The Skinny January 2021

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January 2021 Issue 180

Express Yourself

Celebrating creativity for its own sake

January 2020

Books

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Art January 2020

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The Skinny's songs to get us through January BTS — Dynamite Sophie Lloyd, Dames Brown — Calling Out (feat. Dames Brown) TAEMIN — MOVE Troye Sivan feat. Kacey Musgraves and Mark Ronson — Easy Stan Bush — Dare It's from the 80s animated The Transformers: The Movie and it is POWERFUL. Mogwai — Dry Fantasy Boney M — Calendar Song Pom Poko ­— Like a Lady Hot Chocolate — Everyone's a Winner Valerie June — Long Lonely Road Phoebe Bridgers — If We Make It Through December Sickick — Gomd Ellen Allien — XTC Erik Mijönes — Lion of Love (from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga) Harry Styles — Kiwi

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

Issue 180, January 2021 © Radge Media Ltd. Get in touch: E: hello@theskinny.co.uk January 2021

The Skinny is Scotland's largest independent entertainment & listings magazine, and offers a wide range of advertising packages and affordable ways to promote your business. Get in touch to find out more. E: sales@theskinny.co.uk All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the explicit permission of the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within this publication do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the printer or the publisher. Printed by DC Thomson & Co. Ltd, Dundee ABC verified Jan – Dec 2019: 28,197

printed on 100% recycled paper

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Championing creativity in Scotland

Meet the team We asked – In celebration of our theme, what do you create when no-one's watching? Editorial

Rosamund West Editor-in-Chief "Highly detailed pencil drawings of mountains; inedible cakes. "

Peter Simpson Digital Editor, Food & Drink Editor "Daring innovations in arable farming in my Stardew Valley save. Reader, I have so much computerised corn, send help."

Anahit Behrooz Events Editor "Chaos"

Jamie Dunn Film Editor, Online Journalist "Yoga. Yes, my downward facing dog looks like an old mattress slung over a hedge, but in my mind, my vinyasa is as graceful as Margot Fonteyn."

Tallah Brash Music Editor "Generally I'm very good at creating a mess. Also baking, but you can actually watch me doing that on Instagram if you like: @all.my.bakes!"

Nadia Younes Clubs Editor "Porridge toppings. I'm a real artiste."

Polly Glynn Comedy Editor "Mess. And alienating thoughts."

Katie Goh Intersections Editor "Curses"

Eliza Gearty Theatre Editor "Bad pop"

Heather McDaid Books Editor "Elaborate fanfiction plots that I will one day write."

Sales & Business

Production

Rachael Hood Art Director, Production Manager "Poo"

Adam Benmakhlouf Art Editor "Hazardous, aerobic, improvisational dances to upbeat, high emotion music (see my 2021 survival song, Calling Out)."

Phoebe Willison Designer "Really average tweets."

Sandy Park Commercial Director "A trail of destruction in my kitchen."

Tom McCarthy Creative Projects Manager "I create haikus That nobody ever reads Except for this one"

George Sully Sales and Brand Strategist "[redacted]"

Laurie Presswood General Manager "Nothing. It was my 2020 New Year's resolution to do karaoke but then singing was made illegal. I won't be risking creativity again."

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Editorial Words: Rosamund West

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January 2021 — Chat

o kick off 2021, we’ve been thinking about what we can do to help make our readers’ lives a little brighter in these months of winter lockdown. In our lead feature, we look at creativity for its own sake, and the many therapeutic benefits that come from engaging in making. The flow state that comes through concentrating on creative activity is tremendously beneficial for escape, stress relief, and feelings of self-worth. When the feature was initially pitched to us by Phoebe I-H it sparked a lot of thought around the value of creative activity and why the perceived barriers to entry exist. From an early age we are taught that only people who’re good at drawing should draw; only people who’re pitch-perfect should sing; only people who can refine these skills to such a degree that they can use them to become productive members of our economy should do them at all. And that’s really just total shit, isn’t it? Creative pursuits can make your life better, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re any good at them, or if anyone else even sees what you’ve made. It’s the process that counts. We suggest taking time to make; pick up a paintbrush, expressive dance, sing at the top of your lungs. We’ve taken this joy of creativity as a loose theme for the issue. In design, we meet Stefanie Ying Lin Cheong and Morven Mulgrew to hear about their playful, DIY (in the best sense) project Quality Craft Vision (QCV), a digital craft fair-cum-shopping channel. Berlin-based DJ and producer Samantha Poulter, aka Logic1000 discusses recording her EP in lockdown as a form of escapism. As always just now, much is infused with the weird effects of the pandemic. We chat to Glasgow singer-songwriter Lizzie Reid about her debut EP, Cubicle, recorded at home in the last ten days of the before times. Art talks to Emma Talbot about her fascinating exhibition in DCA, currently tantalisingly installed

but closed to the public until restrictions are once again lifted. Intersections meets Edinburgh’s Queer Skate Collective, formed in lockdown to offer a safe, inclusive space for communal joy. Comedy ponders whether online comedy is here to stay; and we meet a host of women-led musical projects – Hen Hoose, The F-List, POWA and Popgirlz – currently working to address longstanding inequalities and build a better music scene for all post-COVID. Film meets Bill and Turner Ross, the directors of Vegas dive bar-set Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets, to talk longingly about the importance of pubs. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead discuss making ambitious sci-fi on a shoestring with time-travelling movie Synchronic; and The Broken Hearts Gallery’s writer-director, Natalie Krinsky, explains how she’s given the Hollywood romantic comedy a welcome upgrade. In Books, we meet Bryan Washington to discuss his debut novel Memorial, a deep and multi-layered look at the lives and relationships of two queer men of colour in the USA. Looking forward, we’re beginning the year with some exciting new projects to engage and enliven our community. Taking this societal break as a creative challenge, our Food and Drink section has departed from its longstanding January survey to launch a new writing competition. Food is arguably the most universal subject, capable of being the conduit for so much in terms of culture, history, identity. We’re opening up to creative explorations that depart from the orthodox ‘food journalism’ form – a more complete explanation from Food editor Peter can be found on p43. We’re also launching a new partnership with Edinburgh International Festival, who are generously supporting us to develop a six-month-long series of long-form pieces of cultural journalism. An open call for contributions can be found on p12 – tell your friends.

Cover Artist Max Machen Max Machen is an Illustrator and printmaker from Yorkshire who is now based in Edinburgh. He creates fun, colourful, visually witty images that bring smiles to pages, screens, walls and faces! His ideas are often born from a strong coffee. @maxymachen

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Love Bites

Love Bites: The Fuzzy, Liminal Spaces of a Night Out This month’s columnist reflects on the best, and most missed, part of a night out Words: Anahit Behrooz

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January 2021 — Chat

miss the edges of the night. The middle part, the part that the night actually revolves around – the DJ sets and headline acts and songs you’ve been dying to dance to for weeks – is all well and good. They have their place. But it’s the fuzzy, liminal spaces of the night that I love and that I have been aching for since the pandemic and lockdown and the Tories shut everything down. They’re found in the smoking area where you finally talk to the boy you fancy, blood and vodka fizzing through your body. Or when you’re elbowing your way into the men’s bathroom because the women’s line is too long (because what is the gender binary anyway), laughing with people you’ve never met at the apoplectic confusion behind you. Or when you interlace your fingers through your friend’s, pulling them through the crowds to sit on the pavement outside, the boundaries between the two of you collapsing in the smoke and stickiness. Once, a friend and I, bored of whatever remix the DJ was playing, sat talking in the corridor of The Mash House for so long that all the tipsy undergrads started showing us the stamps on their hands as they headed into the room. I don’t remember much else from that night. But I remember that. A friend recently described these moments as the sensation of “static on your skin”, and it is exactly that. It’s the electric charge of potential, the rush of heady chemicals at the thought that anything could happen and maybe already has. That dizzying feeling of knowing you are living through something that is both so ephemeral and palpable, and that you will remember for years to come.

Crossword Solutions Across 1. OUT OF COMMISSION 9. DEMONETISED 10. CUD 11. NO SHIT 12. BAD 13. EGOS 15. RECITE 17. CERAMIC 20. MASONRY 21. SUDOKU 23. KEPT 24. OFF 25. TAHINI 29. TOE 30. IN ISOLATION 31. HATERS GONNA HATE Down 11. ORDINARY 2. TAMES 3. FAN FICTION 4. OATH 5. MISTAKES 6. SIDE 7. INCOGNITO 8. NUDIST 14. TABULA RASA 16. CRAPPIEST 18. CRAFTING 19. AUDIENCE 22. SKETCH 26. IBIZA 27. TIER 28. GO ON

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Heads Up

We’ve pulled together the best online workshops to get you up and making this January, as well as unmissable art and theatre shows for a wee dose of creative inspiration. Compiled by Anahit Behrooz

FLOW, Visual Arts Scotland

Shielders

Heads Up

Online, until 31 Jan

Traverse Theatre, Online, until 31 Jan

With their annual exhibition cancelled due to the pandemic, Visual Arts Scotland – one of the country’s most prestigious arts platforms – have curated a unique digital show to celebrate the stunning, multi-disciplinary work produced by their members over the past several months. Featuring everything from sculpture and jewellery to painting and mixed media work, FLOW is a testament to the boundless creativity shown by artists this year.

