuffin Records sprouted out of Cleveland Lane during lockdown as a remedial reaction for gig-redundant system owners. “It was a lifeline for us, a lot of our customers, and the local community round here,” Whelan explains. It’s hard to pin down to a core crew – notable names include Welshy, Sippa Seb, Jamie, Mick and EV, in addition to T-O-D and izit? of SOUND (a fresh endeavour, operating out of Stereo).

“There’s a real lack of bass music nights with a sound system in Scotland,” says Whelan. “I don’t believe that’s negligence; the economy of nightlife is difficult at the moment.” By sharing new styles within an environment typical to a traditional re ae dance, he hopes to provide “a route into sound system culture for a younger demographic.” He remembers Fortified Sessions at The Art School, “where people heard dubstep off a sound system, and months later would be bopping their head to roots at a re ae dance as they start di ing deeper into the culture.”

Following a momentous full circle link up at The Old Fruitmarket with Mungo’s Hi Fi last month, Hometown head into summer with their first Kelburn takeover before sailing the stacks to the Isle of Arran alongside Messenger in July. “If people are genuinely interested in sound system culture and want to come hang out and give us a hand, I’m pretty sure we can teach them things they wouldn’t learn anywhere else.” Whelan enthuses. “It’s a mission, not a competition.”

Image: courtesy Messenger

Messenger Sound System

Unearthing Sunset Song

An ambitious co-production between Dundee Rep and the Royal Lyceum uses Doric and English to delve deep into the human experience

Words: Kirsty Strang-Roy

This month, a radical adaptation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s beloved novel Sunset Song takes to the stage in a co-production between Dundee Rep and The Lyceum. Set against the rapidly changing landscape of north-east Scotland on the brink of World War One, director Finn den Hertog describes this as an “elemental and primordial” production that excavates the novel’s grittier themes. “We wanted to get back to the brutality of the book. It’s a book about a life. It’s a book about the land. It’s a book about trauma. It’s a book full of rich, thrilling characters and opposites and dichotomies.”

This complexity is focused through protagonist Chris Guthrie as she is pulled between worlds, played out in a binary between spoken Scots and English. When she first encountered the book at school, writer Morna Young saw something of herself in Guthrie. “The idea of the two Chrisses perfectly described my own experience as I navigated speaking English or Northeast Scots.” Young has worked extensively with Scots language and is a passionate advocate for its place on the stage. In this script, she has “embraced the beauty, rhythm and texture” of the language to create a “contemporary Doric for my own version of understandability and musicality.” This work is both personal and political, “I hope that my presence as a working-class woman and as a Doric speaker offers visibility for others.”

The drama is played out in what den Hertog and Young describe as a cyclical ‘heroine’s journey’, embodied in Guthrie and the shifting land around her. “The cycles of the seasons, echoed in Chris’s own life, feel deeply intimate and give us a beautifully close lens on sex, childbirth and the female body,” says Young. “The cycle of farming, the cycles of the body, the cycle of life allow us to understand Chris’s evolving sense of self.” den Hertog adds that “Chris recognises and absorbs all of the pieces of good and bad in her world. She tells us to listen to all those bits of ourselves in order to be the people that we need to be.”

The production features a new score by composer Finn Anderson. Young and Anderson previously collaborated on The Snow Queen (2023) and she “couldn’t think of anyone more suited to the weaving of textual detail, sound and melody,” in Sunset Song. The music will be performed by what den Hertog describes as a “choral voice that personifies the land, almost like a Greek chorus. It felt right that the land should speak primarily through song. The land has a deep, ancient singing voice.”

Implied in minimal, impressionistic staging, this figurative land is the bedrock of the play. It is where audiences can unearth fragments of the past that sing to the immense possibilities of the future. For den Hertog, this touches on the concept of deep time, explored in allusions to geological and

cosmological timeframes that extend beyond human comprehension. “There are echoes in a place like this. There is blood in the soil and there are ghosts in the trees. The land is an entity to be encountered.” For Young, it’s important to remember that the land is also a crucible for human experience. “Sunset Song celebrates human spirit and resilience, whilst reminding us that such spirit always passes in the blink of an eye.”

This examination of deep time asks us to reflect on how our actions affect the future. In a time of climate crisis and fractured global identities, this is searingly relevant. Even the smallest of gestures or utterances can shape what is yet to come.

Sunset Song, Dundee Rep, 13 Apr-2 May; His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, 8-11 May; Eden Court, Inverness, 16-18 May; Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, 28 May-8 Jun

Image: courtesy of Dundee Rep Theatre

Bait and Switch

“‘Why don’t you do a number 9 bus?’ Alright cunt, what happens?” - Reece Shearsmith on Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast, 14 Sep, 2022

Words: Kirstyn Smith

It’s unclear who first seeded the concept of a bus episode of Inside No. 9, or when, but by the time promotion for 2022-23’s series eight came around, the journey was well underway. There was a promotional poster, aping 1970s comedy On the Buses; a confirmed guest star (Robin Askwith); bus-themed scenes in the trailer; and even a candid photo leaked of the cast filming in busman’s uniforms.

But just before Hold on Tight! was supposed to air, a BBC continuity announcer announced a schedule change and a new quiz hosted by Lee Mack, 3 by 3, would show instead. What followed began as a run-of-the-mill game show, but slowly devolved into a family-in-crisis supernatural short story evoking, to name a handful of influences, Carrie, Matilda, Rosemary’s Baby and Scanners – screamingly Inside No. 9 all along.

Social media immediately flooded with praise, confusion and complaints, but this wasn’t the first time writers Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith had pulled off this kind of chicanery.

Playing with storytelling, grotesquerie and loading their work with references to cult horror and vintage TV has been in the duo’s arsenal for decades. Along with Mark Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson, their first show, sardonically titled The League of Gentlemen, was an initial act of trickery to fool audiences expecting an Oxbridge-style revue. They got men in suits, sure, but men who fed the audience sketches that descended into horror and uncanniness. This risk took them to the

Edinburgh Festival Fringe 1997 where they won the Perrier Award – the first time a sketch show had won since Writer’s Inc in 1982. Twenty-five years later, what makes Shearsmith and Pemberton stand out as some of the best modern storytellers, particularly during the ten years of Inside No. 9, is this consistent ability to bait and switch their audiences’ expectations with multi-layered catand-mouse mind games.

The Inside No. 9 episode Dead Line (2018) might be their most audacious example of a you-had-to-be-there TV event. Billed as a live Hallowe’en special, the show began as normal, before suffering sound issues, then dropping in and out of broadcast. One quarter of the viewership changed the channel. For those who stuck around, the remaining episode was a delicious little mindfuck: a kaleidoscope of techno-horror, live ‘suicide’, real-time tweets (‘Are me and Steve Pemberton on BBC Two now?’) and Ghostwatchinspired mischief. The whole event was a multilevel attack, beginning before the episode was broadcast with planted news articles about rehearsals plagued by dead former Coronation Street stars, and ending with the audience’s live reaction becoming an inherent part of the viewing experience.

Of course, the kind of storytelling embraced by Pemberton and Shearsmith goes further than how the show is presented and consumed; what it portrays is just as unexpected and compelling. As a horror comedy, Inside No. 9 has followed its

“Inside No. 9 has followed its League of Gentlemen and Psychoville predecessors to remain unafraid to delve into the dark, the tragic and the mundane-turnsunnerving”

League of Gentlemen and Psychoville predecessors to remain unafraid to delve into the dark, the tragic and the mundane-turns-unnerving.

In The Twelve Days of Christine (2015), Sheridan Smith plays a woman whose life unravels before her eyes. Terrifying and heartbreaking, the episode illustrates the lack of control any of us really have over our fate. But that was seven series ago, and the writers’ maturity and thoughtfulness in exploring grief, loss, abuse and madness has deepened and expanded since. After a decade’s worth of uncompromising episodes, 2023’s The Last Weekend and Love is a Stranger show multifaceted, complicated, troubled characters – a man who just wants to love and be loved; a woman, untethered, whose life has passed her by – that you root for no matter how many lives they ruin, simply because they are horrifyingly, unthinkably relatable. These stories are exposing, forcing us to reflect on how we relate to the world and each other: why are we empathetic; what do we see of ourselves in these characters; why are we crying right now, and for whom?

Two episodes from the final series were previewed in March at the BFI: episodes so intensely assured and top-of-their-game that it seems wild the show is coming to an end. Barring these, there’s a predictable secrecy surrounding what else to expect from the final series. Regardless, it’ll be the writers’ complexly sympathetic characters and bittersweet approach to devastating situations that will keep Inside No.9 burning at the forefront of televisual storytelling for years to come.

Inside No. 9’s ninth series is set to be broadcast this spring, air dates tbc

All other episodes of Inside No. 9 are currently available on

Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton in Inside No 9 Image: courtesy of BBC Studios / James Stack

Released 12 April by Bison rrrrr

Listen to: M M M, MORE BOY, More More Faster

Album of the Month

Still House Plants — If I don’t make it, I love u

Having established themselves with a totally singular concoction, marrying inquisitive improvisatory playing with careening, emotive vocals, Still House Plants have become a fixture of the underground and one of the most exciting bands around. Recorded in London, their third album, If I don’t make it, I love u, is marginally more sonically polished, but loses nothing of their angular charm, if anything bringing out more of the thrashy energy and emotional heft of their live shows.

The record is marked by a feeling of greater weight. Where second album Fast Edit’s guitars were brittle, tumbleweeds to be blown about by Jess Hickie-Kallenbach’s voice, here they are fuller, more muscular. The playing of guitarist Finlay Clark is still clanging and raw, but it fills more space, while David Kennedy’s drums are more pronounced and punchy. It makes the dra ing groove of opener M M M an intoxicating mixture of momentous and rickety, and the gnashing of More More Faster’s early stages is as breakneck as they’ve ever sounded.

Hickie-Kallenbach’s voice and lyrics are more forceful too, matching up to the more beefy instrumentation. She has always had the ability to give

just enough shape to the raw feeling in her words for you to build whole scenes around them, but here she sketches in more, becoming more generous in her writing. She pulls back just enough to not overdo it though, maintaining the sense of a private moment overheard through the wall that is so essential to their brilliance. It gives a beating heart to the record’s more cerebral edges.

What this all adds up to is a record that takes their already winning formula and pushes it forward in every way. It makes their previous records sound a touch spindly and faint by comparison. It’s strange. As much as collage was essential to Still House Plants’ aims and methods, the new record feels like it gets to the heart of their sound, simply by having the three of them in a room playing. It turns out that literally collaging various sources together for their previous records sounds less like an assemblage than them all playing in a room, such is the improvisatory but perfectly judged shifting tones and textures on display.

If I don’t make it, I love u is magnificent, the peak of their recorded output to date, the sound of a band solidifying and pushing forward into something genuinely their own. A truly brilliant piece of work. [Joe Creely]

Vampire Weekend

Nia Archives

Ma ie Rogers Don’t Forget Me Out

St.

Albums

English Teacher

This Could Be Texas Island Records, 12 Apr rrrrr

Listen to: The World’s Bi est Paving Slab, Not Everybody Gets To Go To Space, Broken Biscuits

The album opens with the swooping sentimentality of Albatross – a masterful display of tension and release, feathery piano and guitar work gliding gracefully across the track before it descends into a whirlpool of hypnotic syncopation. The World’s Bi est Paving Slab follows – a seemingly mundane but actually brilliant claiming of personal abundance, in which Lily Fontaine puts their hometown of Colne on the map, delivering lines pertaining to Lancashire lore: ‘I am the Bank of Dave, Golden Postbox / And the festival of R&B / And I’m not the terrorist of Talbot Street / But I have apocalyptic dreams’.

The band flip the central sentiment of Beyoncé’s most recent single on its head with title track This Could Be Texas, favouring chipper ivories and hopeful brass over scratchy acoustic guitar and a driving hoedown kick drum. Other highlights include the arcade machine intro and critique of ridiculous billionaire hobbies on Not Everybody Gets To Go To Space; the fragmented time signature and snapshot lyricism of Broken Biscuits; and the drunken drumwork and extraterrestrial soundscape of Sideboob. This debut LP sees English Teacher beginning to consolidate and take the already-delicious sounds introduced on their Polyawkward EP to even greater heights. [Jack Faulds]

Dead Pony

IGNORE THIS

LAB Records, 5 Apr rrrrr

Listen to: Bad Girlfriend, MK Nothing, About Love

Dead Pony have been gathering some serious steam over the last year, and this month arrive with an impressive debut in IGNORE THIS. One of the toughest things for a band to do at this stage in their career is sound fully formed, but Dead Pony pull this off seemingly without much effort, sounding confident in their identity as a musical outfit. They wear their influences openly and proudly; you can hear Queens of the Stone Age and Nirvana on tracks like MK Nothing and I might die, along with a large dose of Le Tigre on tracks like RAINBOWS. Album standout Bad Girlfriend is a swa ering, disco-infused rocker with an outrageously catchy hook that blends together all the best elements of their sound in a slick sub-three minute package.

Hailing from Glasgow, Dead Pony have quickly built a solid reputation for no-nonsense rock’n’roll, something IGNORE THIS delivers in spades. The outfit’s sound is so complementary of each element; Blair Crichton’s crunchy guitar riffs and Anna Shields’ piercing vocals are supplemented by Liam Adams’ bass and Euan Lyons’ drums that come with a hefty dose of attitude. The future is bright for this four-piece. [Logan Walker]

Bob Vylan Humble As the Sun Ghost Theatre, 5 Apr rrrrr

Listen to: Reign, Hunger Games, GYAG (Get Yourself A Gun)

Bob Vylan’s third album Humble As the Sun delivers the kind of unrestrained angry social commentary that the hip-hop/punk duo have become known for, but this time with a little more polish. The ten-track record has zero fat on it, and scatterguns through valid targets of vitriol: the royal family, tax dodgers, loser dudes of the manosphere. Lyrically, it’s thrillingly provocative as the duo fantasise about overthrowing the entire bent system.

Noise-wise, the record inevitably loses some of the anarchic energy of their live shows and although it does stray into new musical territory, with electronic samples in parts, the main engine remains the drums and scuzzy guitar of the pair themselves. Humble As the Sun is also decidedly less sweary than their previous efforts. A detail that may have helped the group, three albums in, to secure their recent appearance on BBC Radio 1’s Future Sounds show. Despite this, the songs have lost none of their fury. On the suitably acerbic Hunger Games, the duo take aim at the agents of the cost of living crisis, and the dystopian British response (‘Spin the wheel for the chance of a hot meal’). A timely and exciting collection of songs. [Tara Hepburn]

Shabaka

Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace Impulse!, 12 Apr rrrrr

Listen to: Insecurities, Managing My Breath, What Fear Had Become, End of Innocence

After years of collaboration and performance, Shabaka’s debut solo album, Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace, is an evocative declaration of multitude. His second flute-forward outing, after 2022’s Afrikan Culture EP, the title is, at first, imperative, but swiftly becomes an invitation into an expansive, inner space that is built upon throughout the album’s various instruments and voices.