Shielders is back on the Traverse’s digital stage following its initial August run. Penned by Matilda Ibini, this stunning Afrofuturist piece of theatre follows three friends, and the otherworldly lengths they turn to in order to get through lockdown. As shielding continues long after the rest of the world opens up, the boundaries between the new normal and the paranormal start to blur.

Photo: Traverse Theatre Company

Susie Leiper, FLOW Photo: Gaelle Beri Michael Ahomka as Lindsay, Shielders

Sophie Wakefield, Glasgow Zine Library

Celtic Connections

Feelzines Workshop

January 2021 — Chat

In serendipitous keeping with this month’s theme, this wholesome workshop at Glasgow Zine Library looks at how creativity and zine-making can be used as a form of self-care. Led by trainee art therapist Sophie Wakefield, the workshop will be limited to 20 participants and will include group discussion, hands on activity time, and plenty of comfort breaks, the perfect antidote to those gloomy January blues.

Credit: Kate Costigan

Online, 15 Jan - 2 Feb This year’s Celtic Connections – Glasgow’s annual celebration of folk, roots, and world music – may have moved online, but its line-up is as palpably explosive as it has ever been. Festival passes start at £30 for 19 days’ worth of performances from the likes of Elephant Sessions, José González, Declan O’Rourke and Amira Kheir – snap yours up quick.

The first step of being creative is just… to create: pick up a pencil, pick up a needle, pick up a recorder (hey, we all start somewhere). Reconfigure’s life drawing classes are the ultimate low pressure environment to just begin making, with fun themed sessions online every Wednesday at 7pm, and chill Sunday afternoon sessions with very limited capacity in Summerhall at 1pm.

Hayley Tompkins: After a Long Sleep, It Woke Up + Walter Price: Pearl Lines

Alan Davie: Beginning of a Far-off World Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh, 22 Jan - 6 Mar

The Modern Institute, Glasgow, until 16 Jan Photo: Patrick Jameson

Online, 27 Jan, 7pm

Summerhall and Online, Edinburgh, various dates and times

Celtic Connections

Image: Courtesy of Gallery 108

Feminist Book Club, CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art

Reconfigure Life Drawing

Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery

Image: Colin Dougall

Glasgow Zine Library, Online, 17 Jan, 2pm

The Normal, Gabrielle Goliath

The Normal Alan Davie, Mama Idol, 1976

Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, 29 Jan - 10 Apr

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Hayley Tompkins, Yellow Politic

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Photo: John Mackie

Manipulate Festival Online and various venues, 21 Jan - 21 Feb

Polymer Clay Earring Workshop

Polymer earrings are in baby, if my Etsy cart is anything to go by. But why buy when you could make your own pair (or three)? This at-home workshop by Edinburgh Craft Club, part of local art studio We Make, includes a kit of materials sent out to your address and a live digital workshop for following along at home.

Edinburgh Craft Club Polymer Earrings

Lonely Sailor Weather Report , Manipulate Festival

Heads Up

Edinburgh Craft Club, Online, 20 Jan, 7pm

Scotland’s most charming festival is back, showcasing an unmissable hybrid programme dedicated to puppetry and visual theatre, including cutting edge digital content and an outdoor kinetic sculpture series inspired by Boccaccio’s The Decameron. Highlights from this year include The Lonely Sailor Weather Report from South African company Ukwanda Puppet and Design Collective and the COVID-19 inspired piece The Diktat Synthesizer, created by Scottish sculptor and designer Guy Bishop.

Long Stitch Journal Workshop JuJu Books, Online, 23 Jan 13 Feb

Clay Kits Dundee Ceramics Workshop, opens 6 Jan While Dundee Ceramics Workshop remains closed for in-person classes until well into 2021, their at-home kits offer the chance to continue getting mucky with clay and sculpt something beautiful (or something that can’t stand up straight – you do you). Finished masterpieces can be dropped off safely at the studio to be glazed and fired, and the kits have a pricing tier to keep creativity as accessible as possible.

Clay Kits, Dundee Ceramics Workshop

CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, 15 Jan - 28 Feb

JuJu Books Workshop

Antigone, Interrupted, Scottish Dance Theatre

All the Young Nudes Life Drawing Online, Mondays from 4 Jan, 7pm Photo: Courtesy of All the Young Nudes

Iman Tajik: The Dreamers

Iman Tajik: The Dreamers Stills, Edinburgh, 12 Jan - 13 Feb

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Knitting the Landscape Workshop Online, 9 Jan, 10am Photo: Karie Westermann

Photo: Courtesy of artist and Stills

Image: Lucy Letherland

Online, 15 Jan, 2pm

A unique digital piece that delves deep into the craft behind theatre, Introducing… Antigone, Interrupted combines footage from the original production of Antigone, Interruped created by Scottish Dance Theatre, along with scenes reimagined for digital streaming and exclusive behind-thescenes conversations with the creatives behind the show, in order to uncover the continuing relevance of the classical story in our contemporary world.

January 2021 — Chat

Untitled Paisley shawl design, (1840s-1850s), ambi

Creative Writing for Fearties: Cinema Memories, Glasgow Women's Library

Introducing... Antigone, Interrupted Dundee Rep, Online, until 31 May

Photo: Maria Falconer

The CCA and Glasgow School of Art have partnered up for this exhibition of specially commissioned work informed by fashion and costume artefacts found in the art school’s Archives and Collections. Featuring work by Scotlandbased artists Fiona Jardine, Hanneline Visnes, and Rabiya Choudhry, this exhibition digs deep into Scottish textile history with fresh eyes, fashioning the unexpected and new out of the past.

Photo: Gillian Stewart

Photo: Courtesy of the GSA Archives & Collections

ambi

There is nothing more exciting in the world than brand new stationery (I’ve checked everything else out and can promise this is true), and what is more brand new than a notebook made from scratch? Glasgow-based bookbinding studio JuJu Books have crafted various unique at-home kits accompanied by online tutorials, including this long stitch journal workshop perfect for beginners and old hands alike

January 2021

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5 Meet the Team — 6 Editorial — 7 Love Bites — 8 Heads Up 12 Crossword — 36 Intersections — 39 Albums — 41 Film & TV — 42 Books 43 Food — 45 Comedy — 46 The Skinny On… Thanyia Moore

Features

16 E xpress yourself! In the depths of winter, a love letter to being creative regardless of skill. 19 G lasgow singer-songwriter Lizzie Reid introduces her debut EP, Cubicle. 20 Women-led music projects Hen Hoose, The F-List and Popgirlz on their plans for 2021.

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23 Bryan Washington on Memorial, his multilayered debut novel looking at the lives and relationships of two queer men of colour in the USA. 24 A Showcase of work by Glasgow-based illustrator Katie Smith. 26 Berlin-based DJ and producer Samantha Poulter, aka Logic1000, on lockdown, remixes and her new EP.

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28 Morven Mulgrew and Stefanie Ying Lin Cheong discuss their Instagram shopping channel Quality Craft Vision. 30 Broken Hearts Gallery writerdirector Natalie Krinsky introduces her irresistibly charming debut. 31 Directing duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead return with time-travel movie Synchronic.

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33 A look at the future of online comedy with Edinburgh Comedy Award-winner Jordan Brookes. 34 Emma Talbot introduces her forthcoming DCA exhibition exploring narratives around grief.

On the website...

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Image Credits: (Left to right, top to bottom) Ruth Mae Martin; Chris Almeida; Chelsea Lowe; Dailey Hubbard; Katie Smith; Xiaofu Wang; Morven Mulgrew; Broken Hearts Gallery; Synchronic; Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets; Anneliese Nappa; Ruth Clark

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A round-up of 2020’s best new Scottish music, our Books Team’s favourite reads from last year, and an in-depth guide to pitching your ideas to The Skinny

January 2021 — Contents

32 Bill and Turner Ross on their new film Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets and the importance of pubs.

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THE SKINNY  × Edinburgh International Festival

How to apply: Email pitches@theskinny.co.uk with a condensed summary of your proposed article, zeroing in on the particular angle you would like to take: who or what would you like to write about? Why is it important we cover them? What do you hope the article will do? Pitches should be 200-300 words. Please link or attach two or three writing samples (unpublished pieces are welcome as writing samples).

The Skinny team up with Edinburgh International Festival for a new series of in-depth features exploring the arts in Scotland

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n 2021, Edinburgh International Festival and The Skinny are teaming up to produce a new monthly series of critical writing centred around the arts in Scotland. The finished pieces will be published between March and August 2021. We’re opening the doors to pitches from early-career writers based in Scotland for a paid commission to be published in The Skinny’s print magazine, online and across our social networks. We want this project to celebrate and shine a light on the cultural sector during this protracted period of critical need. We have no fixed ideas of what the commissions should look like, just that they should explore an element of theatre, music,

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performance, and/or dance past, present and future. Interviews, opinion pieces, deep dives into the history of a creative sector are all welcome. Although this is a joint collaboration between Edinburgh International Festival and The Skinny, there is no requirement to write on work featured previously at either organisation: we want to hear fresh, exciting ideas about Scotland’s performing arts scene at its most expansive and inclusive. We are also keen to take a creative approach to digital content running in parallel to each article, so if you have ideas around how your ideas could also be represented in other multimedia forms (video, social, digital event, podcast, etc) we would love to hear them alongside your pitch.

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January 2021 — Chat

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Who is eligible: Anyone who can write fluently and convincingly about culture in Scotland. There is no requirement to have been published previously, however we do need to see examples of finished pieces of critical or journalistic writing, so we can get a sense of your writing style and how it might fit with The Skinny. We are particularly keen to platform writers who are underrepresented in Scottish cultural journalism, including but not limited to writers of marginalised genders and/or LGBTQ+, writers from BAME or socio-economically marginalised backgrounds, and disabled and neurodiverse writers – if you have an idea you are excited about, please do get in touch! Deadline: Sunday 31 January 2021 Successful pitches will then be developed with our editors into a longer form piece of writing, around 2000-2500 words. Published pieces will receive a fee of £300.

Across 1. Not working (3,2,10) 9. Stripped of financial value – I needed most (anag) (11) 10. Chew this to ponder (3) 11. Obviously! (2,4) 12. Up there with the good and the ugly (3) 13. Some are more fragile than others (4) 15. Repeat aloud (6) 17. Hardened clay (7) 20. Stonework (7) 21. The crossword's numerical cousin (6) 23. Treasured (4) 24. Expired (3) 25. Ground sesame seed paste (6) 29. Foot-finger (3) 30. Separately (2,9) 31. People determined to dislike your work will do so regardless (6,5,4)

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Down 1. Pedestrian (8) 2. Masters (5) 3. Non-canonical stories about established characters (3,7) 4. Promise (4) 5. Boo-boos (8) 6. Faction (4) 7. With one's identity concealed (9) 8. Someone very keen on being naked (6) 14. Blank slate – basalt aura (anag) (6,4) 16. Most rubbish (9) 18. Artisanal making (8) 19. Spectators (8) 22. Draft (6) 26. Hey so I'm just gonna give you this one, figured we could all do with a gimme after 2020. The answer is 'Ibiza', it doesn't even relate to the theme. Happy new year! (5) 27. Level (4) 28. Just try (2,2)

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Compiled by George Sully

Turn to page 7 for the solutions — 12 —

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January 2021

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Creative Comfort Illustration: Max Machen

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anuary in Scotland is a struggle at the best of times. It’s dark, it’s wet, it’s cold (but not cold enough to be magical); you’ve used up all your cheer on Christmas, and everyone is trying to get you to give up something like booze or dairy. There’s also the burden of expectation of resolutions to contend with – are you going to drastically and permanently change your habits now, in the dark, in the middle of a pandemic? Do you even need to? When we were thinking about what we find useful in difficult times (e.g. the last ten months) a lot of it came down to creativity. Making time to do things, build things, experiment and play without an expectation of productivity feels really important right now. Our education system and broader culture train us to believe that we shouldn’t participate in creative pursuits unless we’re good enough to do them as a job. We’re calling bullshit on that in our lead feature – it’s the doing that matters, not the outcome or a perceived audience. Here’s why you should sing even if you’re tone-deaf, and embark on elaborate craft projects even if they’re a total mess.

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Music

Capturing Your Creativity One writer discusses the importance of finding your creative release, even if you’re not very good at the thing you’re creating Words: Phoebe I-H Illustration: Ruth Mae Martin

November 2020 – Feature

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am in the shower and I am warbling. I am in the car, tapping a beat on the steering wheel as I poorly attempt to harmonise with what’s playing on the radio. I am hoovering, belting out classic R’n’B diva hits. I am absolutely not a strong singer. In fact when I was wee I was so tone-deaf that my mum insisted I got singing lessons. Lessons fixed the tone-deafness, but a combination of lack of practise and the ‘occasional’ cigarettes I’ve been pretending I don’t smoke to my mum/doctor/dentist/self for ten years means that my vocal range has gone. But here I am twittering away. On rare good-mood occasions, my singing attempts are accompanied by dance moves. My dancing is, well, interesting. My first ever school report for PE read: ‘We fear Phoebe may never be able to catch a ball, and she runs with neither speed nor stamina.’ No joke. So you can imagine how (not) coordinated my limbs are when I’m trying to bust out the shuffle. But still I flail around. It’s my own nonsense pyjama party, or as I prefer to call it, ‘loungewear rave’, glass of wine in hand imagining my pals are around me learning the choreo too.

“What does it matter if nobody knows I’ve been playing the harp badly? What if I just... enjoyed it?”

I can’t dance too hard or I’ll shake the piles of old magazines and cheap glue sticks from my desk to the floor. I’ve been making collages the way you did before Pinterest was a thing, moodboarding with scissors, A4 paper and glue, sticking down absolutely anything that takes my fancy, doodling the world’s plainest stickmen and boxes in felt tip on top of my craftings. It feels very teenage to be acting like a fake pop star in my office surrounded by amateur art equipment. Mini-me in my head whispers: “You should be doing something PRODUCTIVE!” Sometimes it does something even worse, lying in wait until I’m really enjoying my activities, piping up with “Wow, this is great, like really great! Imagine if we did this all the time? Fun, as a job?! Work harder at this, be better, and we could do that.” Yet as a kid when I tore up and down the street on my bike I wasn’t imagining I could be Danny MacAskill. We find it so difficult to make space and time for ourselves just to have fun; there’s always something else to be doing, something else to distract us, some way to make cash. Making space to express ourselves just for the pure joy of it is rapidly becoming a dying art. In a world where we’ve been taught to think ‘bigger’ with all we do so many little joys turn into side hustles and potential projects instead of pure, simple fun. Don’t get me wrong, full respect to anybody who’s managed the exceptionally difficult task of turning their passion into their job. But if you’re — 16 —

lucky enough to do what you love for work what can you do for fun? Or to – shock horror – relax? When you’ve run out of books, watched everything worth watching on Netflix, and you’re finally done with endlessly scrolling on your phone, what are you turning to? It’s undeniable that last year so many people who had managed to turn their creative passion into a career saw it flop, through no fault of their own. We all know people who no longer even want to do that particular creative passion in their spare time, purely for the enjoyment of it; my DJ gigs evaporated and looking at my decks just makes me feel lost. Unless we can prove the productive worth of a task we don’t seem to want to do it. But with so much unexpected free time last year I sang, flailed and collaged much more than I used to. And once I get past the nonsense thoughts like, “You’re shite at this”, “You’re just having...FUN???”, “This isn’t allowed” etc, concentrating on breathing and moving and cutting and sticking takes me out of my own head enough to feel truly relaxed, during and after. Getting in the zone (aka the flow state – Google it, it’s cool) and doing anything that makes you focus truly on the task at hand, and nothing else, is a form of easily-accessible meditation in its own right. While I’m watching TV, or looking at Instagram for the 46th time that day, the voice that

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Music

“As a kid when I tore up and down the street on my bike I wasn’t imagining I could be Danny MacAskill”

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things that are in absolutely no way related to your dreams or career goals, things that can easily be done on your own at home. That way they can’t be taken away from you by anyone or anything. Try a bunch of different activities until something clicks. Don’t read books and watch YouTube tutorials to try and figure out how to make or do the perfect thing. Don’t compare yourself to others, or even look at someone else’s work. Put pen to paper and don’t overthink it. Write those lyrics; paint that picture; slice scissors through a magazine – maybe even this magazine – and do what feels right. Unless, of course, you’re baking, then you probably want to follow a recipe. I’m notoriously awful at baking. My friend Claire has shown literally everyone we know the photo of The Great Banana Bread Fiasco of 2017, and the many – too many to list – stories of my kitchen creations gone wrong have become a running joke between me and my pals. But during lockdown, my mum bought me a book on how baking can be mindful. The book’s introduction begins by telling you to accept from the start that your bread will not be the finest example of a loaf you’ve ever seen, and that’s okay because it’s your loaf. Just revel in the fact that it’s yours. And so I am in the kitchen, crooning and twirling along to a record, and I’m absolutely covered in flour.