In Managing My Breath, What Fear Had Become, this story and invitation is extended through a narrator’s voice, and is where the album feels like a vast culmination of voices shining in a collision of subjective learning, almost bringing the listener into their own being. The lamenting Japanese Shakuhachi flute and vocals on Insecurities is a form of rhythmic entrancement that swells and spirals.

Body To Inhabit has light fusions of jazz-ish walking double-bass and soca-inflected melodies that expand on Shabaka’s flutes; all added to an immense list of collaborators: Carlos Niño, André 3000, Esperanza Spalding, Lianne La Havas, Moses Sumney, Brandee Younger, Floating Points, Laraaji, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Saul Williams and Elucid. Yhis debut comes from immense, fruitful collaboration. A collaboration between beings, instruments, melodies and spaces that offer room to listen, reflect and become. [Tommy Pearson]

Pillow Queens

Name Your Sorrow

Royal Mountain Records, 19 Apr rrrrr

Listen to: One Night, Suffer

Dublin’s Pillow Queens swapped the scratchy guitar effects and shoutalong vocals of pandemic baby In Waiting for something more sombre on 2022’s Leave the Light On. Their latest, Name Your Sorrow, strikes the sweet spot between polished and punk. Opener February 8th blends droning dissolve with ethereal lyrics; the bluesy bridges of Suffer crackle and distort, leading to sparkling choruses; Blew Up the World’s instrumentals are anthemic, on Gone they are needling and dark, on One Night, hearty and pining.

As usual, members Sarah Corcoran and Pamela Connolly alternate lead vocals, but Name Your Sorrow sees band-wide experimentation, instrument swapping, and post-production revision, resulting in a colourful, varied record. The lyrical content – longing, queerness, and reconciliation – are quintessential PQ: ‘I don’t wanna ruin my life but I wanna go home with you’ (Like a Lesson), and ‘I could feel my body beating, hated it all my life / I don’t wanna go home this weekend, I think I’m worth the time’ (Notes On Worth), two examples.

Pillow Queens are both eager to experiment, and open to embracing the best of their earlier rhetoric.

Vulnerability, mixed with hope helps

Name Your Sorrow reign supreme out of their three-part discography.

[Ellie Robertson]

Justice Hyperdrama

Ed Banger Records/ Because Music, 26 Apr rrrrr

Listen to: Incognito, Saturnine, Afterimage

Almost eight years since their last record, Justice return with their fourth studio album, Hyperdrama, which sees the French duo tweak their usual synthesis of electronica and resonant rock, evocative of Human After All-era Daft Punk; instead subbing in a watercolour of synthwave amidst pared back French house, if not funk proper. The album’s continuous sequencing works to devastating effect through the album’s final third. Muscle Memory is a shapeshifting, herculean electronic maze, and the succeeding Harpy dream interlude defibrillates the present rhythm, heralding in the Miguel-assisted Saturnine with a vocal melody so lithe and instant that it’s Prince-worthy.

These effects present a very intentional unevenness: opening tracks Neverender (one of two Tame Impala collaborations) and Generator are both strong in their own right, but as an opening gambit are discordant, the lush dreamscape of the former immediately preceding the Perturbator-like sleaze of the latter. These bifurcated parts coalesce into the sumptuous Afterimage and single One Night/All Night, and the hyperdramatic odyssey of Justice’s offering finds its consistent groove; a fusion of these elements. Justice may have stru led to reach the dizzying heights of their 2007 debut, Cross, but Hyperdrama is a convincing, exciting venture in its own right. [Rhys Morgan]

claire rousay sentiment

Thrill Jockey, 19 Apr rrrrr

Listen to: it could be anything, asking for it, sycamore skylight

claire rousey describes her music as “emo ambient”, but until recently the influence of bands like The Promise Ring and Pedro the Lion were only audible in the wistful longing that underlines her abstract compositions. On sentiment this connection is much closer to the surface, with rousay transforming her domestic brand of musique concrète into a collection of melancholic pop songs. 4pm opens proceedings with a monologue by ambient musician Theodore Cale Schafer about the guilt that accompanies his depression. It sets the tone for an album that navigates the paradox of loneliness in an age of hyperconnectivity. Combining the confessional songwriting of Bright Eyes with the post-rock inflected emo of The Appleseed Cast, tracks like ‘it could be anything’ and ‘head’, see rousay sing candidly about sex, jealousy and the pain of unequal love through thick swathes of autotune; her voice quivering not with desire, but the coiled charge of possibility. Elsewhere, the hypnotic textures of instrumental tracks like ‘iii’ and ‘sycamore skylight’ conjure memories of fleeting interactions and moments of failed intimacy. Every track on sentiment feels like a late-night phone call from a close friend; when the album stops, you find yourself missing the voice on the other end. [Patrick Gamble]

Adam Wiltzie

Eleven Fugues for Sodium Pentothal Kranky, 5 Apr rrrrr

Listen to: Buried At Westwood Memorial Park, In An Unmarked Grave, To The Left Of Walter Matthau, We Were Vaporised, (Don’t Go Back To) Boogerville

Sodium pentothal is commonly used as a sedative and anaesthetic, but it can also reportedly be used as a truth serum. What truths can the wordless dirges of Adam Wiltzie eek out of us? The opener’s lengthy title gestures towards the terrestrial matters of death, placing us on the steady ground of a cemetery. But the piled-high electronics and swooning strings head towards the cosmic. These nine tracks prioritise serenity and beauty in their evocation of some unknowable beyond. Their sparkle can become almost too perfect, which makes the dark abruptness of the last two pieces feel like release, even if they throw its general hopefulness into uncertainty.

Wiltzie’s work is best known as part of ambient duo Stars of the Lid. When his collaborator Brian McBride died last summer, Wiltzie hinted at a raft of music he had to dig through. He told The Guardian: “I can’t yet put my arms around the memory of Brian, but someday I am going to try to do this for everyone, so at least the end is documented.” Whether it’s in Wiltzie’s own Eleven Fugues…, or the vast expanses of sound they conjured together, their music is where resolution can be found.

[Tony Inglis]

Music Now

This April is quite possibly the busiest month we’ve ever seen for new music coming out of Scotland – we do our best to condense it all into one page

Words: Tallah Brash

Unsurprisingly, March was very busy for new Scottish music, and in last month’s roundup we missed excellent new records from Becky Sikasa, Josephine Sillars, Martha May & The Mondays, Homework and Supermann on da Beat. There were also excellent new singles from Adam Ross (Apogee), Swiss Portrait (Talk), Tamzene (What Sundays Are Made For), Zerrin (Maintenance Phase), No Windows (Zodiac 13), racecar (Lay Me Down), rEDOLENT (dinny greet), Susan Bear (Drift), sarya (do i try) and loads more. April is even busier, so this month’s column feels quite literally like an impossible task, but we’ll see what we can do. The floaty Hopping, ambient and pulsating Magnolia, shuffling UVA and glitchy Ça Va make up naafi’s gleaming dancefloor-ready debut UVA (8 Apr). Originally from Fife, naafi has been on our radar for a wee while, having previously been involved in the work of both TAAHLIAH and Alliyah Enyo. At the end of January, the now Glasgow-based producer and DJ landed fully formed with UVA’s lead single Magnolia, a poetically personal and pristine number inspired by moving around a lot when they were younger: ‘And I thought that I’d get over this / Now I’m painting all the walls you miss magnolia’. Despite these four gleaming tracks being very much club-ready, there’s undeniable softness and comfort to be found across UVA that makes it an utterly intoxicating debut.

A few days later, on 12 April, Glasgow-based electronic producer Matt Gibb, aka Kinbote, releases Hemisphere, the stunning followup to his 2020 debut, Shifting Distance. Once again coming out on Lost Map Records, Hemisphere sounds remarkably crisp and particularly rich in production; there’s a rounded breathy warmth to Gibb’s vocals and a rubbery depth and fullness to the instrumentation, as well as an undeniable whiff of The Postal Service. But it’s the irregular side-steps that stitch it all together which truly excite; the perfect but unexpected bursts of squalling discordant noise, the intriguing found-sound and spoken word samples.

On the same day, Edinburgh-based husband and wife duo Sarah/Shaun release their debut EP It’s True What They Say via Hobbes Music. Opener Dust Tears is immediately captivating with its driving beat, warm chord progression, arpe iated synths and hazy, bittersweet vocals. Later, Keep Your Eyes Closed gives off a similar feel to Flaming Lips’ Do You Realize?, although it sounds more like something you’d hear in Twin Peaks’ Roadhouse after some spooky goings-on in town. An accomplished and dreamy debut.

The following week, Glasgow’s own fairy pop producer Pearling is back with her brand new Lovelocket mixtape (18 Apr). On the opening title track, which lasts all of 62 seconds, Pearling makes her intentions immediately clear. Luring you in with a cutesy, almost nursery rhyme-like intro, it’s not long

before a fierce bassline and acidic synths punch through, and you realise the sort of experience you’re in for. From the more upbeat Wildfire and Swirly Circus Girl to the shimmering Another ˚₊·➳❥ Life and Dollface, Lovelocket is all at once gentle, ethereal, bold and extravagant, letting you see the many sides of Pearling.

The end of the month sees one of our favourite bands, post-punk party starters Bikini Body release their hotly anticipated and explosive second EP, Weird Party (27 Apr) via renowned Glasgow label Optimo Music. It’s more of what we love from this fiery Edinburgh five-piece: sharp, pointed and droll lyricism, bright elastic guitar lines, bending basslines, skittering disco drums, and literal (cow)bells and whistles; an expertly crafted dance-punk record.

More releases we’re looking forward to this month include WE ARE LABELS from Stirling-born Sonotto (4 Apr), before a whole truckload arrives on the 5th. Read our review of Dead Pony’s debut IGNORE THIS on the previous page; seek out Edinburgh producer sevendeaths’ Concreté Misery - Decayed Edition, a tenth anniversary reissue getting its first ever physical release via LuckyMe; bathe in I wish I was special, the beautiful collage of sounds, samples and music from Glasgow’s Guests; kick back to Hound’s shiny American slacker rock-indebted double EP Some Days Were Good…But Mostly It Was Grim; and feel energised by Broken Chanter’s punchiest and slickest record yet, Chorus of Doubt, out on Chemikal Underground.

On the 12th, wojtek the bear release their thoughtful new record on Last Night From Glasgow, the Stephen Streetproduced shaking hands with the NME, before the 19th sees two former SAY Award winners release two very different records. Fergus McCreadie, with his exuberant piano-led Stream, and Brian d’Souza, who places mushrooms front and centre on Mycorrhizal Fungi (more on p.33). On the same day, you’ll also find EPs from Psweatpants (AM/PM Radio), Carsick Charlie (Angel), and Citizen Papes (For You)

The end of the month (26 Apr) brings the debut collaboration from Withered Hand’s Dan Willson and Kathryn Williams, for the gorgeous 11-track Willson Williams, out on One Little Independent Records. Ten years in the making, Duglas T Stewart’s BMX Bandits release their 12th studio album, Dreamers On the Run. Beyond the long plays, you’ll also find singles this month from the likes of Roseanne Reid, Megan Black, Kapil Seshasayee, Katie Nicoll, Vickie Paxton and Oyakhire

Scan the QR code to follow and like our Music Now: New Scottish Music playlist on Spotify, updated every Friday

Photo: Alliyah Enyo

Photo: Murray Paterson Kinbote

“Rich and resonant… surrender to its intimate, contemplative rhythm”

TOTAL FILM resonan … urrde to it int at , c nt mpla ve r yt m”

“Achingly lovely… advocates not just a new way of looking, but also a new way of living”

“Ac ingly vely… a vo tes ju t nw wy f als a n ay li in ”

THE OBSERVER

“A lm of profound gentleness…

Koji Yakusho delivers a sublime central performance”

LITTLE WHITE LIES l pr foun entlne s…

Ko Yaksho dliv rs sbli c ntral p form nc ”

Film of the Month — Evil Does Not Exist

Director: Ryûsuke

Hamaguchi

Starring: Hitoshi Omika, Ryô Nishikawa, Ryûji Kosaka, Ayaka Shibutani

RRRR R

Released 5 April by Modern Films

Certificate 12A

theskinny.co.uk/film

How do you follow up the surprising success of your three-hour, slow-burn drama, which broke out internationally via multiple nominations – and one win – at the Oscars? For Japanese writer-director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car), the answer is to keep making unconventionality your speciality. With Evil Does Not Exist, he has made a peculiar film that could easily be labelled as an eco-drama, but equally, it could be argued to be a contemporary, wintry spin on the psychological Western – in which a small town, with an enigmatic handyman as the de facto leader, pushes back against false prophets of progress looking to disrupt their way of life.

Structurally, Evil Does Not Exist would seem to be a simpler affair compared to the multilingual explorations of Chekhov in Drive My Car or the anthology approach of Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, Hamaguchi’s other film released in 2021. But the inception of the latest project provides a compelling friction between its narrative and atmosphere, helping to make this the filmmaker’s most beguiling work to date.

Evil Does Not Exist first came about after musician Eiko Ishibashi – who composed the score for Drive My Car – asked Hamaguchi to shoot material that could accompany a live performance of her work. Restricted to concert shows for now, that separate piece, Gift, incorporates footage also used for Evil Does Not Exist, but in a shorter format and minus dialogue. You can imagine much of the material translating well for those purposes, as most of the opening half-hour of Evil Does Not Exist unfolds with few words – the dominant sounds being

Ishibashi’s often dread-inducing score and the noises of nature whenever that music abruptly ceases.

This section follows the working rhythms of Takumi (Hitoshi Omika), a jack-of-all-trades running errands in the sylvan village of Mizubiki. He lives with his young daughter, Hana (Ryô Nishikawa), with the implication being that the child’s mother is deceased. Hamaguchi patiently and successfully immerses us in the natural, tranquil beauty and routines of the area, to the extent that a town meeting with outsider company reps – taking place at Hana’s school – instantly comes across like an existential threat to the balance of the whole place, even before a single word is uttered about their potentially poisonous proposition.

These two spokespeople (Ryûji Kosaka and Ayaka Shibutani) are hired guns for a Tokyo-based agency planning a glamping (glamorous camping) site aimed at city-dwelling tourists, setting up a dialogue with the locals to get their input in the limited time window before construction goes ahead. With Takumi providing the most compelling dismantling of the proposals, the villagers make a case for the various safety risks and environmental havoc.

It is from this point that Hamaguchi morphs the film away from the rural-versus-urban narrative it sets up, humanising the two corporate lackeys ahead of a suspenseful return visit to the village, where they attempt to win over Takumi. The brutal interactions of the enthralling, mysterious second hour are best left unspoiled, but as the film’s striking title hints at the outset, the nature of human behaviour is never cut and dry.