January 2021 – Feature

demands productivity comes back, but anything daft or interesting without a screen can connect me to that flow state. That’s a secret spot of pleasure just for me and me alone, and I can give myself the opportunity to just express myself, as long as I keep clicking delete on the brain-emails with the subject lines: “Re: Looking Uncool” and “Urgent! No me time allowed”. Doodling, drawing, cooking, reading, playing sport, cross-stitch, singing, writing, dancing, making models, twiddling on the guitar, painting your nails, trampolining on your bed, even playing catch across the coffee table, can all get you in the zone. Are you going to play catch for Scotland? Definitely not, but that’s not the point is it? Do your flatmates notice that you’ve got nail varnish all over your hands? Probably not. Even if they have, who cares?! We’re all scared to do something – anything – and not be good at it, and feel embarrassed. We’re scared to simply enjoy things in case we fail. But when you were wee there were no brain-emails eating up your inbox. Your out of office was always on

as you did all your favourite things just for you. My cut-out creations aren’t going to sell at auction for £10,000; my poems should have ‘by Phoebe, aged 3’ signed at the bottom; sometimes when I hear recordings of myself singing I want to slap a lock through my lips and throw away the key. But what does it matter if those recordings aren’t for anyone’s ears but mine. Or if only I re-read my scribbles, and hang my collages inside my wardrobe for only me to view? What does it matter if nobody knows I’ve been playing the harp badly? What if I just... enjoyed it? I know it’s possibly the grimmest time ever, and the idea of making space to do anything creative requires potentially non-existent motivation, but do you not deserve to do something that is just for you? Surely that is your motivation. Nobody needs to see, hear, or even know about what you’re up to if you don’t want them to, and picking up things you enjoyed as a child but no longer do is a quality start to self-expression. Or prove your ‘I’m rubbish at this’ voice wrong and push yourself to try things you think you can’t do. I could never hula hoop as a kid and now I can; several friends have joined the online All The Young Nudes life drawing classes and are transfixed in concentration each week, delighted with their drawing improvements. Do

January 2021

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Home Run We chat to Glasgow singer-songwriter Lizzie Reid about her debut EP, Cubicle Interview: Skye Butchard Music

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Photo: Chris Almeida

the idea of releasing, but it was never quite right, I felt like it could go one of two ways, but when it came down to it, this had to be the one. I’m a very anxious person… I do always have a sense of time. There was less of that because we were at home the whole time.” That homely quality manifests through a wonderfully close recording. The gentle fingerpicked guitars of Always Lovely, the closeness of Reid’s breath on the mic – and even the gentle meowing of her cat Ivan at the end of Seamless – all offer heartfelt textures that might not have been captured without a home recording. The sense of home continues with her bandmates, with Reid’s cousin Catriona playing cello twice across the project. A seasoned live performer, there’s a maturity to Reid’s performances – especially on Always Lovely, with stark poetic lines like ‘You’ve changed your name / It’s engraved in a park bench’. As it happens, that track turns out to be the oldest of the collection, and Reid feels that her lyric writing has improved since. “My writing was less to the point,” she says. “I used vague language that could mean a multitude of things. To me, Always Lovely is about the idea of self and how you’re perceived. “I’m a bit of a social chameleon,” Reid continues. “I can change depending on my surroundings. It’s referring to that shapeshifting, but ultimately there’s one part of you that’s always there. There’s a few lines from back then that you’d have to ask to understand it, whereas Seamless is very much a breakup story.” Part of that change comes from a newfound power to write about herself without feeling uncomfortable. She says: “It takes time to write that way, I think. I ended up finding being direct liberating. It’s like, ‘I have all of these — 19 —

“I ended up finding being direct liberating. It’s like, ‘I have all of these feelings, and now this room of people knows about it, and I’m still alive’” Lizzie Reid feelings, and now this room of people knows about it, and I’m still alive.’ I think you have to fall in love with the process a bit. “Lyrics are a big thing for me,” she adds when we talk about her influences (Julia Jacklin, Laura Marling and Big Thief come up). “I often can’t see past lyrics a lot of the time. I listened to Black Dog by Arlo Parks the other day, and it was the lyrics that kept me there and engaged with it.” There’s an off-the-cuff quality to Reid’s music that’s emphasised on Tribute, a rough demo that made it onto the EP unpolished, as first thing the listener hears. “I couldn’t imagine what I would do with that song with any other bells or whistles,” she says. “It could have easily been lost, that feeling that I got from that particular demo, and I was unsure if we could create it again. It’s nice that it’s just on my phone I think.” These songs are journal entries in part, of a difficult part of Reid’s life. “Last year was a journey,” she jokingly exaggerates. “It was a needed journey though. I’m in a different place now. I’ve learnt a lot more about myself. It’s quite emotionally draining to release these songs now because it does transport me back to how I was feeling when I wasn’t as confident in myself.” And what would she tell her younger self now that she’s made it through? “That I can relax. I’m telling myself that now to be honest… Nothing ever lasts. ‘It’s shit until it’s not’ is my motto.” Cubicle is released on 10 Feb via Seven Four Seven Six lizziereidmusic.com

January 2021 – Feature

lasgow singer-songwriter Lizzie Reid arrives with a fully-formed sound on her debut EP, Cubicle. It’s a warm and intimate collection of folk and rock songs that showcases her clear skill for storytelling, and a surprisingly diverse range of sounds for a compact collection. The project documents a break-up, and her first same-sex relationship. But its welcoming homespun atmosphere acts as its hidden strength. Recorded at her home in ten days before the first lockdown in March, the project truly exists within that period of stasis. “We were kind of disconnected by what was going on in the world,” Reid says during our Zoom call. “Everyone was freaking out about COVID and isolation, and we were in a completely different headspace. Lockdown came about two days after Oli [Barton-Wood, the record’s producer whose credits include Nilüfer Yanya and Molly Payton] left. I remember at the time thinking, ‘wow those ten days, what a long time to just be in the house.’ Little did I know that would be the next nine months of my life.” Despite the intimate setting, there was an underlying pressure on the recording process. “We’d already announced that we were going to be releasing music this year so this needed to be the one,” Reid says. “I had recorded a few times with

THE SKINNY

Listen Up! Having recently set up POWA alongside Siobhan Wilson, Ashley Stein speaks to women-led projects Hen Hoose, The F-List and Popgirlz about their plans for 2021 Music

Interview: Ashley Stein

Photo: Chelsea Lowe

January 2021 – Feature

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he creative industries have been forever changed by the coronavirus pandemic, with live music being one of the areas to suffer most. Musicians lost their livelihoods while venues struggled to survive, some having to close their doors for good. In the midst of all this uncertainty, however, a host of incredible, women-led projects grew out of the need for community, connection and sisterhood. Before the pandemic hit, more and more women were coming forward about the sexism, abuse and assault they face every day working in the creative industries. When COVID struck and silence fell over the music industry, these women’s voices suddenly seemed louder than ever. Their experiences were shocking, but only to those who hadn’t been listening, who had never had to listen before.