[Josh Slater-Williams]

Scotland on Screen: Lynne Ramsay

Ahead of the 25th-anniversary rerelease of Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher, one writer explores how Ramsay’s talent for visual filmmaking was forged in her early shorts like Gasman and Little Deaths

Words: Emilie Roberts

Ratcatcher is rereleased in 4K from 12 Apr by Park Circus, with screenings taking place at Glasgow Film Theatre, the Cameo and the Scotsman Picturehouse in Edinburgh, and Dundee Contemporary Arts

Lynne Ramsay is also GFT’s CineMaster this month.

In addition to Ratcatcher, they’re screening Morvern Callar on 6 & 11 Apr (35mm on 6th); We Need to Talk About Kevin on 20 & 24 Apr (both 35mm); and You Were Never Really Here on 27 & 30 Apr

Images repeat themselves throughout the first three short films by Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay. Curtains flutter imperceptibly in the breeze; barren landscapes seem to stretch forever; faces flicker in artificially lit darkness. Ramsay distils the entire visual ethos of this early work in the opening shot of her debut feature Ratcatcher (1999), which sees a boy twirling through net curtains, the shot blurred and indistinct, dreamlike – and abruptly ended by the cold, harsh slap of adulthood.

This hard shock at the reality of becoming an adult is also present at the very beginning of Ramsay’s career – particularly in the shorts Small Deaths (1996) and Gasman (1997). Both centre on a girl named Lynne coming to terms with what lies beyond childhood.

Small Deaths is split into three snapshots, each with Lynne at a different age witnessing a betrayal of innocence, a ‘small death’ of what it means to be a child. In a different filmmaker’s hands, these themes could be overly ambitious for an 11-minute short, but not in Ramsay’s. Her cinema is one of images. Dialogue is sparse, fraught with deeper meaning, skirting on top of what the characters really mean. We infer entire family dynamics in simple, lingering shots: Lynne riding her tricycle in the kitchen, around and around in monotony; her mother staring out the window as her father leaves for Godknows-where for God-knows-how-long; a close-up of Lynne’s face as she asks when her Da is coming home and needs no answer – she already knows, subliminally, fundamentally. All of this is evident in the face. No words or exposition are needed.

In the second part of Little Death’s triptych, Lynne witnesses the death of a cow, killed by local boys. An entire lifetime of pain, regret, and innocence passes through Lynne’s and the cow’s eyes – a mutual understanding that life is not what you thought it would be, captured in two silent close-ups. Every detail in this short is imagined and managed so expertly that it’s incredible to think this is the first time Ramsay was behind a camera.

Gasman is similarly astonishing. We’re introduced to a family that is close to shattering. Something is amiss, and again this is expressed solely through image. Small flashes of discomfort and discontent are hinted at, telling us of an altogether more desolate reality. A boy pours sugar over a toy car as Let it

Snow plays on the radio, but there’s little cheer in this Christmas fable. We follow a father, his daughter (Lynne) and his son as they walk – at times together, at times apart – down a disused railway line. Somewhere along the line, they meet a boy and a girl who are their mirror image: kids who are eerily similar to them, albeit a bit shabbier, worn at the edges. The children don’t know what any of this means, perfectly encapsulating that fo y haziness of childish understanding. Ramsay leaves the audience in the dark too, but we can join the dots that are initially beyond the children.

All of these early technical and thematic nuances are built upon in Ratcatcher. Ramsay follows a legacy set out by Kes and sets one up for others to follow (Sean Baker’s The Florida Project comes to mind) in her debut. Set in 70s Glasgow, it is concerned with the life of James Gillespie, a 12-year-old boy living through the city’s bin strike. He’s surrounded by abject poverty, grime and cruelty, conveyed so effectively in the smallest of details – a scabby knee, a dead rat, the squelch of a bin bag. A less deft filmmaker might let this story be weighed down by its politics but Ratcatcher balances every note perfectly, summing up 70s Britain in the image of James’s sister, Anne-Marie, eating a sandwich, unperturbed, on a pile of rubbish, with boys behind her remarking on the smell.

This uncanny ability to encapsulate overwhelming ideas in a single image, a snatch of dialogue or a piece of sound continues throughout the film, particularly painfully in a scene near the midpoint where James’s mother is picking through his hair for lice. “Can I see?” he asks. His mother lowers the comb down and shows him the little black louse. His eyes, large and pained, focus on it. “Is that it?” he says eventually, laying his head down on the kitchen table, the camera lingering on his face in silence.

In Ratcatcher, this silence reigns. There are swathes of time where all we hear is James’s ra ed breathing, or simply nothing at all. The score doesn’t make its first appearance until the film’s breathtaking midpoint, which sees James running through a golden field of wheat, blue sky beatific behind him, the grey nothingness of home left behind. It is a rare sliver of hope from Ramsay, a filmmaker who doesn’t shy away from the difficult and the ugly. But here, she lets the light of childhood in briefly, before gently closing the door.

Ratcatcher

Ratcatcher

Close Your Eyes

Director: Victor Erice

Starring: Manolo Solo, José Coronado rrrrr

More than three decades have passed since Victor Erice’s The Quince Tree Sun, and unsurprisingly his first feature since that entrancing documentary from 1992 is a film concerned with lost time. The protagonist in Close Your Eyes is Miguel Garay (Solo), a film director who hasn’t stepped behind a camera in 20 years, not since being forced to abandon a feature when his leading man and closest friend, Julio (Coronado), mysteriously disappeared. When a television programme on Julio reopens the case, memories that Miguel had long left behind come flooding back.

Everything in Close Your Eyes stirs the memory. Miguel encounters numerous characters (including Ana Torrent, the child star of Erice’s The Spirit of the Beehive) who recall their

Io Capitano

Director: Matteo Garrone

Starring: Seydou Sarr, Moustapha Fall rrrrr

The latest film from Gomorrah director Matteo Garrone is a heartrending story of the end of innocence, seen through the horrors of immigration from West Africa to Libya to catch a dangerous boat to Italy. Natural dangers include the Sahara Desert; man-made dangers include extortion, imprisonment, and even torture if caught with false passports and any cash. National borders create both predators and prey.

Io Capitano follows two Senegalese cousins, Seydou (Seydou Sarr) and Moussa (Moustapha Fall). They are bright-eyed and determined to make their fortunes in Europe to send money back to their families. Theirs are youthful, noble, painfully naive ambitions that are poignantly realised as they come up against the harshness and inhumanity encountered on their travels. They are not

shared past, and throughout the film, physical objects act as totems, with a book, a postcard, a photograph or a chess piece tri ering a Proustian rush. Above all these objects, however, a film print remains the greatest repository of our memories, and Close Your Eyes is driven by a sincere belief in cinema’s power to awaken something within us.

Erice takes his time – almost three hours – unravelling the mystery. This is unmistakably an old man’s film, but that’s not meant as a pejorative. It’s a film that is keenly aware of ageing and loss, a film suffused with quiet wisdom, and it gradually builds to a deeply moving climax. “Miracles haven’t existed in cinema since Dreyer died,” Miguel is told, but Victor Erice’s triumphant return to filmmaking certainly feels like one. [Philip Concannon]

Released 12 Apr by Modern Films; certificate 12A

cyphers for a wider stru le, but fully fleshed characters with their own dreams and goals. While fellow emigrants’ stories are not elucidated, the definition of Io Capitano’s central characters alludes to hundreds of similar stories, some far more desperate than the boys’ familial wishes but none unworthy of a chance at a new life.

The meaning of Io Capitano’s title does not become clear until a harrowing final act that pits the young men’s determination to hold onto their humanity as the mendacity and greed of those profiting from emigrants’ desperation reaches previously unfathomable lows. With increasingly draconian immigration laws coming into force across Europe and North America, Garrone’s film reads as a plea for humanity – after all, Seydou and Moussa retain theirs throughout unthinkably dire circumstances.

[Carmen Paddock]

Released 5 Apr by Altitude; certificate 15

Sometimes I Think About Dying

Director: Rachel Lambert

Starring: Daisy Ridley, Dave Merheje rrrrr

Fran (Daisy Ridley) thinks about what it would be like to hang from the crane outside her office window, or decompose in a bug-filled forest, or wash up like driftwood on the beach. She clicks buttons on her computer at an undefined office job. She stands silently in the corner of her colleague’s retirement party, taking cake and almost running back to her desk as soon as possible. Only the arrival of the replacement – Robert (Dave Merheje), who quietly, stubbornly refuses to let Fran exist in her isolation – offers a new, non-dead future.

Sometimes I Think About Dying takes a wry, wistful look at finding meaning in life when caught between social anxiety and the inevitable, interminable need to work, eat and find companionship. The grey- and beige-tinged production design

The Teachers’ Lounge

Director: İlker Çatak

Starring: Leonie Benesch, Leo Stettnisch, Eva Löbau, Michael Klammer rrrrr

Bureaucratic systems have a knack for suppressing empathy, not to mention mistaking conformity for justice; those who stand out from the pack are often assumed to be wrong regardless of what they stand for. In İlker Çatak’s drama about administrative hysteria within a German school, a young teacher, Carla Nowak (played by Leonie Benesch), demonstrates a clear strength of character even before a panic begins about staff and pupils being targeted by accusations of theft. The tightly wound chaos that unfolds over a brisk 98 minutes, during which the scrutiny of teacher boundaries and shades of cultural prejudice are explored, feels incredibly loaded in a contemporary German context.

Carla, a Polish emigre, starts the film uncomfortable about the

expertly recreates the most tired version of the modern middle-corporate world as Fran observes Washington State’s shipyards and square brick buildings while moving between stifling home and office interiors. The desaturated palette and tired decor make the film an almost timeless slice of Americana – albeit punctured by Slack messages and jokes about #nofilter vacation photos.

Originally a 2013 play and then a 2019 short film, director Rachel Lambert and writers Kevin Armento, Stefanie Abel Horowitz, and Katy Wright-Mead balance the macabre, awkward, and bittersweet, helped by Ridley’s superb, understated performance. Sometimes I Think About Dying does not insist its characters change to fit in, but that they share their whole selves with trust. The end result is better, sweeter, and more memorable for it. [Carmen Paddock]

Released 19 Apr by Vertigo Releasing; certificate 12A

invasive ways her peers interrogate her pupils, but when she takes matters into her own hands to uncover a thief in the teacher’s lounge, she immediately loses control as teachers and students react to her own unorthodox methods.

Benesch leads a confident ensemble, but despite a thoughtful approach to the divisions in a diverse Germany, Çatak’s film feels like it was designed to be an anxiety-inducing exercise rather than a challenging exploration of a society in crisis. The camerawork is effectively frenetic and the intense strings of Marvin Miller’s score evoke a hot-tempered mood, but too often the script feels on the verge of taking us down more interesting paths but never crosses the precipice. As a result, The Teacher’s Lounge skates over its issues without finding something novel or earthshaking to say about them. [Rory Doherty]

Released 12 Apr by Curzon; certificate 12A

Io Capitano

Close Your Eyes

The Teachers’ Lounge

Sometimes I Think About Dying

Design Works

Custom Lane welcome Scottish-Swedish designer Nick Ross to their Edinburgh gallery with a unique and timely exhibition of minimalist furniture made in solid wood and cast metal

Nick Ross' WORKS features highlights from one of Scotland’s most accomplished contemporary furniture designers. Raised in Inverness and now based in Stockholm, Ross has shown his designs globally and collaborated with numerous international brands including +Halle, Rimowa, Audo, Karakter, NIKO JUNE, and Louis Vuitton.

For Custom Lane, he has selected a mixture of work from brands that he regularly collaborates with. In addition, the show features photographic prints from his latest collection Primitive Arrangements, which was recently exhibited at the Swedish History Museum during Stockholm Design Week. A variety of pieces made in timber, metal and stone balance his traditional work; a combination of conceptual and minimalist compositions – with a more irreverent and experimental series of designs.

“It’s not often that I mix projects in an exhibition setting, so it was fun to see the work showcased together in this way.” says Ross.

Much of the work in the Edinburgh show has been created for the designer’s experimental brand NIKO JUNE, which he runs together with friends in Copenhagen.

“We started the company in 2020 after becoming a bit bored of the current state of the design industry in Scandinavia. We wanted to work on a commercial project that had a different approach – something we felt was missing from the market.”

The brand focuses on creating objects that are made to last and create a real, emotional connection. The emphasis is on sustainability and this is achieved by working with either upcycled materials or exclusively local producers.

“One of the objects from NIKO JUNE on show is the P-L 01 chair, which was the first object I designed for the brand. The idea behind the design was to create a simple furniture collection in metal that could be made using standard elements and produced by local metalworkers within Copenhagen. The design takes its cues from the post-and-lintel system that was employed within ancient Greek, Indian and Egyptian architecture, and describes a building system that utilises vertical post-like elements to carry horizontal lintels.”

From the outset, his work has referenced early forms of architecture and the materials and structures that underpin them. Readers may recall The Doric Boule, an installation staged in 2017 in the courtyard of Aberdeen’s Marischal College where Ross created a circular seating arrangement constructed using granite sourced from a variety of international quarries. The arrangement of the benches is a nod to ancient Greek symposia, and this approach – bringing together ancient and classical histories with a bold and modern minimalism – is evident in subsequent works.

This is furniture design that encourages communication, whether through construction details or strikingly original forms and an empathetic sensibility that is achieved through tactile materials and muted palettes. Visitors to the exhibition can see a carefully curated selection of designs, including some from the NIKO JUNE

Words: Stacey Hunter

studio. The Ink Trap table is made using a new type of MDF composed entirely of recovered wood. The material comes from residual flows from the timber industry and is also a by-product of sustainable forest management and road verge maintenance. The stacked sheets are tinted in black with a transparent super matte finish on top, leaving the sides raw and untreated.

Accompanying this is Eros Torso, a lightweight vase from a fun series made using upcycled plastic that is individually heated and shaped by hand. Also on show is the Banquet chair and table – both manufactured in beech wood, sourced locally in Denmark and inspired by the 1990s tightly composed minimalism and a selection from the aforementioned P-L series, including an aluminium chair and a candle holder.

The timing of the Edinburgh exhibition is connected to the popular events series Talks At The Lane (TATL), hosted by the gallery and delivered by its community of creative practitioners. Ross is the seventh speaker in a series that focuses on material by engaging with designers and makers whose practice is concerned with the use of sustainable materials, their practical application and cultural meaning.

During discussions about the event, Paula Szturc – a designer based at Custom Lane with architecture practice GRAS and a co-organiser of the series – saw an opportunity to host an exhibition to coincide with the talk, bringing this unique body of work to a local audience.

“Nick’s work exemplifies an innovative, rigorous approach, particularly in his consideration of materials and their cultural and historical context and our talks series offers a unique platform to harness these individual connections and share them with an inquisitive, diverse audience. The current exhibition came together with the support of Custom Lane’s Creative Director, Dieny Itoe, as well as the dedicated and often invisible, voluntary contributions of the whole TATL team including Leo Berger and Alistair Byars aiding logistics and installation,” explains Szturc.

Talks At The Lane has become a significant part of the contemporary Scottish design scene with an eclectic and informative series of lectures and conversations around the themes of design and making. So far, this season has featured architects, plasterwork experts, a landscape architect and building crafts person, an interior designer, and a furniture maker.

For more information on the series and future talks: customlane.co/editorial/talks-at-the-lane/

Until 26 Apr, Custom Lane, free @talksatthelane @nick_______ross @niko__june @localheroesdesign @stacey___hunter

P-L 01 Chair

Photo: NIKO JUNE

LA MASA TACO BAR, GLASGOW

New Mexican street food spot La Masa brings a splash of colour to central Glasgow

FTue, 5pm - midnight; Wed-Sat, midday-midnight lamasaglasgow.co.uk

ood runs in cycles, trends are fickle beasts, time is a flat circle – these sentence fragments are rushing through our heads as we stomp through central Glasgow in a light state of déjà vu. When we popped into Scamp on Renfield Street around two years ago, we were the only folk in the restaurant on a Sunday lunchtime. Now we’re back to that same Renfield Street unit for La Masa, and the place is hoaching at 4.30 and booked up all evening. That’s not the only change – there’s more colour and a bit more fun to the place in its new guise. It’s only been open a few weeks but La Masa already feels like a well-worn, cool place to be; it’s incredible what painting two walls and filling the place with hungry Glaswegians can do for the vibe.

So the vibe is sorted, and these folk also seem to have a ready-made plan for culinary success. The strategy: ‘liberally apply tajin – the spicy, citrusy, salty Mexican seasoning – to anything leaving the kitchen’. Friends, we think they might be onto a winner. The queso dip (£4) boasts a big flash of red flakes down the centre, perking up an already lively dip. The fresh tortilla chips have also been tossed in tajin, giving them a spicy, salty lift.

The sea bass ceviche tostada (£4) is fresh, zingy, and as it’s a tostada it has a catastrophic level of crunch that leads to us losing several bits of fish overboard. It is also flecked with – say it with us – tajin!

Staying in the sea, the fish taco (£4) is an absolute unit. It’s a deceptively simple construction, with a smear of crema (yes there’s tajin in there too), some delicious pickled onions and a piece of juicy, crunchy battered fish the size of a small torch. That simplicity is what keeps your jeans unsullied and your tortillas from falling to bits. It was the same story at Paz in Edinburgh a few months back, time is a flat circle, etc etc.

Next up are two folded, cheesefilled tacos, brought at the same time as if to make comparison completely unavoidable. In the vegetarian corner,

an earthy blue corn quesadilla (£3.50) filled with stringy, oozy Oaxaca cheese and a very spicy salsa negra. It’s good, but it is a tiddler of a quesadilla, and it’s worth pointing out that there are a couple of head-scratchers on the price list, not least the birria taco (£4.50). Birria – a slow-cooked beef taco, melted cheese in the middle, served with a beef consommé on the side – is a meaty, unctuous taqueria classic. You’d think this would be a pricey lad what with the meat and all, so why is this the only taco that comes as a duo? Obviously we’re not annoyed, but we are confused. Is there… something… wrong with it?

Good news: it’s fine. The meat is tender, the construction is excellent, but there’s something missing, something to cut through the fat and the cheese and all that red meat. Ironically, if they whacked a big load of tajin on this we’d be laughing. Maybe they can take some cues from the street corn. It’s a single cob (£6, he said, scratching a hole in his cranium) cut into thirds for undisputable convenience, immediately undermined by smothering the entire thing in cheese and homemade salsa. It is delicious, its form allows you to eat your corn with some semblance of dignity, there is no way that this is worth one-and-a-half-times that fish taco from 20 minutes ago.

Our grand finale comes from the barbacoa side of the menu, all big chunks of smoked and grilled meat, but the tajin pork belly (£9) looks a little bit like a dessert pulled from the lucid dreams of a meatobsessed sculptor. Two hefty slabs of juicy pork, tajin crema draped across the top, and little flecks of puffed pork skin that really, really look like Rice Krispies. It’s so rich that bringing it at the end of the meal seems like some kind of attack, but then again it is delicious. Juicy, spicy, savoury, grab a big chunk in a tortilla and go, quite literally, hog wild.

The drinks are great (shout out to a nicely-balanced and surprisingly fruity mezcal negroni), the staff are

lovely, the place is bouncing; all signs point to La Masa as an excellent new addition to Glasgow’s food scene. As long as they keep that tajin flowing, we can’t see that changing any time soon.

26A Renfield St, Glasgow G2 1LU

Words: Peter Simpson

Photo: Voom

Photo: Voom

Funny Story

By Emily Henry rrrrr

When Daphne’s fiancé Peter decides to break up with her after his bachelor party, Daphne’s life is in ruins. In the fallout, Daphne moves in with the charming and tattooed Miles, who just so happens to be Peter’s new fiancée Petra’s ex-fiancé. One drunken night, they hatch a plan to make their exes jealous, but the fake-romance plot is short-lived as real feelings quickly grow.

Funny Story, Emily Henry’s fifth novel, is a joyful and cathartic romcom that is truly the funniest of stories. Carried by genuine, witty dialogue and wonderful pacing, Henry crafts deeply relatable and unexpectedly complex characters: Daphne and Miles are not perfect and sometimes mess up, but at the end of the day, they each want to better themselves. The side characters, too, are written with depth and given diverting and hopeful character arcs.

In writing such sympathetic characters, Henry also captures with precision the complexity of human interaction, from the emotional duress of miscommunications and mishaps to the heartbreak of friend breakups and the heady, steamy, unadulterated joy of falling in love. And from the old comes the new: when Daphne’s world falls apart, alongside finding new love, she builds a new life from the ashes of the old. Daphne’s journey is a story of embracing romance along with its power to change us, and the constellation of relationships we build along the way. [Riyoko Shibe]

Some Strange Music Draws Me In

By Griffin Hansbury rrrrr

Some Strange Music Draws Me In is

a beautiful exploration of adolescence and ageing. Narrated by Max, a transgender man nearing 40, who has returned to his small town in Massachusetts to deal with his mother’s passing, this soulful coming-of-age story is contemplative, funny and harrowing.

As Max goes through photos, records and other memorabilia scattered around his childhood bedroom, he is transported back to a past he no longer recognises, one at odds with his present day. Max’s life is a mess. On forced leave from work to undergo sensitivity training after being accused of transphobia by a cisgender student, he is at a crossroads.

Most of the novel follows the slow burning days of summer break as experienced by Mel, Max’s pretransition self – a naïve and listless teenager, as she meets a mysterious cipher in the form of Sylvia. Together they explore what it means to live authentically in a town that tries so hard to destroy any individuality or joy. Sylvia will be a catalyst for Mel’s own transgender awakening, but it is through small moments listening to the vinyl records of Patti Smith, or driving around town in Sylvia’s beat-up Trans Am, in which the heart of this story truly comes alive. Filled with the lingering echoes of a former self, Hansbury has created a rich portrayal of moving forward in all life’s messy glory while wrangling with a painful past. [Andrés Ordorica]

The Rupture Files

By Nathan Alexander Moore rrrrr

Nathan Alexander Moore’s short story collection The Rupture Files is four contemporary takes on supernatural myths, including mermaids, werewolves, vampires, and witches (with a twist of zombie).

In the opening story Sequela, Shalomar works at the mysterious Station: a hierarchical underwater institution which is scavenging the ocean, including the bodies of creatures who are familiar yet other. Shalomar soon realises that not only is her life a lie, but that who she is has long been suppressed and that only the truth can set her free. Written using a rare second-person narrative voice, meanwhile, in A Crescent Cracking the moon cycle reveals an individual’s true nature, and as the chapters progress so does their transformation and the revelations it brings. In Ashes For Your Beauty, the legend of the vampire is used to examine questions of class, social order, and even slavery, as the regal yet rotten ‘Highborns’ use those they ‘turn’ to survive, if no longer thrive. And the Cartwright sisters in the titular The Rupture Files have to deal with suspicion from others, and of each other, as they try to make their way in a post-apocalyptic world.

Taken together these stories are about identity and belonging, the ties that bind and how to break them. The writing is alive – shifting and changing the perspectives of both characters and readers. With this insightful and, ironically, most human collection, Nathan Alexander Moore has breathed new life into these enduring myths and legends. [Alistair Braidwood]

Young Hag

By Isabel Greenberg rrrrr

When it might seem like the Arthurian legend has already been exploited to the point of exhaustion, Isabel Greenberg presents Young Hag, a fresh and whimsical take on some of the most notable episodes of western mediaeval mythology. Readers will encounter many familiar inhabitants of Camelot, but at the heart of this story is the eponymous Young Hag, a novel introduction from Greenberg in an effort to decentralise the popular narrative from the men who consistently play protagonists.

Young Hag, a girl born at a time when magic is disappearing from Britain, is a descendant of the last witches in the human world, although her coven has long lost the ability to do magic. Hers is a story of heritage and self-determination, a heroine’s journey to reopen the paths between Britain and the Otherworld.

With a charming art style and a vibrant set of quirky characters, Young Hag is a fun and memorable tale. Its weakness is mostly structural: while it means to comment on the importance of stories, this heroine’s journey relies so heavily on flashbacks and in-narrative storytelling that it hardly feels like a journey at all. And while Young Hag can’t be found anywhere else in the Arthurian corpus, this strong female character might seem familiar to fans of other tales of female empowerment.

Although admittedly, to Greenberg’s point, the abundance of feisty girls in literature is still far from that of fearless knights and wise wizards.

[Venezia Paloma]

Viking, 25 Apr

Hajar Press, 6 Jun

Jonathan Cape, out now

Dream Gig

Irish comic Ashley Manning recounts a disastrous, but certainly memorable, gig in this month’s Dream Gig

Illustration: Zofia Chamienia

Iwas booked to do two shows for a comedy film festival in a rural town in County Kerry in 2018, about a year after I started out. Myself and seven other comics travelled two and a half hours to get there. None of us were getting paid, but we were getting put up in a hotel – which could have been the perfect setting for an Irish remake of Hot Fuzz, starring at least one Gleeson, and with Pat Shortt playing the Bill Bailey part (apologies to the people reading this who have no idea who Pat Shortt is) – and given the scarcity of gigs in the south of Ireland in 2018, we were all willing to give up an organ for some stage time.

After checking in, we wandered around this town (read: single street) below the Kerry mountains. We were met by our own faces staring back at us from crude bright yellow ClipArt posters which just said ‘comedy’ and the times for the shows in Comic Sans, stuck on various shop windows and lamp posts. The venue remained a mystery. We met the man who had organised the shows, and were led to a tiny marquee tent, plonked on a small patch of grass next to the waterfront. To one side was a statue of Charlie Chaplin, and to the other, a significantly larger tent which we were then informed would be hosting a Hermitage Green concert at the same time as our shows (N.B. Hermitage Green are an Irish alt rock band). There were no seats, no speakers and no microphone. We had to collect these items from a nearby parish hall. Comedy Venue: some assembly required.

About seven people turned up to each of the two shows to listen to us shout over the concert happening less than 30 feet away. It’s the only time I have purposely drunk alcohol before a show, and a man called Paul asked us all to sign one of the posters because it was, in his words, “a brilliant car crash”. About three months later, I found that a picture of us had made it onto the cover of the local community calendar for 2019, so I’m sure that’s a collector’s item for any die-hard fans, and Paul would probably sell you the poster for a tidy sum.

My dream gig would probably be just as much of a car crash. Anyone who has seen my stand-up will know I like a little bit of tension in the room while I’m on stage. The best part of any gig for me is when there are little pockets of laughter from outlier audience members in the room while everyone else is a little quiet. These are often the same people who approach me after the show, tell me that some aspect of my material resonated with them, then share their own stories of similar things they’ve experienced. It’s the best thing about comedy for me.

My dream line-up would be some of my favourite comics I’ve performed with: Ruth Hunter, Eleanor Morton, Shalaka Kurup, Laura Davis, and I’d drag Hannah Fairweather out of retirement for the occasion. I’ve seen these folk dwell in the tension too, and it thrills me to watch them.

I like performing to a room filled with different types of people, some who find me funny, and some who don’t or aren’t sure. I think it’s a toxic thing to potentially be met with people who agree with you about everything, who support you unchallenged regardless of what you say or do. It’s one of the good things about comedy. For the most part this rarely happens, but when it does, it’s some laugh to witness people’s egos inflate like big, ridiculous balloons. With that in mind, I think I would get a real kick out of having a few people who would absolutely hate me and my material peppered into my dream audience. I’d hand deliver a ticket to Jordan Peterson, and reserve him a seat in the front row. I believe he’s already walked out of a show Ruth performed at. Beautiful stuff. Might be a bit of craic to have the Pope along too.

Ashley Manning: Candyfloss, The Stand Comedy Club, Glasgow, 6 Apr, 5pm, £8

Follow Ashley at @AManComedian on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok

CCA Highlights

April at the CCA sees lectures on shamanic dance, local indie folk singers, and the tail end of the Catalan Film Festival amongst others

Words: Anahit Behrooz

Supernatural Dance Explorer

Cinema, 18 Apr, 6pm

Photo: Choy Ka Fai

courtesy of Glasgow Seed Library

Head to this lecture by Berlin-based Singaporean artist Choy Ka Fai exploring various shamanic dance cultures in Asia. Examining the intersection between dance and identity, Ka Fai’s practice is an inquiry into the metaphysics of the body, and how this manifests across different folk traditions. This lecture draws on Ka Fai’s considerable body of research and various rituals in Singapore, Indonesia, Siberia, Taiwan and Vietnam, examining how shamanic dances articulate broader environmental, technological and political shifts across the continent.

Migration Beyond Metaphor Reading Room, 4 Apr, 5pm

As part of the Glasgow Seed Library’s ongoing work exploring intersections between human and nonhuman ecologies and cultivation, this new reading group examines how languages of seed dispersal can relate to human experiences of migration. Starting out from a rejection of the dehumanising language of ‘invasion’ that can characterise attitudes to both processes, this group draws on work by writers such as Nina Mingya Powles, Jessica J Lee, Victoria Adukwei Bulley and Thea Lenarduzzi in order to examine how we might reimagine ideas of belonging and borders and our (both human and nonhuman) fluidity across these spaces.

Goodbye and hello! Godard & Straub

Cinema, 19 Apr, 7:30pm

This three-film programme of shorts and a feature by and about lifelong friends, comrades and collaborators Jean-Marie Straub and Jean-Luc Godard explores the ongoing legacies of the French New Wave and the ways in which its iconic directors continued to evolve their cinematic practice, both together and apart. Featuring Straub’s short film France Against the Robots, Fabrice Aragno’s L’invisible and Paul Grivas’ Film Catastrophe, together these films paint a portrait of artists in community towards the end of their lives, and the political and creative fields they continued to navigate.