“Music industry employers need to be aware of their own employment demographic statistics and do more to employ, promote and retain women” Vick Bain, The F-List As a writer and musician, I have always focused on discussing women’s issues and raising the voices of queer and womxn artists through my work. I wanted to continue this during lockdown but had no idea how, until I got a call from composer and singer-songwriter Siobhan Wilson. She talked to me about her experiences as a female freelancer working in the music industry; the fear of speaking out, the lack of accountability

MALKA

around inappropriate behaviour, sexist comments, and unequal pay. She wanted to start a project that would raise awareness of the issues women face and asked me to join her. I agreed and together we founded POWA (Protection of Women in the Arts), a musical collective which works in collaboration with womxn artists to create songs based on our collective experiences of sexism and abuse both within the arts and in our personal lives. We launched in November and are planning to release a new original track every six weeks which will be available only to members of our Patreon page. Our aim is to raise awareness of the issues faced by womxn working in the arts, while providing paid work for artists struggling during the pandemic. “This year is a really difficult time for music, and I’m worried about how womxn freelancers will be disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic,” says Wilson. “Ashley and I are inspired by the momentum of what’s happening in Scotland, and want to bring some hope into musicians’ lives in this really hard time by adding to the brilliant work that organisations are already doing in the UK to represent womxn in our industry in building back a better music scene for womxn.” One such organisation is Hen Hoose, a new all-female songwriting collective funded by Creative Scotland and founded by musician and songwriter Tamara Schlesinger, who performs as MALKA. “The project is initially aimed at gaining syncs [music for film and TV] for the songwriters, to find a new way to generate an income for so many women that have found their usual revenue streams disappear in the current climate,” she explains. “The stats are really pretty depressing when it comes to women songwriters in the UK (and beyond) and I felt like I wanted to try and help make a difference. I have recently been pitching a lot of music for syncs and thought it would be nice to

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THE SKINNY

Photo: Alice Hadden

Tamara Schlesinger, Hen Hoose

Photo: Andrew Laming

If you want to learn more about the above organisations you’ll find POWA at: patreon.com/POWAscotland Hen Hoose at: henhoose.com The F-List at: theflist.uk and Popgirlz on Instagram: @popgirlzscotland

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Siobhan Wilson

January 2021 – Feature

make it more of a collaborative process. My hope is that the music will be so exciting and innovative that we will want to release it and put it out into the world as well. “I think that you can gain so much from collaborating – a shift in tone of a song, a different idea for a melody line or a direction in which to take the chorus. I write a lot on my own, producing my own music, and I think working with someone new always broadens my outlook. I find that I can be so inspired when I see how others work and I wanted to open the opportunity out to others.” Do you think women artists have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic? “I think that all artists have been affected by the pandemic, the problem is women were at a disadvantage in the industry to begin with. We have lost revenue streams from gigs (merchandise) due to not touring; the ability to record new music due to not being able to access studios, the list goes on. So I wanted to force us to all work at home [to] get better at production if we weren’t already confident we could do it and strengthen our confidence if we already could.” What are your plans for Hen Hoose in 2021? “We are currently in our first groups writing to briefs in multiple genres with the goal of creating 15 songs. Those songs are being produced in-house by all of the writers. I have had a lot of other women reaching out about joining the project and while I am at capacity at the moment I believe that this could grow and grow. It has been so exciting to see how many women have been inspired by the project and I can’t wait to hear what comes out of the process.” Also launched last year was The F-List, a directory of over 4,500 UK female musicians. The project’s founder Vick Bain has worked across the creative industries for the last 15 years and is former CEO of the British Academy Vick Bain of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. She’s currently doing a PhD on women in the music industry, and working as a diversity in music consultant. The F-List came out of research done by Bain in 2019, a gender audit of over 300 UK record labels and music publishing companies. “The results were not great for women!” She continues: “But in doing that research I realised I had a record of thousands of female musicians and bands with women in them, and publishers too. I decided to extract that information and publish it for free on a Googlesheet, which I did [last] February. “Once lockdown happened I decided to invest my time in making that information more accessible by building a beautiful, searchable WordPress website aimed at event promoters and

festival organisers. They can find any genre of musician they want by searching The F-List. I also decided to create a not-for-profit organisation to back it up and do more work aimed at campaigning on behalf of female musicians and running initiatives that will help them start and sustain their music careers for longer. So we now have The F-List for Music Community Interest Company with a wonderful board of 12 women, very diverse, from every part of the UK, representing every genre of music.” What do you think needs to change for the music industry to become a supportive and accessible space for women? “Big question! Music industry employers need to be aware of their own employment demographic statistics and do more to employ, promote and retain women. They need to ensure they are as flexible as possible for women who are balancing parenting or caring duties; they need to pay them equal to what the men in their companies are earning for similar jobs (and redefine those jobs if necessary); they need to be aware of their creative rosters and SIGN MORE WOMEN!” And The F-list’s plans for 2021? “We have LOTS of plans up our sleeves. This includes a project getting women into professional recording studios in safe, nurturing all-female environments, working with various festivals on their line-ups, partnering up with sister organisations to do mentoring, working on a cross-UK research project looking at sexual harassment in the music industry, responding to various government consultations on behalf of women in music, and of course adding more and more female musicians to The F-List directory. We are going to be very busy! And if anyone else wishes to reach out and work with us, please do drop me a line, I would love to hear from you.” Another important project is Popgirlz, a support group for female and female-identifying artists in the Scottish music scene. SAMA-nominated, alternative R’n’B artist Kohla, real name Rachel Alice Johnson, created the group in late 2019 with the idea of making a safe, motivating space for female artists. “We have collaborative Facebook and Instagram pages where we help and support one another, and I also arrange socials for the womxn to meet, collaborate and become friends. We currently have 75 incredible members and are rapidly expanding! “Despite the coronavirus restrictions in 2020, we did manage to have our first social in the summer, so I am looking forward to arranging more in 2021. I am also in the midst of planning a Popgirlz convention/festival to support womxn and raise their profiles within the Scottish music scene, with the aid of my fellow Popgirlz Josephine Sillars and Elisabeth Elektra. I have also been arranging a Popgirlz Scotland Podcast series with the group, where members will interview one another about being a womxn in music.” The pandemic may have forced us all apart, but these incredible women have managed to find ways of bringing us back together again. They have created safe, supportive spaces where women can thrive and connect with one another. And, as we attempt to leave behind the difficult, tumultuous and unprecedented year that was 2020, it’s uplifting to know that we can look forward to seeing what they create.

Music

“The stats are really pretty depressing when it comes to women songwriters in the UK [...] I wanted to try and help make a difference”

December 2020 – Feature

Books

THE SKINNY

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THE SKINNY

A Life Unfolding Bryan Washington discusses his debut novel Memorial, a deep and multilayered look at the lives and relationships of two queer men of colour in the USA Interview: Andrés Ordorica

Books

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“What is a life, or what is a relationship...what is remembered of it?” Bryan Washington

throughout our conversation, there is a need for queer people of colour to create memorials for their own communities, because they deserve that guidance, that love, the wisdom to help lead them on. For me, knowing that a book like Memorial exists in this world gives me hope. The representation it provides through its rich characters, fully flawed but full of kindness, is so important. But more important is the gift Washington has given countless readers, the ones who will feel seen within its pages and go on to use it as a roadmap to make sense of all the creases and bends of a life unfolding.

Memorial is out now via Atlantic Books

January 2021 – Feature

What is most compelling is how the novel foregrounds its marginalised characters in a way that focuses on the small everyday moments of their relationships and not the traumas that each carries. Speaking with Washington over Zoom, he carefully considers the process of “trying to find which of those moments go into being representative of a larger whole of the relationship.” As a reader, I have never come across a novel which feels so authentic in its diverse representation and am keen to explore his brilliant multicultural cast of characters. “For me, at least,” begins Washington, “when it comes to reading contemporary American fiction featuring characters from marginalised communities, autonomy for a character to make their own decisions, and not only to make those decisions, but to make mistakes and to grow, or to not grow, or to approach one another from a position of affection, or position of love, often just isn’t given to those characters. Whether by way of their queerness or by way of them being an ethnic or racial minority.” His novel is a direct

response to that lack of nuance rarely afforded to queer men of colour. How Mike and Benson, and their subsequent sexual relationships, are represented is particularly vital to him. Especially how his characters are talked about in wider discourse. “It was deeply important to me to read texts in which a queer relationship was painted in a way that [the couple] were given that grace and room to grow or not to grow, and partly, I think a lot of it’s that many [of those] in fiction don’t view queer characters as people, which is to say people that are full of multitudes.” Soon our discussion focuses on how memory is used throughout Memorial. Be that the memory of a romantic relationship nearing its end, or how both men remember their childhoods, how their parents initially accepted or rejected them when coming out. I am interested in the lens through which Mike and Benson contend with death, family, and fractured romance. For Washington, the idea of ‘family’ was woven into the very DNA of his novel. “What does family look like for a cis queer person of colour in the States right now? And not only what does family look like in the present tense, but what does family look like in the future?” He pushes further, asking, “What models are there? You know, what roadmaps are there? And at least from my specific vantage point, there aren’t a hell of a lot.” He wanted Mike and Benson to actively reckon with their own futures, not only as a couple but their lives beyond the present day: “What is a life, or what is a relationship, but what is remembered of it? “It’s seldom for me to see a narrative in contemporary literary fiction featuring queer folks where the characters are alluding to life generations down the line,” he offers up thoughtfully. Washington himself has begun to reckon with the lack of queer elders of colour he and his peers can seek advice from, acknowledging the state violence, intergenerational trauma, and systemic oppression that has left generations of queer Black and other marginalised people without that ancestral wisdom or guidance. As Washington emphasises

Credit Dailey Hubbard

n Memorial, Bryan Washington’s debut novel, relationships are explored in all their many shades, coloured by their ups and downs. He is not interested in depicting a life of clean, neat order. Instead, he looks to unpack the “creases in-between certain relationships”, whether it’s fractured father-son dynamics, love nearing its end, or the relationships we have with home cities and the memories they carry of former lives we have lived. All is fair game in this powerful debut. Memorial follows the relationship of Mike, a Japanese-American working as a chef in a Mexican restaurant, and his boyfriend Benson, a Black daycare teacher. Mike announces he is off to Osaka to spend time with his dying father, while his mother Mitsuko is due to arrive in a few short hours from Tokyo. Benson quickly realises he is being left alone with his boyfriend’s mother, having to reconcile what has happened to the love both men once shared.

Bryan Washington

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Showcase

THE SKINNY

Katie Smith

January 2021 – Feature

Oranges

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atie Smith is an illustrator based in Glasgow, currently studying Communication Design at Glasgow School of Art. Her work is playful and colourful, inspired by all the good things in life – nature, female beauty, plants and sunshine. She uses bright colours to promote a positive attitude and wellbeing to brighten up your day. Her illustrations are created using a mix of both analogue and digital techniques. If you would like to see more of her work check out her Instagram @_katiesmith_illustration_ Subscribe to The Skinny and you'll receive an exclusive Katie Smith print details at theskinny.co.uk/subscribe

The Beauty of Fruit

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THE SKINNY

Showcase January 2021 – Feature

— 25 — Good Vibes Club

THE SKINNY

Creative Escape After the year that never was, Berlin-based DJ and producer Samantha Poulter, aka Logic1000, jumps straight into 2021 with a new EP, You’ve Got the Whole Night to Go. Poulter tells us about making the EP during lockdown and the joy of remixing

Clubs

Interview: Nadia Younes

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You’ve said that this EP sounds more cohesive than your self-titled debut. Did you have a better idea ahead of making it of how you wanted it to sound, and in turn find your own distinctive sound? It’s hard to reflect on your own distinctive sound, because it’s hard to maintain objectivity with your own music. But I definitely stand by the fact that it has a way more cohesive palette than my first release. I think this is purely because I used particular sounds and samples throughout the tracks on this new release, which inevitably gives it more consistency. With the first EP I was so new to making music and the Logic project was so young; it was simply a collection of tracks that I was proud of and was willing to let the world hear. But with You’ve Got the Whole Night to Go I had more of an idea of the mood I wanted to create with the release. As I said earlier, I wanted to make music people could escape to. Generally speaking though, I go into a writing session without a clear idea, rather I go in with a mood or feeling. Then, in the process of making the tunes, my ideas become a lot more solid and everything falls into place. I

work fast and make hasty decisions. I know if I like a track within the first 15 minutes of working on it. So yeah, to answer your question, I knew the mood I wanted and built it up from there. The EP was made during lockdown – did you find yourself more inspired and focused to make music during that time? I actually felt quite inspired to make music during lockdown. I didn’t have shows to play or social commitments, so I had all the time in the world to create music. I definitely struggled at times though. During those times when I would feel down, unmotivated or just uninspired I would rest. Rest is so important to me and I feel so blessed that whenever I need to I have the privilege to do that. I don’t take that for granted. Rest is so powerful and rejuvenating, and I think half the reason I was able to punch out a release is because of the downtime and not putting pressure on myself to be productive all the time. Photo: Xiaofu Wang

January 2021 – Feature

he Skinny: Can you tell us a bit about the making of your new EP? Logic1000: I made it during peak lockdown here in Berlin. At the time I didn’t have my studio set up yet, so my partner and I made it in our living room. I think the whole lockdown thing really influenced the sound of the EP. I was craving the outside world – seeing friends, playing shows – so I ended up making something quite clubby and fun. The first track I made off it was I Won’t Forget, which I was really happy with, and it motivated me to keep going despite the circumstances. I went into making that track with the mindset of escapism. It felt right to me to make something that was uplifting and euphoric, because the world was feeling really dark and bleak at the time. The other tracks on the EP are less euphoric and probably a little more reflective of how I was feeling, but still maintain that element of ‘I desperately want to have fun again’.

Were there any other things you did to stay creative during lockdown? I found a lot of joy in cooking, which I think is quite a creative process. I would tamper with my family’s Burmese recipes and I bought a KitchenAid mixer so I could bake cakes. My dad is British and his mum was an avid baker, so I felt like I should be able to nail some cakes, but I was wrong. I think I need to stick to curries. I also did a writing course during lockdown which was super fun. I would love to one day have some kind of online publication or podcast where I talk to musicians and music-adjacent people about mental health. This idea is something I’ve wanted to do for so long but haven’t got around to it. I don’t really know where to start. You’ve remixed tracks for artists like Caribou, Christine and the Queens and Låpsley. How do you approach remixes in order to maintain the track’s identity while putting your own twist on it? Is it a process you enjoy? I adore remixing tracks. I find it super fun and — 26 —

challenging and interesting work. I generally know if a remix is going to work from the moment I listen to the original. There are certain elements I look out for, like a catchy hook or vocal, and if I like the general mood of the original I know I can work on it. I’ve been so lucky to remix some amazing artists and I found it really challenging to rework something that is already flawless. An obvious way I maintain the track’s identity is I try to use as many elements of the original as possible but switch up the drum pattern or melodic elements. I really hope to keep reworking tracks next year and beyond because it’s something that brings me great joy. Four Tet was a big early supporter of yours, and you’ve played with him on a few occasions. How important do you think those big name co-signs are early on in someone’s career? Yes, Kieran has been a massive support for me. I owe a lot of elements of my modest success to him. I think co-signs really help young artists gain momentum and exposure. I know I don’t have a massive following but I always try to play underground artists as much as possible and will continue to do that throughout my career. Kieran is so forthcoming and generous with his advice, and sometimes I will send him demos for feedback. He always has amazing ideas and it’s no wonder he has found such immense success in music. He’s a genius! How do you feel about potentially returning to the gig/festival circuit this year – are you apprehensive or excited, or both? Definitely both! I think after lockdown everyone is feeling a little anxious about socialising again. Well, I know I am. Having so much time away from shows and busy airports means I’m a little scared of how I will cope when things go back to normal. But I find comfort in knowing we are all going through this together. I think after the first couple of shows things will feel OK again in terms of social and performance anxiety. It’s kind of a thrilling thought. You’ve Got the Whole Night to Go is out on 22 Jan via Therapy Instagram: @Logic1000____ logic1000.bandcamp.com

THE SKINNY

Small Steps, Smaller Footprint Words: Jamie Dunn

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t’s a new year! It’s a new you! But it’s the same ol’ planet Earth. So if you’re looking to make a positive change in 2021, we recommend joining Glasgow Science Centre’s Climate Action Challenge to take a few small steps to make a significantly smaller carbon footprint. From saving emissions through perambulation to paying more attention to what’s in your fridge, here are five easy ways to challenge yourself to be more eco-friendly, which will not only help save the planet but a considerable amount of your disposable income too.

Daft Punk – Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, 3 min 45 sec Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande – Rain on Me, 3 min 08 sec Bossy Love – Sweat It Out, 3 min 02 sec Talking Heads – Wild Wild Life, 3 min 41 sec Dua Lipa – Cool, 3 min 35 sec

3. Wear those jeans a few more days Let’s face it, you’re sitting around the house all day, does that cosy jumper you’re wearing as you work from home really need to go in the wash? And instead of throwing those jeans in the laundry because you tried to eat a fried egg sandwich for lunch, take an old toothbrush to those yolk spots. Not only will you save energy and water by reducing your washing load, you’ll also increase the lifespan of your clothes. You can make your wash even more eco-friendly by turning the setting to the cold wash, a slower spin cycle, airdrying instead of tumble drying and using a guppy bag to catch plastic fibres. 4. Audit your fridge We all want to eat sustainably, and that might mean buying local food in season, which will require a bit more research on your part before — 27 —

you throw that tasty looking stalk of broccoli into your trolly, or seeking out some of the brilliant zero waste shops that are popping up across Scotland and don’t use any unnecessary packaging (just remember to bring your old Tupperware and cleaned-out jam jars when you shop). But the easiest way to eat sustainably is simply use all the food you buy. Take some time today to sort through your fridge and create a ‘must eat now’ shelf. Are a whole load of veggies about to turn? Easy, stick them all in a big pot with some water and a stock cube and you’ve got soup for days. 5. Borrow, swap, or thrift a book There’s nothing better than browsing secondhand book shops and finding a gem by one of your favourite authors in the stacks or taking a chance on a dog-eared volume with an enticing cover. And once you’ve read a great book, you probably want to talk about it with someone, so press it into the hands of one of your bookworm friends and chances are they’ll have something on their shelves for you in return. Or simply sign up to your local library, where that copy of that book you love won’t just be appreciated by two or three people, but by dozens if not hundreds of readers. Find your nearest library at: mygov.scot/public-libraries

Glasgow Science Centres’s Our World, Our Impact programme is delivered with support from the Scottish Government. To find out more about the Our World, Our Impact programme or its Climate Action Challenge campaign, head to glasgowsciencecentre.org/discover/our-world-our-impact

January 2021 – Feature

1. Shorter showers We get it. There’s nothing nicer than a long soak under a hot shower after a hard day, especially when the temperature outside is barely above freezing. But while your fingers turn to prunes, you’re wasting litres upon litres of fresh, drinkable water. The average shower in the UK is reported to be a whopping seven minutes, using over 65 litres of water. Unless you’ve just escaped from Shawshank Prison via a sewage pipe, that seems like overkill. Four minutes should be more than ample to scrub all your nooks and crannies, and those three minutes you shaved off your shower time will save 27 litres of water and quite a bit on your energy bills. To help you keep your showers brief, here are five great tracks to listen to in the shower that are four minutes or less and should get you set for your morning. Just be careful not to slip on the soap while you’re dancing around.