Kirsteen Harvey Theatre, 5 Apr, 7pm

Glasgow-based singer-songwriter Kirsteen Harvey straddles genres of jazz, country and folk, bringing a fresh new voice to the Scottish music scene. Having released her first EP just months ago in December (Unpredictable – full of sunny energy and whimsical indie riffs), Harvey is playing various venues in Scotland this month almost exactly two years after her first headline show at The Hug and Pint in 2022, including a sit-down gig at the CCA.

Catalan Film Festival Cinema, 4-5 Apr, 8pm

There’s a few more days of the Catalan Film Festival left in Glasgow, but still plenty of time to catch some under-the-radar cinematic gems. There’s a programme of short films carefully curated by Cinemaattic, and a screening of Elena Martin’s groundbreaking Creatura, an evocative and no-holds-barred exploration of taboos around female desire and sexuality in the Costa Brava region.

Supernatural Dance Explorer Migration Beyond Metaphor, Crickhowell by Tilly Nevin

Image:

Patti Smith and Godard on the set of Film Socialisme Kirsteen Harvey

Image: courtesy of Petit à Petit Production

Image: courtesy of CCA

Glasgow Music

Mon 01 Apr

THE HIVES BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Sweden.

KENNY MCMINIGAL

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–22:00 Singer-songwriter.

Tue 02 Apr SONGER

SWG3 19:00–22:00

Rap from London.

PISSED JEANS STEREO, 19:00–22:00

Hardcore punk from the US.

NIAMH REGAN (CHRISTOF VAN DER VEN)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00 Folk from Ireland.

Wed 03 Apr

ROSEANNE REID

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00

Americana from Scotland.

PAULI THE PSM

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Producer from London.

CAITY BAISER

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Pop from the UK.

JOHNNY MARR BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:00 Rock from the UK.

GERARD LOVE (NATIONAL PARK) STEREO, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Scotland.

SEAMUS FOGARTY (THE NEW LEAVES)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

Alt folk and indie.

SLASH (MYLES KENNEDY AND THE CONSPIRATORS)

THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00

Hard rock from the UK.

Thu 04 Apr I MONSTER KING TUT’S, 19:00–22:00

Pop from Sheffield.

Supported by Listings

Looking for something to do? Well you’re in the right place! Find listings below for the month ahead across Music, Clubs, Theatre, Comedy and Art in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee. To find out how to submit listings, head to theskinny.co.uk/listings

YOWL (OPIUM CLIPPERS + LE FAUX CHAT) BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

Indie from London.

GERARD LOVE (NATIONAL PARK) STEREO, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Scotland.

VACUOUS (INIQUITOUS SAVAGERY + RANCID CADAVER)

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00

Death metal from London. OPIUM CLIPPERS (TOURIST TRAP + SHAG NASTY )

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–22:00

Eclectic lineup.

SPACED (GOING OFF + UNCERTAINTY )

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

Hardcore from Buffalo.

JUNEY MO + TIME

GYPSY + ELLA

ENGLAND + MAR CHARAV ROOM 2, 19:00–22:00

Eclectic lineup.

Fri 05 Apr

BRAD STANK

KING TUT’S, 19:00–22:00

Alt R’n’B from London.

DREAM STATE CATHOUSE, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Wales.

KID KAPICHI

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Punk from Hastings.

FATHERSON BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:00

Alt rock from Scotland.

ALUK TODOLO (CWFEN + CAVERNS MEASURELESS)

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00

Krautrock from France.

DRY CLEANING ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00

Post-punk from London.

HOUND

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–22:00

Hard rock from Glasgow.

KIRSTEEN HARVEY

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 19:00–22:00

Folk pop from Glasgow.

JAMES BLUNT (LUCY SPRAGGAN)

THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00

Pop from the UK.

TOO RED (CAMERON FERGUSON + HARLEY WALSH + THE CASTROS)

ROOM 2, 19:00–22:00

Pop punk from Glasgow.

Sat 06 Apr

THE ROLLING PEOPLE KING TUT’S, 19:00–22:00

Indie from Stockport.

CAM COLE CATHOUSE, 19:00–22:00

Indie pop from Manchester.

CUBAN BROTHERS THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Funk and soul from Cuba.

HOUSE GUEST THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Rock from the US.

WHITE LINES (CALL CONNIE + LOLA

O'DOREL + ANDREA)

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

Indie from Aberdeen.

HOLIDAY GHOSTS (WATER MACHINE)

STEREO, 19:00–22:00

Rock ‘n’ roll from Falmouth.

EYES OF AMARYLLIS (GLORIAS NAVALES + SHOLTO DOBIE)

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–22:00

Indie form Philadelphia.

UNION OF KNIVES

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

Rock from Scotland.

OLD TIMES ROOM 2, 19:00–22:00 Blues from Ireland.

Sun 07 Apr

DAN PATLANSKY

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00

Blues from South Africa.

SPRINTS (VENUS GRRRLS)

KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00

Garage punk from Ireland.

DANA GAVANSKI

MONO, 20:00–22:00

Indie from Canada.

CASSYETTE SWG3, 19:00–22:00 Rock fron the UK.

WAVE TO EARTH SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Indie pop from Korea.

TROPHY EYES

CATHOUSE, 19:00–22:00

Punk rock from Australia.

BRAINDANCE!

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00 Punk rock.

NITIN SAWHNEY OLD FRUITMARKET GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Electronica from the UK.

SEB LOWE

ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00

Indie from the UK.

Mon 08 Apr

BRYSON TILLER

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

R’n’B from Kentucky.

ADMT

KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00

Singer-songwriter from the UK.

RICKY MONTGOMERY

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Indie pop from the US.

UGLY

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

Alt rock from Cambridge.

ADAM WEDD

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

Singer-songwriter from London.

Tue 09 Apr

URBAN (ID + GUESTS)

SWG3 18:30–22:00

Hip-hop lineup.

PIERCE THE VEIL BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:00

Punk from the US.

VERA SOLA

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

Indie from LA.

Wed 10 Apr

THE FERALTONES (ONLY YOU)

KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00

Garage rock from Glasgow.

SYLOSIS

CATHOUSE, 19:00–22:00

Metal from Reading.

FRAIL BODY

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Screamo from Illinois.

J MASCIS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Alt rock from the US.

PIERCE THE VEIL BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:00

Punk from the US.

THE PRETTY UGLY (GERRY SON & THE SMOKIN’ GUN)

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00

Alt rock from Yorkshire.

URVANOVIC (MITCHELL MUSEUM)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

Alt pop from Scotland.

Thu 11 Apr

D3LTA

KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00

Punk from Greece.

L’OBJECTIF

SWG3 19:00–22:00

Post-punk from the UK.

LORD APEX

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Hip-hop from London.

ASOMVEL

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

Hard rock from the UK.

DIY NOW AND NEXT TOUR (HOTWAX + AZIYAH) STEREO, 19:00–22:00

Alt rock from Hastings. FEEO (JORDAN PLAYFAIR + ERSATZ) THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

Experimental from London.

Fri 12 Apr ERIC CANTONA O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Singer-songwriter (and footballer) from France.

LE BOOM

KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00

Electronica from Ireland.

BLIND GUARDIAN SWG3, 18:00–22:00

Power metal from Germany.

BOGLE + THE PUBLIC HOUSE + THE STOATS SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Indie lineup.

REFER MADNESS (THE FROOBZ + AFTERSHOCKS) BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

Punk lineup.

BANDIT COUNTRY STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Alt rock from Motherwell.

REACTION MUSIC

SHOWCASE (SEAN FINDLAY & ADAM SMITH + HARD TO EXPLAIN + AROUND 7 + THE LINES)

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00 Indie showcase.

LIAM MCGRANDLES ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00

Folk from Ireland.

JOHN SMITH

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 19:30–22:00

Folk from the UK.

ARIEL SHARRAT & MATTHIAS KOM (SHOTGUN JIMMIE + HANK TREET)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30 Indie pop from Canada.

BLAIR DUNLOP THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00 Folk from the UK. BELL WITCH (KNOLL) ROOM 2, 19:00–22:00 Doom metal from the US.

Sat 13 Apr COCK SPARRER O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Punk from London.

VAN HOUTEN (CLAY RINGS + DALAS LOVE FIELD)

KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00

Shoegaze from the UK.

ROBIN ASHCROFT SWG3, 19:00–22:00 Pop from Glasgow.

ESOTERICA CATHOUSE, 19:00–22:00

Alt rock from the UK. LOUD LIARS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Rock from the UK. THE BLACK DELTA MOVEMENT BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00 Garage rock from KingstonUpon-Hull. HOUSE OF ALL STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Post-punk from the UK.

REACTION MUSIC SHOWCASE (DIRTY SLIPPERS + FOREIGNWOLF + STAY FOR TOMORROW + HUMAN RENEGADE + THE RHUBARB)

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00 Indie showcase.

CLEANERS FROM VENUS

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 19:30–22:00 Rock from the UK.

SEMISPECIFIC ENSEMBLE (BELL LUNGS + BEAR)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30 Experimental from Glasgow.

DOCTORS OF MADNESS (TWISTED NERVE)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00 Punk from the UK.

DYSTOPIAL (MOONLIGHT SCYTHE + DR. VEERS + BROGHAN) ROOM 2 19:00–22:00

Rock from the Glasgow.

Sun 14 Apr

VINCE FREEMAN

KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00

Pop from the UK.

LOUIS CULTURE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Hip-hop from London.

REACTION MUSIC SHOWCASE (ALLAN

PURVIS + OUR CITY FIRES + SINCE 2000)

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00

Indie showcase.

JOKER OUT

ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00

Indie rock from Slovenia.

KINBOTE (ISA GORDON + SLIDE CANCEL)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

Glitch pop from Edinburgh. BROKEN RECORDS

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

Indie from Edinburgh.

Mon 15 Apr

L DEVINE (LEUAN)

KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00

Pop from the UK. EEVAH SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Alt pop from Leeds.

Tue 16 Apr

ALFIE JUKES (LIANG

LAWRENCE)

KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00

Pop from Brighton.

YXNGXR1 SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Rap from the UK.

THE SLACKHEAD INCIDENT (SACRAMOOT + CERAZETTE + SKELP) BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00 Post-punk from the UK.

CORE. PRESENTS: PUPIL SLICER (COIL GUNS + GODALONE) STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Mathcore from London.

MILKWEED (QUINIE & FRIENDS)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30 Weirdo folk.

THIRTY SECONDS TO MARS

THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00 Rock from LA.

Wed 17 Apr MICROWAVE (THE DIRTY NIL) ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00 Punk rock from Atlanta.

PORIJ

KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00 Indie from Manchester.

EVERYONE YOU KNOW SWG3, 19:00–22:00 Indie hip-hop from the UK.

KRIS BARRAS BAND

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Rock from the UK.

KNIVES CHAU FAN CLUB (LORELAI + MY RUSHMORE + CLOWNZILLA + GLOWWORMS)

STEREO, 19:00–22:00 Hardcore and metal.

Thu 18 Apr

SARI SHORR (MATT PEARCE & THE MUTINY ) ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00 Blues rock from New York.

BOTTLE ROCKETS

KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00

Indie rock from Glasgow.

THE ZUTONS SWG3, 19:00–22:00 Rock from Liverpool.

THE ACADEMIC SWG3 19:00–22:00 Indie from Ireland.

TOFFEE NOSED AGENDA (SUBSPACE HIGHWAY + THE CORDS + OBJECT ASH) SWG3, 19:00–22:00 Eclectic lineup.

THE CHASE THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00 Indie from the UK.

TIDE LINES BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:00

Folk pop from Scotland.

COSMO SHELDRAKE

STEREO, 19:00–22:00

Multi-instrumentalist from London.

CHAMELEON LADY (CIAR NIXON + ALANNAH MOAR) THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–03:00

Folk rock from Edinburgh.

FINDLAY NAPIER THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30 Folk from Scotland.

PEARLING (NIL00 + SPENT + ANGEL & SLIDE CANCEL) ROOM 2, 19:00–22:00 Pop from Glasgow.

Fri 19 Apr

SEAFORTH

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00

Country from Australia.

LAINEY WILSON

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Country from Louisiana.

VIGILANTI

KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00

Alt rock from Glasgow.

THE KOUNT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Experimental from Toronto.

TIDE LINES

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:00

Folk pop from Scotland.

BIKINI BODY (SWEATY PALMS)

STEREO, 19:00–22:00

Post-punk from Edinburgh.

HYPERDAWN (BUNNY

HOOVA + LUPINI + JUNGLEHUSSY + ADAMANTINE CHAINS)

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:30–03:00

Experimental R’n’B from Manchester.

MICHAEL MARCAGI

ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Ohio.

Sat 20 Apr

TATE MCRAE

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Pop from Canada.

PLASTICINE

KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00

Indie from Scotland.

JP SAXE SWG3 19:00–22:00

Indie from Toronto.

SHALLIPOPI SWG3 19:00–22:00

Rap from Nigeria.

BLACK CAT BONE SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Edinburgh.

NEW MODEL ARMY

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Bradford.

THE MANATEES

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Rock from the UK.

TIDE LINES

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–22:00

Folk pop from Scotland.

BROKEN CHANTER

STEREO, 19:00–22:00

Indie from Scotland.

HALINA RICE

ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00

Electronica from the UK.

SEÒMARATA

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 20:30–22:00

Folk from Scotland.

URBAN VOODOO

MACHINE

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

Indie from the UK.

SAFETY & BVDLVD (SIMMS + THE SKETCH) ROOM 2, 19:00–22:00

Eclectic lineup.

Sun 21 Apr

CORRINE (FUTURE COLOURS + PICTURE

THE SCENE)

KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00

R’n’B from Glasgow.

ANSON SEABRA

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Singer-songwriter from the US.

SLUM VILLAGE STEREO, 19:00–22:00

Hip hop from Detroit. LYNKS ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00

Electro-pop from the UK.

JAM MONEY (FIESTA EN EL VACIO + ACTE BONTÉ)

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–22:00

Alt indie from London.

TERESA WINTER + NEY + SLOWFOAM

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–22:00

Eclectic lineup.

Mon 22 Apr

DOMINIE HOOPER

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Folk from Scotland.

MICK HARGAN

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

Singer-songwriter from Glasgow.

KIRIN J CALLINAN

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

Pop from Australia.

Tue 23 Apr

JANE WEAVER

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00

Indie from the UK.

JON PARDI

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Country from the US.

THE WARNING

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Mexico.

GIANT SAND

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

Rock from the US.

IZO FITZROY

ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00

Gospel blues from London.