2. Walk the walk I love to walk. Towns and cities don’t have much flavour if you limit yourself to a couple of bus routes or thoroughfares by car. On foot, you get to explore those twisted alleyways and cobbled lanes down which no motorist dares venture. And the reduced speed of perambulation means your eyes can pick out more than just the landmarks. Shops and cafes that you might never have noticed in your vehicle start to spring out at you. You’ll spot more of the nature that’s all around your city – squirrels, sparrows, foxes – and start to appreciate the finer details of its architecture. You’ll probably feel healthier in body (walking a mile burns a similar number of calories as running a mile) and mind (walking boosts stress-busting endorphins), but you’ll also be slashing your carbon footprint.

Food & Drink

Fancy being a bit greener and healthier in 2021? Here are a few small, money-saving steps you can take to reduce your carbon footprint

Design

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Why Making Matters Designers Morven Mulgrew and Stefanie Ying Lin Cheong discuss making and curating in the digital space with Instagram shopping channel Quality Craft Vision Interview: Stacey Hunter

Q

January 2021 – Feature

uality Craft Vision is an Instagram TV shopping channel that sits somewhere between stand-up comedy and a high-speed craft fair where audiences watch live and text in to purchase products ranging from jewellery by Freya I.M to limited edition clay buttons by artist Laura Aldridge. Developed by designers Morven Mulgrew and Stefanie Ying Lin Cheong, this funny, irreverent and inclusive marketplace pokes fun at capitalist memes while simultaneously acknowledging the economic realities of e-commerce and craft. It feels fresh and fun as well as nostalgic for the energy of programmes like The Adam & Joe Show and Shooting Stars. Quality Craft Vision captured the attention of locked-down audiences in November and December and was even featured by the BBC. We meet the duo behind the concept to ask them about their craft television debut and the importance of making. Meet Stefanie Ying Lin Cheong – a jewellery designer and maker – and Morven Mulgrew – a ceramicist – in this special issue about creative action.

“Trial and error and design by accident. It’s all a part of the creative process” Stefanie Ying Lin Cheong Local Heroes: I really empathise with the curatorial urge to create an event physically, even if the audience is viewing online. How did you come together to create QCV? Mulgrew: Stef and I met last year at a craft fair. I love meeting people and I used to run a street food wagon which was an absolute disaster financially, but I loved the patter with passersby and I always did Christmas craft markets; first with leather things and then later on with ceramic type stuff. Stef suggested a shopping channel and I have ALWAYS wanted to do that. I actually love this format, especially how they have to go on and on about something. I find it relaxing to watch and I really rate the presenters, it’s total graft. So anyway it kind of started as a joke on WhatsApp! And then we just thought, let’s actually give it a bash. Cheong: It came from a place of missing the interaction you get at a market. I love chatting and meeting new faces as well as other makers – that’s what I have really missed since the

cancellation of in-person events. As a maker you often work on your own, so markets are a good space to surround yourself with others. I see them almost as an extension of my practice; perhaps even treating them like an exhibition. In the craft sector there aren’t many opportunities to exhibit your work in a gallery setting so in a way a market can be like a mini-exhibition as well as an opportunity to sell. It’s also a deadline to work towards, a chance to stop and look at what I’ve made and a place to get some response to it. So QCV was born out of a playful response to missing out on all those things in 2020. You work really well as a duo which is entertaining but how did you tackle the practical side of actually selling products too? Mulgrew: Yes, well we are selling our own stuff too, and the format makes it really interactive and fun; the commenting and texting element means that it has a similar flow between the customer and seller as a real market. We were really keen to not have an online shop but have it live and keep the texting element to maintain the shopping channel feel! Cheong: Because it is actually live, it adds to the excitement – things are selling out whereas at a market people tend to ponder a little more. I knew Morven would be ace at taking on the presenter role. I’m definitely a ‘let’s give it a go and just work out how to get it done’ type of person and Morven has the same drive so that’s why we work so well together. I don’t know many people who could do that performative activity – she is so good at being positive about the works and really funny at the same time, it’s mostly off the cuff and unrehearsed. I’m happy to be in the background keeping it going in other ways. What’s been the most enjoyable and surprising part of organising and ‘performing’ QCV? Mulgrew: It was obviously really important to have the presenter and also the ‘live phone bank’ as part of the performance so there was a circular communication between the Instagram audience who were texting in and feeding that back to me so that I could tell our customers if things were selling out. This really supported the idea that it was a live event and I think added to the fun of it all. What I loved about it was that we had to throw it together, we didn’t charge people to do it and we took quite a small commission, and so it was fun and relatively low pressure. Also, we both brought different artists and designers into the mix and liked the element of surprise and

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Photos: Helen Voce

Design

spontaneity that came into the curation of it. Cheong: People actually tuning in, texting us and buying! It’s been great to have those interactions. It ran really smoothly and the things that didn’t work so well just added to the charm. We did discuss some of the skits and planned some of the fun in advance, and again, all done via impromptu conversation via texts – that way when an idea came to Katies Kandelabra, Movern Mulgrew mind we could share it in the moment. It’s actually been really good for my mental health! I love the energy the whole thing has brought me.

Is there something about the act of making and experimentation that is fulfilling or restorative? Mulgrew: After my mum died my pottery was a very pivotal part of my grieving and healing and still is very precious to me. So I understand a kind of therapeutic response to making work. I try to always embrace failure in my work itself but sometimes that’s

Why does making matter to you? Cheong: During the first lockdown I didn’t make anything for three months; I felt like a piece of me was missing. I think before that I just took it for granted. It’s a place for play and experimentation. Being dyslexic I often can’t easily express what I want through words. Being a maker you have the ability to just make what you want and use those things to communicate in other ways that often are easier for me to share. Mulgrew: I find it almost impossible to explain why I like making. I just do, I love working with materials and I have a problem-solving approach to lots of material and building questions. With my ceramics work, I find it both energising and soothing and ultimately good for my brain to make work. I trained in sculpture but I like making a wee soapdish that someone can buy and keep in their house; the more democratic nature of making stuff to sell. I trained as a shoemaker but they were so expensive to make; only rich people could afford them, so I try to make things with a price which reflects the labour that’s gone into them but also can be sold for not too much. I get a kick out of using my brain to work out ways to do that. I consider my work to be interdisciplinary, performance or design or art, it’s all just creating Candles, Stefanie Ying Lin Cheong something that wasn’t there before. Find out more about Morven Mulgrew and Stefanie Ying Lin Cheong’s work online at stefaniecheong.co.uk and morvenmulgrew.co.uk and see the work of multiple makers via the recordings of QCV on their very own Instagram TV Channel @qualitycraftvision

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January 2021 – Feature

I particularly liked that it took place physically at the Barras Art and Design (BAAD). What was it like producing your own set and taking your Insta skills to the next level? Cheong: The set was all brought together the morning of the event at BAAD with things found around the space and Morven’s studio. Making do with no budget – I love that type of challenge – being resourceful and with minimal waste. I have a love-hate relationship with social media – probably like most. I have learned not to be precious about what to put out as there was very little time. I had never done any Insta lives before this but I loved the energy and instant response and engagement. Mulgrew: Personally, I loved it. I LOVE performing and I rehearsed various silly wee skits to do on camera. I felt really in control of the chaos and I enjoyed the live nature of it. I felt comfortable in that environment. And also I was SO pleased the internet connection held up! My husband Joe did the filming and reading of the comments so actually in the live show he was probably the most director-y person on set as he was choosing what to show on camera and feeding back to me.

hard to do. With pottery, I think the kiln is a partner in the work so you kind of have to let go of control. I’m super controlling and I can box myself into corners sometimes so I like that the kiln takes some of that controlling nature away from me. Cheong: It’s all part of the experience. You learn loads from each piece that didn’t work, things can always be improved. Although sometimes mistakes become better than the actual piece of work. Trial and error and design by accident. It’s all a part of the creative process. I think it’s just about testing and trying things out to get that idea made!