MARTA DEL GRANDI (RAE LENA)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

Experimental pop from Italy.

Wed 24 Apr

JALEN NGONDA

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00

Jazz from the US.

FALSE EVIDENCE (THE NAUTICS)

KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00

Indie from the UK.

THE CRUEL KNIVES THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Rock from the UK.

MODERATE REBELS

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

Psych from London.

ADRIANNE LENKER

OLD FRUITMARKET GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Indie folk from the US.

Thu 25 Apr

OLIVIA DEAN

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Soul from the UK.

MICHAEL ALDAG

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Electro-pop from the UK.

KILL THE LIGHTS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Metal from the UK.

AVALANCHE PARTY (LADY JESUS + SCUNNURT) STEREO, 19:00–22:00

Rock from the UK.

NORTHERN UNFEST

PRESHOW (IKHRAS + DIVIDE + BLEAKS + HARD STARE + WARNIN SHOT)

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00

Hardcore.

MARY GAUTHIER (JAIMEE HARRIS)

ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00

Folk from the US.

MELTS

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

Indie from Dublin.

ROMARE ROOM 2, 19:00–22:00

Electronica from London.

Fri 26 Apr

SOAPBOX

KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00

Punk from Glasgow.

SINEAD TAIT

SWG3 19:00–22:00

Singer-songwriter from Scotland.

MOONLIGHT ZOO

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Indie pop from Dunfermline.

PALESTINE

FUNDRAISER

STEREO, 19:00–22:00

Music fundraiser.

LONG ARM

WEEKENDER (A

RITUAL SPIRIT + DEADFIRE + JEANICELEE + PANDACAR + FALLEN

ASHES + ALTERED + RAMANAN RITUAL)

THE FLYING DUCK, 16:00–22:00

Metal.

GUN

ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00

Hard rock from Glasgow.

TARA CUNNINGHAM + CAIUS WILLIAMS DUO (LENE DE MONTAIGU + ROTTER OTTER)

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–22:00

Singer-songwriter from the UK.

BRONTËS THE RUM SHACK, 20:00–22:00

Indie rock from Glasgow. THE FËAR (KUBA & KLOANS) ROOM 2, 19:00–22:00

Post-rock from Airdrie.

Sat 27 Apr

KIRA MAC

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00

Rock from the UK.

SPIRAL CITIES KING TUT’S, 19:30–22:00

Pop from Glasgow.

BEARS IN TREES (THE HAPPY FITS)

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Indie rock from London.

ARI ABDUL THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Alt indie from Brooklyn.

LONG ARM

WEEKENDER (CATALYSIS + THE HEAD OF THE TRAITOR + DREKAVAC + BASTYON + UNHALLOWED VOID + FROM TYRANNY + GTF + CELTIC BEAST) THE FLYING DUCK, 16:00–22:00

Metal.

UNDERWORLD USHER HALL, 19:00–22:00 Techno.

ROSEANNE REID SUMMERHALL, 19:00–22:00

Americana from Scotland. JOLIE HOLLAND (MCKOWSKI)

SUMMERHALL, 19:30–22:00

Indie folk from the US. ROBERTO

CACCIAPAGLIA

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00

Classical from Italy.

OL’ TIMES

PETER CASE & SID GRIFFIN

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

Indie folk.

EMMA JANE THE RUM SHACK, 19:00–22:00

Singer-songwriter from the UK.

THE KORGIS

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

Pop from the UK.

LA SIERRA CASA ROOM 2 19:00–22:00 Live showcase.

Sun 28 Apr TRAIN

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Pop from San Francisco.

NADINE SHAH

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Indie from the UK.

LONG ARM WEEKENDER (REND THEM ASUNDER + BLOODTHREAD + NECROCRACY + DAL RIATA + AT THEIR MERCY + EXPECTORATING SPUTUM + MARAIGH)

THE FLYING DUCK, 16:00–22:00 Metal.

LONNIE HOLLEY (RICHARD YOUNGS) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–22:00 Alt indie from the US.

AOIFE SCOTT

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

Singer-songwriter from Dublin.

Edinburgh Music

Mon 01 Apr TRIPPY TAKKA (THE JIMMY HOO HA ) BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

Rock from the UK.

GLEN HANSARD THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00

Indie rock from Ireland.

Wed 03 Apr

VAZUM (TWISTED NERVE + VOODOO TWIN) BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

Deathgaze from Detroit.

UNDERWORLD USHER HALL, 19:00–22:00 Techno.

CHRISTOF VAN DER VEN (NIAMH REGAN)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Indie folk from The Netherlands/Ireland.

Thu 04 Apr DOM MARTIN

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–22:00

Singer-songwriter from Belfast.

THE KUT (THE BREATHING METHOD + FATE HAS FAVOURITES) BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00 Rock from London.

OUTSIDE THE ORIGINAL

BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

Prog rock from Glasgow.

BROKEN CHANTER

SUMMERHALL, 19:00–22:00

Indie from Scotland.

BAD KNEES (PRETTY CRIME + TOY HOSPITAL) WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00

Indie rock.

CAM COLE

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00

Indie pop from Manchester.

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00 Rock ‘n’ roll from Galway. PELOWSKA

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Indie electronic from Edinburgh.

Fri 05 Apr

FAHRAN (BATTALION OF FLIES)

BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

Metal from Nottingham.

GOTH GF (WEATHERMAN + DALLAS LOVE FIELD + ELVIS WEDDING)

WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00

Indie, folk and alternative.

STARSAILOR

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00

Indie rock from England.

ADWAITH

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Post-punk from Wales.

Sat 06 Apr

DEADFIRE (MEDUSA TOUCH + SLANDER)

BANNERMANS, 19:00–

22:00

Hard rock from Scotland.

BENJAMIN FRANCIS

LEFTWICH

SUMMERHALL, 19:00–22:00

Indie from York.

BLACK CAT BONE

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Edinburgh. ANTON MCLOUGHLIN

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Singer-songwriter from Edinburgh.

Sun 07 Apr

KIRSTEEN HARVEY

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–22:00

Folk pop from Glasgow.

PSYDOLL (METAL TECH + ANGELBOMB)

BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00 Cyberpunk from Japan.

BOSTON MANOR

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00 Rock from Blackpool. WAVERLEY.

SUMMERHALL, 19:00–22:00

Folk rock from Scotland.

HÜSH (AXIS + BAMBITOS)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Alt-rock/emo from Edinburgh.

Tue 09 Apr

SYLOSIS

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00 Metal from Reading.

Wed 10 Apr

HEARTLAY BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

Industrial metal from Paris.

BIG LANES (ESPA GIG NIGHT) WEE RED BAR, 23:00–03:00

Fundraiser gig.

Thu 11 Apr

IST IST

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–22:00

Post-punk from Manchester.

THE K’S

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00 Alt indie from the UK.

PSWEATPANTS

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Hip-hop from Glasgow.

Fri 19 Apr

CJ WILDHEART

BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00 Rock from the UK.

OKEAN ELZY

O2 ACADEMY EDINBURGH, 19:00–22:00 Rock from Ukraine.

FERGUS MCCREADIE

TRIO

Fri 12 Apr

HOSPITAL CORNER

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–22:00

Rock from Edinburgh.

MAD DADDY (THE BAD MOODS)

BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

Rock from the Isle of Man.

THE RESISTANCE (BCDC)

WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00

Indie rock.

THE BLACK DELTA MOVEMENT

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Garage rock from KingstonUpon-Hull.

Sat 13 Apr

MIDNITE CITY BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

Metal from the UK.

JOHN SMITH

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00

Folk from the UK.

BROKEN RECORDS SUMMERHALL, 19:00–22:00

Indie from Edinburgh.

BABY MOLLY WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00

Emo and pop punk. CUBAN BROTHERS (SHAKA LOVES YOU) LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00

Funk and soul from Cuba.

Sun 14 Apr

DOCTORS OF MADNESS

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:00–22:00

Punk from the UK. FINLEY QUAYE THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00

Reggae from Scotland.

Mon 15 Apr

MAD ONES

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Rock from Toronto.

Tue 16 Apr

THUNDERFUCK & THE DEADLY ROMANTICS (KONTROL FREAKS) BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

Hard rock from Canada.

Wed 17 Apr

MILLIE MANDERS & THE SHUTUP BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

Punk rock from the UK.

Thu 18 Apr

HAUNT THE WOODS

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–22:00 Alt rock from the UK. BEAUX GRIS GRIS & THE APOCALYPSE BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

Blues soul from the UK. PAUL DRAPER

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00

Singer-songwriter from Liverpool. MIDDLE CLASS GUILT (VELVET + SICK PAY + CRAB STAB) WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00

Indie, post-punk and alternative.

PETER CASE (SID GRIFFIN)

WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00 Americana.

EDDI READER

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:00

Folk from Scotland.

SHE BURNS RED

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Scotland. THE KORGIS

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00

Pop from the UK.

Sat 27 Apr

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00 Jazz from Scotland.

MARUJA

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00

Post punk / jazz infused alt rock from Manchester

Sat 20 Apr

THE LEISURE SOCIETY

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:00–22:00

Indie from the UK.

CHARLES ESTEN USHER HALL, 19:00–22:00

Singer-songwriter from the US.

DESERT KITES (HOPES AVENUE + SILVER DOLLAR ROOM)

WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00

Indie, rock and alternative.

THE KAVES SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Alternative from Norwich.

Sun 21 Apr

ANTHONY GOMES

BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

Blues rock from Canada.

PERSONAL TRAINER (POM POKO)

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00

Indie rock from the Netherlands.

IVY BIG BAND

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Jazz from Edinburgh.

Tue 23 Apr

SAMARA JOY USHER HALL, 19:30–22:00

Jazz from the US.

Wed 24 Apr

IZO FITZROY

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 17:30–22:00

Gospel blues from London.

MARTA DEL GRANDI (IMMATERIAL POSSESSION) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Experimental pop from Italy.

Thu 25 Apr

SHAMBOLICA (ZETTAFLARE + REVELATION23) BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

Post-punk from Gateshead. BLUE USHER HALL, 19:00–22:00

Pop from the UK.

JALEN NGONDA SUMMERHALL, 19:00–22:00

Jazz from the US.

OCTOBER DRIFT THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00 Indie rock from the UK.

MODERATE REBELS SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00 Psych from London.

Fri 26 Apr

OH! GUNQUIT (THE RAZERBILLS) BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00 Surf punk from London. FORGETTING THE FUTURE SUMMERHALL, 19:00–22:00 Indie rock from the UK.

KING KRACKEN (PRYMA + LAVIRE)

BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00

Heavy rock from Wales.

MITSKI

USHER HALL, 19:00–22:00

Indie from the US.

NIAMHY MAC SUMMERHALL, 19:00–22:00

Indie pop from the Highlands.

SCOTT BRADLEE’S

POSTMODERN JUKEBOX

O2 ACADEMY EDINBURGH, 19:00–22:00

Jazz from New York.

JELEPHANT (TRAMSURFER + LHAMO GRACE) WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00

Indie folk.

THE RAH’S

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00

Indie rock from Edinburgh.

WOODY AND THE DOGS

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00 Indie rock.

Sun 28 Apr

STANDIN’ MAN BANNERMANS, 19:00–22:00 Rock from the UK.

MITSKI

USHER HALL, 19:00–22:00 Indie from the US.

BRÌGHDE CHAIMBEUL SUMMERHALL, 19:00–22:00

Trad from Skye.

A CERTAIN RATIO SUMMERHALL, 19:00–22:00

Post-punk from Manchester.

Dundee

Music

Tue 02 Apr

LOTTERY WINNERS

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 19:00–22:00

Indie pop from the UK.

Fri 12 Apr

RANDOM HAND CHURCH, 19:00–22:00 Punk from the UK.

GBH

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 19:00–22:00 Punk rock from the UK.

Sat 13 Apr

BROKEN CHANTER BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 19:00–22:00 Indie from Scotland.

Regular Glasgow club nights

The Rum

Shack

SATURDAYS (THIRD OF THE MONTH)

MOJO WORKIN’

Soul party feat. 60s R&B, motown, northern soul and more!

SATURDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH)

LOOSEN UP

Afro, disco and funtimes with three of the best record collections in Glasgow and beyond.

Sub Club

SATURDAYS

SUBCULTURE

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic, oft' joined by a carousel of super fresh guests.

FRIDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH)

RETURN TO MONO

SLAM’s monthly Subbie residency sees them joined by some of the biggest names in international techno.

Cathouse

WEDNESDAYS

CATHOUSE WEDNESDAYS

DJ Jonny soundtracks your Wednesday with all the best pop-punk, rock and Hip-hop.

THURSDAYS

UNHOLY

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

FRIDAYS CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

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

SATURDAYS

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

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

SUNDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)

HELLBENT

From the fab fierce family that brought you Catty Pride comes Cathouse Rock Club’s new monthly alternative drag show.

SUNDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH)

FLASHBACK

Pop party anthems and classic cheese from DJ Nicola Walker.

SUNDAYS (THIRD OF THE MONTH)

CHEERS FOR THIRD

SUNDAY

DJ Kelmosh takes you through Mid-Southwestern emo, rock, new metal, nostalgia and 90s and 00s tunes.

SUNDAYS (LAST OF THE MONTH)

SLIDE IT IN Classic rock through the ages from DJ Nicola Walker.

The Garage Glasgow MONDAYS

BARE MONDAYS

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

TUESDAYS

#TAG TUESDAYS

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

WEDNESDAYS

GLITTERED! WEDNESDAYS

DJ Garry Garry Garry in G2 with chart remixes, along with beer pong competitions all night.

Regular Edinburgh club nights

Cabaret

Voltaire

FRIDAYS FLY CLUB

Edinburgh and Glasgowstraddling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent.

SATURDAYS PLEASURE

Regular Saturday night at Cab Vol, with residents and occasional special guests.

The Bongo Club

TUESDAYS

MIDNIGHT BASS, 23:00

Big basslines and small prices form the ethos behind this weekly Tuesday night, with drum'n'bass, jungle, bassline, grime and garage aplenty.

FRIDAYS (THIRD OF THE MONTH)

ELECTRIKAL, 23 00

Sound system and crew, part of a music and art collective specialising in BASS music.

FRIDAYS (MONTHLY, WEEK CHANGES)

SOUND SYSTEM LEGACIES, 23 00

Exploring the legacy of dub, reggae and roots music and sound system culture in the contemporary club landscape.

FRIDAYS (EVERY OTHER MONTH)

DISCO MAKOSSA, 23 00

Disco Makossa takes the dancefloor on a funk-filled trip through the sounds of African disco, boogie and house – strictly for the dancers.

FRIDAYS (EVERY OTHER MONTH)

OVERGROUND, 23 00

A safe space to appreciate all things rave, jungle, breakbeat and techno.

THURSDAYS ELEMENT

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

FRIDAYS

FRESH BEAT

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

SATURDAYS I LOVE GARAGE

Garage by name, but not by musical nature. DJ Darren Donnelly carousels through chart, dance and classics, the Desperados bar is filled with funk, G2 keeps things urban and the Attic gets all indie on you.

SUNDAYS SESH

Twister, beer pong and DJ Ciar McKinley on the ones and twos, serving up chart and remixes through the night.

Glasgow Clubs

Fri 05 Apr

CLTX

SWG3, 23:00–03:00

Techno.

SCANDAL.GLA

SWG3, 23:00–03:00

Hip-hop, baile funk and Jersey club.

STEREO PRESENTS: PINEAPPLE RECS

W/ SAM BINGA & ADDISON GROOVE (SOFSOF (FKA VAJ. POWER) + HU-SANE) STEREO, 23:00–03:00

Bass and jungle.

BASS INJECTION (DC BREAKS + ANIKONIK + EKWOLS + RESIDENTS)

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00 Drum and bass/jungle.

LEZURE 072: 5 YEARS OF BIZARRE TRAX + B.LOVE & OLIVER.R +

SLOAN & PEEVE

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00 Techno and house. FRIENDS FM EP LAUNCH WITH BIG MIZ, VAN DAMN, BESSA + SECRET GUEST

SUB CLUB, 23:00–04:00 Techno and house.

MISSING PERSONS CLUB: STEF MENDESIDIS + DJ SMOKER + LOVEJOY

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00 House and techno.

CL!CK X STEREO: SOFTCHAOS (NXSA + BABYJAII + 222BABYCHAI) STEREO, 23:00–03:00

Techno, electro, bass and house.

CO -ACCUSED WITH RADIOACTIVE MAN

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00

Techno and electro. MUTT # 10 [2 YEARS]

EXIT GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00

Baile funk and club.

Sat 13 Apr

MOJXMMA: STUDIHO 54 (DEJA + JUNGLEHUSSI + HALAL KITTY + JAM EYE + OUTPOST SANGOMA) STEREO, 23:00–03:00

House and disco. STEREO BAR: INDIGO STEREO, 22:00–02:00

Reggaeton and baile funk.

TAQA: PLANTAINCHIPPS + EFFUA + DIJA

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00

House and techno.

LOOSE JOINTS: AL WOOTTON + MIA KODEN

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00 Techno and dubstep.

Wed 17 Apr

TALKLESS DANCE

MORE 4TH BIRTHDAY

PART 2: FONZO (EC2A / HARDLINE)

SWEATBOX (PASTRESDROLE + MAELITA + SUBSISM + DT SHANKS ) STEREO, 23:00–03:00

Trance and bass. STEREO BAR: PONYBOY

STEREO, 22:00–02:00 Pop, hyper pop and techno.

PURE BLISS

THE FLYING DUCK, 20:00–03:00 Trance.

Fri 26 Apr ASCEND (ILUNA + ONA.V)

SWG3 23:00–03:00 Techno and electro. SLEEPIE (CAT LADY + DJ TINYHANDZ + HUNTRESS + DJ FLUFFIE) STEREO, 23:00–03:00 Trance, ambient and experimental.

Fri 05 Apr

LOST IN LEITH PRESENTS ROSEHIPS + ST SUNDAY + ANN TWEAK

LOST IN LEITH BAR & FERMENTARIA, 21:00–01:00 House, disco and indie sleaze.

OASIS PARTY

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00 Rock ‘n’ roll.

EPIKA CIRCLE: A.MO THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Techno and electro.

Sat 06 Apr

FRIDAYS (FIRST OR LAST OF THE MONTH)

HEADSET, 23 00

Skillis and guests playing garage, techno, house and bass downstairs, with old school hip hop upstairs.

SATURDAYS (FIRST OR SECOND OF THE MONTH)

MESSENGER, 23 00

Roots reggae rocking since 1987 – foundation tune, fresh dubs, vibes alive, rockers, steppers, rub-a-dub.

SATURDAYS (MONTHLY )

MUMBO JUMBO, 23 00

Everything from disco, funk and soul to electro and house: Saturday night party music all night long.

SATURDAYS (MONTHLY )

SOULSVILLE INTERNATIONAL, 23 00

International soulful sounds.

SATURDAYS (EVERY OTHER MONTH) PULSE, 23 00

Techno night started in 2009 hosting regular special guests from the international scene.

Sneaky Pete’s

MONDAYS MORRISON STREET/STAND

B-SIDE/CHAOS IN THE COSMOS/TAIS-TOI

House and techno dunts from some of Edinburgh's best young teams.

TUESDAYS RARE

Weekly house and techno with rising local DJs and hot special guests.

THURSDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)

VOLENS CHORUS

Resident DJs with an eclectic, global outlook

FRIDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH)

HOT MESS A night for queer people and their friends.

SATURDAYS (LAST OF THE MONTH)

SOUL JAM

Monthly no-holds-barred, down-and-dirty disco.

SUNDAYS POSTAL

Weekly Sunday session showcasing the very best of heavy-hitting local talent with some extra special guests.

The Liquid Room

SATURDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)

REWIND

Monthly party night celebrating the best in soul, disco, rock and pop with music from the 70s, 80s, 90s and current bangers.

The Hive MONDAYS MIXED UP MONDAY

Monday-brightening mix of Hip-hop, R'n'B and chart classics, with requests in the back room.

TUESDAYS

TRASH TUESDAY

Alternative Tuesday anthems cherry picked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more.

WEDNESDAYS

COOKIE WEDNESDAY 90s and 00s cheesy pop and modern chart anthems.

THURSDAYS

HI-SOCIETY THURSDAY Student anthems and bangerz.

FRIDAYS

FLIP FRIDAY

Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and noveltystuffed. Perrrfect.

SATURDAYS BUBBLEGUM

Saturday mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics thrown in for good measure.

SUNDAYS

SECRET SUNDAY

Two rooms of all the chart, cheese and indie-pop you can think of/handle on a Sunday.

Subway

Cowgate

MONDAYS

TRACKS

Blow the cobwebs off the week with a weekly Monday night party with some of Scotland’s biggest and best drag queens.

TUESDAYS

TAMAGOTCHI

Throwback Tuesdays with non-stop 80s, 90s, 00s tunes.

WEDNESDAYS

TWISTA

Banger after banger all night long.

THURSDAYS

FLIRTY

Pop, cheese and chart.

FRIDAYS

FIT FRIDAYS

Chart-topping tunes perfect for an irresistible sing and dance-along.

SATURDAYS

SLICE SATURDAY

The drinks are easy and the pop is heavy.

SUNDAYS

SUNDAY SERVICE

Atone for the week before and the week ahead with non-stop dancing.

The Mash House

TUESDAYS

MOVEMENT

House, techno, drum ‘n’ bass and garage.

SATURDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)

SAMEDIA SHEBEEN

Joyous global club sounds: think Afrobeat, Latin and Arabic dancehall on repeat.

SATURDAYS (LAST OF THE MONTH)

PULSE

The best techno DJs sit alongside The Mash House resident Darrell Pulse.

Sat 06 Apr RR5: RBX, ARMAN JOHN & DURDENHAUER

SWG3, 23:00–03:00

Hard dance. LOST HARMONY (NESSY + BENJAMINAUDIO. + CLOVA)

STEREO, 23:00–03:00

Trance and techno. STEREO BAR: MAVEEN

STEREO, 22:00–02:00

House, Disco, UKG TOTALLY ENORMOUS EXTINCT DINOSAURS

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00

Electronica from London. EXIT WITH STEFAN GOLDMANN + MARIA CHAVEZ

EXIT GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00 Techno and house.

Sun 07 Apr

KEEP ON WITH DAVID BARBAROSSA & OOFT

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00 Disco and Balearic.

Thu 11 Apr

FLIPSIDE: HENZO & XIVRO

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00 Techno and bass.

Fri 12 Apr

SWEENEY’S HOUSE

PARTY

SWG3, 23:00–03:00 House and techno.

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00 Garage and grime.

Thu 18 Apr

BREATHE: SUBCLUB

SUB CLUB, 23:00–04:00 Deep house.

Fri 19 Apr

CADZOW

SWG3 23:00–03:00

Producer from Scotland. SERV3 SWG3, 23:00–03:00 Queer club.

SHITEPOP STEREO, 23:00–03:00

Pop. EZUP WITH JORG KUNING + FERRIE + JAY CELINO

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00 Techno and house.

SHAKARA + MANAMI

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00 House and bass.

INDEX: RECORDS

LABEL SHOWCASE

EXIT GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00 Techno and IDM.

Sat 20 Apr

BLACK TRAFFIC SWG3, 22:00–03:00 Hard techno.

TOY TONICS

JAM (KAPOTE + CHARLOTTE TUESDAY )

SWG3, 23:00–03:00 Techno and house.

BRUCE GLENNY

SWG3, 23:00–03:00 House from Glasgow.

ANIMAL FARM: PHARA + BLANKA + QUAIL + DNZ SUB CLUB, 23:00–04:00 Techno. CÉLESTE W/ MISS CABBAGE

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00 House and techno.

Sat 27 Apr

CHRISTIAN ROGERS SWG3, 23:00–03:00 Trance. KIMMIC SWG3, 23:00–03:00 Hard dance.

QUEER THEORY (KATE HAMMER + HOPE LONDON + JAY GNORMOUS + SOFIA SIREN + DANSE MACABRE + OBERON WHITE) STEREO, 20:00–03:00

Queer cabaret.

STEREO BAR: BABYJAII STEREO, 22:00–02:00 House, bass and techno.

I LOVE YOUR ENERGY (AUSTIN ATO + ELANDA)

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00 House and disco.

Edinburgh

Clubs

Mon 01 Apr

SATSUMA SOUNDS: END OF TERM SPECIAL CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00 House and garage.

Wed 03 Apr

STORIES WITH SARAH STORY SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 House and techno.

Thu 04 Apr

ONE DIRECTION PARTY

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00

Pop. MORAY LEISURE CENTRE X HAPTIC SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 Techno.

MONSTERS BALL: THE LADY GAGA CLUB LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00 Pop and disco. SAMEDIA SHEBEEN THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Tropical fun.

UNTITLED PRESENTS HARDGROOVE PART III THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Techno.

Sun 07 Apr

EHFM: HU-SANE + AMBER LEITH B2B ESKWIRE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 Breaks.

Thu 11 Apr

OVERGROUND

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 Rave.

Fri 12 Apr

CANNAE BEAT IT PRESENTS: JUST BETH SINGLE RELEASE PARTY LOST IN LEITH BAR & FERMENTARIA, 21:00–01:00 House and disco.

HOPELESS ROMANTICS WEE RED BAR, 23:00–03:00 Goth, New Wave and alternative.

CALIFORNIA LOVE LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00

90s/00s Hip Hop and R’n’B.

EDINBURGH UNDERGROUND PRESENTS! THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00 Trance and hard dance.

RED ROOM SOUND SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 Bass.

Sat 13 Apr

ASCENSION WEE RED BAR, 23:00–03:00

EBM, goth and industrial.

KEEP IT STEEL

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00 Metal.

MISS WORLD: EICH WITH MIIRA + FEENA SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00 Bass.

A PLAY, A PIE AND A

PINT: BRIDEZILLA AND THE ORCHARD OF SIN

22-27 APR, 1:00PM –

2:00PM

A fun fantastical comedy about the pursuit of a 'perfect' wedding and the tantalising obstacles in the way.

The King’s Theatre

OLIVER

23-27 APR, TIMES VARY

The timeless Charles Dickens story is brought to the stage.

BONNIE & CLYDE

16-20 APR, TIMES VARY

A modern musical update on the famous tale of two small-town kids becoming public enemy number one in the Great Depression.

THE DRIFTERS GIRL

9-13 APR, TIMES VARY

Telling the remarkable story of classic R’n’B group The Drifters through their own songs.

Theatre Royal

THE KITE RUNNER

9-13 APR, TIMES VARY

The hit West End and Broadway play comes to Scotland, offering a tour de force adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s bestselling novel.

Tramway PROJECT X PRESENTS

ARTIST VOICE 2024

5-6 APR, 7:00PM –

10:30PM

A choreographic performance dedicated to platforming early career dance artists from the African and Caribbean diaspora, CHARLOTTE MCLEAN AND COLLABORATORS: FUTURISTIC FOLKTALES

26-27 APR, TIMES VARY

Experimental dance theatre exploring ideas of myth, identity and reproductive justice.

Tron Theatre

REWIND

12-13 APR, 7:45PM –

10:30PM

Music, puppetry, projection and innovative lighting explore the life and death of a young woman who dared to resist authoritarianism, inspired by human rights abuse in Latin America.

LOST

5-6 APR, TIMES VARY

A story exploring all the things - emotional and physical - that can be lost.

DON’T. MAKE. TEA.

11-13 APR, 7:30PM –10:30PM

A blackly comic take on the UK benefits system.

JAMES V: KATHERINE

25-27 APR, 7:30PM10:00PM

A dramatic interpretation of a tipping point in Scottish history, told through the eyes of two young women.

Edinburgh Theatre

Assembly Roxy

AMERICAN IDIOT

11-13 APR, 7:30PM –

10:00PM

The hit, award-winning Green Day musical, perfect for current and reformed emo kids.

SENSE OF LOSS

5-6 APR, 7:00PM –

10:00PM

Different kinds of loss come together in this witty and vulnerable play.

Festival Theatre

HAMILTON

1-27 APR, 7:30PM –10:30PM

Head to the room where it happens in this global musical sensation.

Royal Lyceum Theatre

THE GIRLS OF SLENDER MEANS

13 APR-4 MAY, TIMES

VARY

Based on the remarkable novel by Muriel Sparks, in which giddy literary and amorous aspirations disguise a creeping postwar peril.

The Edinburgh Playhouse MADAGASCAR THE MUSICAL

25-27 APR, TIMES VARY

Four jungle pals escape from New York Zoo to head to into the unknown in this wild and fun adaptation.

PRETTY WOMAN

2-13 APR, TIMES VARY

The iconic Julia Roberts rom-com takes to the stage.

JOHANNES RADEBE: HOUSE OF JOJO

21 APR, 7:30PM –10:30PM

Join TV dance sensation Johannes Radebe and a host of eclectic characters in this brand-new theatrical celebration.

The Studio

JAMES V: KATHERINE

5-20 APR, TIMES VARY

A dramatic interpretation of a tipping point in Scottish history, told through the eyes of two young women.

WHEN MOUNTAINS MEET

25-26 APR, 7:30PM –10:30PM

77 years after Partition, storytellers and singers retell one person’s journey from Edinburgh to their father’s homeland of Pakistan.

Traverse Theatre

A PLAY, A PIE AND A PINT: THE SCAFF

2-6 APR, 1:00PM –2:00PM

An epic and nostalgic comedy about a group of misfits who plot the worst football tackle of all time.

90 DAYS

12-14 APR, TIMES VARY

The story of Scotland’s first female rugby players, set around the historic 1994 World Cup.

Dundee Theatre

Dundee Rep

SUNSET SONG

13 APR-4 MAY, TIMES

VARY A thrilling, contemporary adaptation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s classic novel, voted the best Scottish book of all time.

Glasgow Art

CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art LIFE-BESTOWING

CADAVEROUS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT

2 APR-18 MAY, TIMES

VARY

A group exhibition curated by Rae-Yen Song exploring the vivid possibilities of world-building.

Compass Gallery

ANNA H. GEERDES

11 APR-4 MAY, TIMES VARY

A new solo exhibition by Scotland-based painter.

Glasgow School of Art INSTANT WHIP: THE TEXTILES AND PAPERS OF FRASER TAYLOR

1977–87 REVISITED

1-20 APR, 10:00AM –4:30PM

Printed textiles, garments, drawing and painting, photography and personal ephemera drawn from Fraser Taylor’s archive exploring the creative culture of the 1980s.

Glasgow Women’s Library

COMFORT

1-18 APR, TIMES VARY

A breast quilt made by women across the UK, exploring ideas of pleasure, pain, joy and comfort through the subject of the breast.

PROJECT ESPERANZA

1 APR-11 MAY, TIMES

VARY

Entangled histories of care, migration, trauma and acceptance are stitched together in this quilt created by Project Esperanza’s Women’s sewing group in Edinburgh.

TEENAGE KICKS

1 APR-18 MAY, TIMES

VARY

Eight women’s adolescences through the swinging sixties are brought to life in this illustrative exhibition.

GoMA BEAGLES & RAMSAY:

NHOTB & RAD

1-28 APR, 11:00AM –4:00PM

Artist duo use life-size sculptures and video to create a flagship store interrogating ideas of consumerism and labour.

Street Level

Photoworks

JENNY MATTHEWS: SEWING CONFLICT

2 APR-5 MAY, TIMES VARY

Documentary war photography stitched over with local embroidery, examining the obliterating and fracturing effects of warfare.

Edinburgh

Art &Gallery DEBUT: INAUGURAL

OPEN 5-27 APR, TIMES VARY & Gallery’s first ever opencall exhibition, showcasing work by 38 international artists.

Arusha Gallery

PIPPA YOUNG + ALLYSON KEEHAN: SHIFTING ENTANGLEMENTS

1-7 APR, TIMES VARY

The Briggait

ERIN MCQUARRIE: THE TIME BETWEEN THE LIGHTS

1-5 APR, TIMES VARY

Sculptural textile pieces challenge the domestic associations of cloth, exploring its architectural and dynamic perspective.

The Common Guild

NICOLE WERMERS: DAY CARE

2-20 APR, TIMES VARY

An exhibition of new and recent sculptures set against The Common Guild’s temporary offices in 60 York Street, exploring the tension between the visibility of high art and the invisibility of care work.

The Modern Institute @ Airds Lane PÁDRAIG TIMONEY: SILTS

1-20 APR, TIMES VARY

Hand-poured mirrors that position the viewer as a participant in what is being viewed and framed.

Tramway RAMESH MARIO

NITHIYENDRAN: IDOLS OF MUD AND WATER

2-21 APR, TIMES VARY

Elaborate ceramic sculptures examine the iconographies of social, political and cultural narratives.

PRINTSHOP!

2-14 APR, TIMES VARY

A participatory print exhibition featuring a collaborative project by printer and typographer Edwin Pickstone and animator Ross Hogg, as well as workshops and a letterpress available for use.

iota @ Unlimited Studios

COLIN ROBERTSON: NORTH SOUTH EAST & WEST

20-27 APR, 12:00PM –5:00PM

Drawings inspired by vehicle lights, fashion, Gaza, gutting fish, pop songs on the tannoy, West Indian ladies, royals at the funeral, young Russians ‘marching as to war’, Sinead O’Connor.

A series of paintings exploring ideas of intimacy and femininity.

City Art Centre

SHIFTING VISTAS: 250 YEARS OF SCOTTISH LANDSCAPE

1 APR-2 JUN, TIMES VARY

Sweeping landscapes both classical and modern are drawn from the City Art Centre’s permanent collection.

Collective Gallery

ELISA GIARDINA PAPA: “U SCANTU”: A DISORDERLY TALE

2 APR-19 MAY, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

First exhibited at the 2022 Venice Biennale, U Scantu brings together ceramic sculptures and a largescale video installation to explore the Sicilian myth of the ‘donne di fora’ – women from the outside.

Dovecot

Studios ANDY WARHOL: THE

TEXTILES

1 APR-1 JUN, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

A groundbreaking showcase of the commercial textile designs of one of the most famous artist’s of the 20th century.

PAULINE CAULFIELD

TEXTILES

1 APR-20 JUL, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

Large-scale screen-printed panels that draw on architecture and ecclesiastical themes, veering between abstraction and illusion.

Fruitmarket

MARTIN BOYCE: BEFORE BEHIND

BETWEEN ABOVE

BELOW

1 APR-9 JUN, 10:00AM – 6:00PM

Glasgow-based artist whose sculptures rework the textures and forms of the built environment to explore the conceptual histories of art and architecture.

Ingleby Gallery

CAROLINE WALKER: NURTURE

3 APR-1 JUN, 11:00AM – 5:00PM

A new body of work exploring the artist’s ongoing interest in intimate depictions of women at work in both domestic and labour contexts.

National Gallery

YOUR ART WORLD

1-14 APR, TIMES VARY

Community exhibition created by young people, examining the power of creative process.

National Museum of Scotland

RISING TIDE: ART AND ENVIRONMENT IN OCEANIA

1-14 APR, 10:00AM –5:00PM

An examination of our relationship to the natural environment told through responses to climate change by Indigenous Australian and Pacific Islander artists.

Open Eye Gallery

ALASDAIR WALLACE: ALL ENQUIRIES

5-27 APR, TIMES VARY

Glasgow-based painter whose surrealist paintings explore of space and emplacement.

ROBBIE BUSHE RSA: GHOSTS IN THE GARDEN

5-27 APR, TIMES VARY

Strange, otherwordly landscapes lend a strange, haunted new resonance to landscape painting.

Royal Botanic Garden

CONNECTING HISTORIES

1-13 APR, 10:00AM –

6:00PM

An extraordinary survey of Indian botanical drawing.

Royal Scottish Academy RSA

RSA NEW CONTEMPORARIES

2024 1-24 APR, TIMES VARY

RSA New Contemporaries celebrates it’s 15th year, bringing together a brand new class of recent graduates at the absolute cutting edge of Scottish visual and fine arts.

BETWEEN THE LINES

1 APR-5 MAY, TIMES VARY

An exhibition bringing together various Scottish academicians and their innovative formal approaches.

VERSION GALORE

1-24 APR, TIMES VARY

Artworks by third year

ECA students created in response to pieces in the RSA collections.

DO HO SUH: TRACING

TIME

1 APR-1 SEP, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

Exploring the foundational role drawing and paper play in acclaimed South Korean artist Do Ho Suh’s practice.

Scottish National Portrait Gallery BEFORE AND AFTER COAL: IMAGES AND VOICES FROM SCOTLAND’S MINING COMMUNITIES

1 APR-15 SEP, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

Quiet, intimate portrait photography examining the history and ongoing legacy of coal mining on Scottish communities.

Sett Studios

THE DEAD SUN THROWS UP DUST

13-21 APR, TIMES VARY

A multimedia group exhibition by Frieda Ford, Lauren Green, Georgia Holman and Maria Wrang-Rasmussen, working from a volcanic root and presenting fluid journeys through otherworlds and shifting time.

Summerhall YUMIKO ONO: COMPOSITION IV

1 APR-1 NOV, 12:00PM – 5:30PM

Developed out of a residency program in Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, this large-scale work explores intersections between art and architecture.

JOHN MOONEY: METAMORPHOSIS

1 APR-2 JUN, 12:00PM – 5:30PM

A selection of watercolour drawings developed over four decades, exploring ideas of change, contradiction and harmony.

IMOGEN HERO: A TOPOGRAPHY OF MICRO PLANETS

1 APR-26 MAY, 12:00PM – 5:30PM

Photography created through microbial cultures explores ideas of crossspecies collaboration. Part of Edinburgh Science Festival.

FUTURE PROOF: GEOMETRY, ART AND MIND

1 APR-26 MAY, 12:00PM – 5:30PM

Science and art come together to explore the gap between how things are perceived and how they actually are. Part of Edinburgh Science Festival.

DAWN FELICIA KNOX: POST-INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGIES

1 APR-26 MAY, 12:00PM – 5:30PM

Multimedia installations exploring the way plants and fungi work together to undo the toxic residue of industrialisation. Part of Edinburgh Science Festival.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art PAOLOZZI AT 100

1-21 APR, 10:00AM –5:00PM

Celebrating the centenary of the birth of Scottish pop artist Eduardo Paolozzi with a retrospective exhibition, including his Mickey tapestry and the tile designs at Tottenham Court Road tube station.

EMMA HISLOP: MYTHIC INSTRUMENTS

1 APR-26 MAY, 12:00PM – 5:30PM

Showcasing the intersection between science and craft by exploring ideas of materiality. Part of Edinburgh Science Festival.

YUNING CHEN: MORALITY CALCULUS

1 APR-26 MAY, 12:00PM – 5:30PM

A bioart installation that recounts the endeavour of creating bread fermented with yeast-human cell hybrids in a synthetic biology lab. Part of Edinburgh Science Festival.

JAMES STEPHEN

WRIGHT: WE PRETENDED IT WASN’T GREEN

1 APR-26 MAY, 12:00PM – 5:30PM

Generative animation created through satellite data, in which a frog and mushrooms represent tipping points. Part of Edinburgh Science Festival.

Talbot Rice

Gallery

CANDICE LIN

1 APR-1 JUN, TIMES

VARY Situated in Talbot Rice Gallery’s former natural history museum, this exhibition examines how ideas of the human and nonhuman have been shaped by histories of science.

Dundee

Art

Cooper Gallery

THE SCALE OF THINGS

1-6 APR, TIMES VARY

Three moving image works by Grace Ndiritu, Saodat Ismailova and Margaret Tait exploring relations between humans and nonhumans through frameworks of intimacy and spirituality.

Generator

Projects

STATE OF PRINT 4-14 APR, 12:00PM –5:00PM

A group exhibition and series of events exploring print practices ‘statehood’.

V&A Dundee

PHOTO CITY: HOW IMAGES SHAPE THE URBAN WORLD

1 APR-20 OCT, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

Bringing together items from the V&A archive as well as two specially commissioned works to explore how two distinctly modern phenomena – cities and photography – have informed each other.

The Skinny On... Bikini Body

Ahead of releasing their new EP Weird Party, Vicky Kavanagh of Edinburgh outfit Bikini Body takes on this month’s Q&A

What’s your favourite place to visit?

We really love visiting other cities to play gigs! We had the most fun on tour with The Bug Club last year, blasting round the Highlands in a nine-seater. It’s so nice to connect with folk in a new place!

What’s your favourite food?

Anything that’s totally inappropriate to consume prior to performing. For example, a whole camembert for one which I ate before our first ever gig.

What’s your favourite colour?

Yellow and blue because you can find these prominently featured on our *shameless self promotion time* upcoming EP and brand new merch!

Who was your hero growing up?

My hero while I was growing up as a baby singer in a band was, and still is, Ari Up of The Slits. She showed me that you don’t need to sing in a conventional manner to be in a band.

Whose work inspires you now?

We’re getting super inspired by the ethos of our label, Optimo Music, and that crossover between punk and dance championed by them and others like DFA.

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

Kyle and Josh would definitely want Nick Cave... Dan would love Mark E. Smith, who I think would be a terrible guest but entertaining.

For me and Harry, Caroline Polachek as she is our idol and queen. Don’t think we’d waste time on cooking.

What’s your all-time favourite album?

Kyle’s is Radiohead’s OK Computer, mine is The Slits’ Cut because it’s given me the confidence to pursue my creativity, Harry chose Susumu Yokota’s Sakura as it’s serene and calming, Dan’s is The Fall’s The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall, and Josh says Darkness on the Edge of Town by Bruce Springsteen.

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

That CBGB biopic about Hilly Kristal, played by Alan Rickman... Rupert Grint as a pound shop Johnny Rotten is particularly distressing.

What book would you take to a desert island?

I’m not sure about its desert island suitability but Simon Reynolds’ Rip It Up and Start Again, about the original post-punk era.

Who’s the worst?

This may seem like Bikini Body marketing but honestly, the Daily Mail. I was on a flight the other day, reading it over the shoulder of a man in the seat in front of me. It was a reminder of the small-minded, arrogant, hateful things they write in order to stoke division for the sake of readership and relevance.

When did you last cry?

I cried the other day listening to To Zion by Lauryn Hill because I thought it would be so wonderful to be the child of someone who would write you such a beautiful love song.

What are you most scared of?

I am very scared of wasps. We once played a gig on Leith Walk to hundreds of passers-by and when a wasp landed directly on my mic, I started running around screaming with mic in hand.

When did you last vomit?

I vomit often. Pretty much any night of heavy drinking will end with me vomming. What’s worse is I have no shame, I will vom anywhere.

Tell us a secret?

I recently vommed in my hands in the back of

a cab on the way back from drinks with work at like 9.30pm. Don’t tell my boss!

Which celebrity could you take in a fight?

As a band? The Beatles.

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

If all of the band could be reincarnated as the many-headed hydra then we’d never be apart and could make music all day, even if our heads got chopped off.

With festival season on the horizon, what was the first festival you ever went to?

The first festival we (almost) all went to together was End of the Road in 2019. It was there that we met our synth and guitar player Harry for the first time. I vividly remember the smell of Sebastian from Viagra Boys’ vomit as he ran offstage to be sick during their set.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever witnessed at a festival?

At End of the Road in 2022, we were camped next to a set of particularly rabid lads who had formed a cult around something they referred to as ‘The Porky Tent’. They could frequently be heard chanting, “spend a night in the porky tent, spend a night in the porky tent.”

You’re headlining our stage at Kelburn this summer – what can we expect?

Cowbell, cowbell and more cowbell.

What other bands are you looking forward to catching on the festival circuit this year?

Well, of course we’re very excited to share The Skinny stage with our good pals Eyes of Others and Brenda. We’re playing Manchester Psych Fest later this year and we’re really looking forward to seeing A.Savage as a few of us bonded over Parquet Courts in the early days of BB and his solo stuff is excellent.

Weird Party is released on 27 Apr via Optimo Music

Bikini Body play Stereo, Glasgow, 19 Apr; Kelburn Garden Party, Kelburn Estate, nr Fairlie, 4-8 Jul; Manchester Psych Fest, Manchester, 31 Aug

instagram.com/bikinibodymusic

Photo: Rory Barnes