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Film

The Art of Heartbreak The mores of the Hollywood romantic comedy get a welcome upgrade with the irresistibly charming The Broken Hearts Gallery. Its writer-director, Natalie Krinsky, explains how her vivacious debut both embraces and subverts the genre Interview: Anahit Behrooz

passage. I think that in order to become an adult, you need to experience heartbreak. Heartbreak and puberty,” she laughs. Constructing a romance predicated on breaking up is no mean feat, but it is one of the many ways in which The Broken Hearts Gallery both unabashedly participates in and cleverly subverts the genre’s tropes, treading the line between earnestness and wry cynicism with impressive delicacy. “In the late 90s and the early 2000s, romantic comedies followed a certain formula and people got tired of them,” Krinsky says. “[But] a lot of things have evolved. I think there’s room for all different kinds of people to fall in love. I don’t think you need to be a 100-pound blonde waif in order to find happiness.” It’s not just about the diverse casting, although that plays a large part in opening up the dynamic possibilities of the genre. “We leant into a lot of the big romantic comedy tropes,” Krinsky says. “But I think that we also did a lot of things differently. I think there is a real feminist power in the film; part of Lucy’s journey is staking her own professional claim in the world and pursuing an idea that she has and finding her voice and building something for herself.” In doing so, Krinsky allows Lucy an agency that lies beyond mere romantic fulfilment, complicating the received idea of what happiness looks like for women in these films. Outside of her blossoming relationship with Nick (who is genuinely kind and supportive), Lucy’s life is grounded by her close female friends and their shared home, giving her the kind of complex interior life typically denied to rom-com heroines. “Through all the drafts there was always the three of them,” Krinsky says. “They were very much inspired by my own Credit: Worldwide

January 2021 – Feature

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iven everything that’s been happening in the world, there’s something nice about the elixir of a romantic comedy,” Natalie Krinsky says thoughtfully. Looking at the trainwreck of 2020, it’s hard to argue. Her directorial debut The Broken Hearts Gallery certainly feels like a tonic; released here in the UK during that tiny window in the summer when cinemas were open, it’s now getting a larger and much-deserved audience through streaming this month. Warm, vivacious and irresistibly charming, it follows Lucy (Geraldine Viswanathan), a gallery assistant who, after losing both her job and boyfriend, teams up with handsome stranger Nick (Dacre Montgomery) to create a gallery space dedicated to the paraphernalia left over from broken relationships. Krinsky’s film – which she wrote over the course of a decade – captures all the requisite dreamy, swoony feelings the best romantic comedies should give, with an unexpected twist: heartbreak is woven deep into every scene. “I think one of the things that I experienced in my own life is the isolating nature of heartbreak,” Krinsky explains about her unusual approach. “You feel as if you’re the only person in the world who has ever experienced the depths of pain and despair when it’s happening to you. The discovery of its universality is part of [Lucy’s] journey and is part of her healing. It’s truly a rite of

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friendships in my 20s. They’re really enduring: I think especially when you’re a transplant in a city, and you don’t necessarily have family close by, your female friends truly do become the people that you go home to.” They might feel like small changes, but they have a seismic effect; not just on the audience’s viewing experience, but on the film’s own attitude to its female lead – an attitude rooted in empathy rather than the scorn or derision characteristic of the genre’s unkinder entries. There is a determined compassion throughout The Broken Hearts Gallery that feels indicative of a wider shift within the genre, a move away from the singular narratives and paternalistic voices that once dominated the landscape.

“In order to become an adult, you need to experience heartbreak. Heartbreak and puberty” Natalie Krinsky It’s not just on screen that Krinsky is flipping the script and doing things differently. “I have never loved anything more than directing this film. My husband came to visit me and he still to this day says that it’s the happiest he’s ever seen me, including our wedding day,” she laughs. “The way all of these different people came together to make something happen that you thought of in your brain is really magical. There’s long been this myth of the male director auteur that has captivated Hollywood, this myth that you have to be tough and mean, and I just don’t think that’s true. All kinds of different people who have had all kinds of different experiences can do this, and can show that there’s a myriad of ways to lead a team. There’s a myriad of ways to direct a movie. And there’s a myriad of different voices that we need to have”. The Broken Hearts Gallery is available to download 4 Jan and on DVD 18 Jan from Sony Pictures

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Bad Trip Directing duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead return with time-travelling movie Synchronic. The pair discuss making ambitious sci-fi on a shoestring, their hatred of exposition and nostalgia as a toxic drug Interview: Jamie Dunn Film

Credit: Signature Entertainment

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“When I see a film where all the dialogue is plot and exposition, it drives me crazy,” says Benson. “It hurts me!” agrees Moorhead. “It’s a physically painful thing.” “They’re just saying plot, please say something else, like talk about anything else right now.” Benson, though, reminds us that it isn’t necessarily the screenwriter who’s to blame. “If Pulp Fiction didn’t exist, and you sent that script to Hollywood producers to get it made, they would absolutely be like, ‘Hey, you’ve got to cut some of this back.’ But anyone who sees the finished film, I don’t think anyone would cut a line of that dialogue. Why? Because if it’s really good, no one’s gonna say to ‘cut it’.” “What if someone did a cut of Pulp Fiction where you cut out anything that wasn’t plotdriven?” muses Moorhead. “Oh man,” laughs Benson. “It would be a five minute short about a briefcase.” New film Synchronic is no less inventive and idiosyncratic than those earlier films, although superficially it looks more expensive thanks to a couple of A-listers in the lead roles. Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan play overworked New Orleans paramedics who are having a hell of a busy week thanks to the new designer drug that gives the film its title. Users of synchronic are being found dead all over the Big Easy and the boys soon discover this drug doesn’t just take you on a mental trip, but on a physical one too, the destination being the past. Yes, that’s right: synchronic is a time-travel pill. Filmmakers usually struggle to trace the exact eureka moments of their movies, but when I ask about Synchronic’s, I get a date and location. “We were in a bagel shop in Toronto waiting to do — 31 —

“Instead of a timetravel movie dealing with something like ‘the grandfather paradox’, we dealt with nostalgia as a toxic drug” Aaron Moorhead “Nostalgia is like heroin for those people,” says Moorhead. “But they somehow forget the traumas of the past. They only remember the wonderful parts. So instead of a time-travel movie dealing with something like ‘the grandfather paradox’, we instead dealt with nostalgia as a toxic drug, where you go back and everything sucks. The coolest thing about [the past] was maybe some retro fashion, which still comes around every 30 years anyways.” “The music?” asks Benson. “OK,” Moorhead concedes, “the music was pretty sweet.”

Synchronic is released in cinemas and digital download on 29 Jan by Signature Entertainment

January 2021 – Feature

ustin Benson and Aaron Moorhead make genre films as ambitious as those of, say, Christopher Nolan or Denis Villeneuve, but on budgets that wouldn’t even cover the catering on the grand productions by those storied directors. Smart writing, compelling performances and vivid camerawork cover over any limitations in financing. Their debut, Resolution, was Cabin in the Woods on a shoestring. Spring was a body-horror romance that blended Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise with HP Lovecraft. Third feature The Endless, their finest film so far, was a delicious puzzle movie following two brothers (played by Benson and Moorhead) whose lives are entangled with a UFO death cult; the film soon amassed its own cult following. It’s a strikingly original body of work. I wonder if the puniness of their production coffers contributes to the immensity of their invention. “I won’t say our relative lack of resources is what makes us good filmmakers,” says Moorhead when I meet him and Benson, sans masks, back in March at the 2020 Glasgow Film Festival. “I will say, though, I do think our stories have definitely improved because of the limitations. When we try to create something that is a hand-over-fist DIY movie, we make sure that nothing goes into the script that we don’t already know how to do. If we know how to do it, we know it’ll at least execute close to correct.” Another pleasing aspect to Moorhead and Benson’s films is they manage to deliver their brain-boggling premises without drowning the audience in expositional dialogue (the aforementioned Christoper Nolan should take note). These are high-concept films with plenty of flavour, where character, tone and atmosphere are just as important as the brainy sci-fi conceit.

a screening at Turn After Dark film festival in 2012 and Back to the Future was on TV,” says Benson without missing a beat. “We were just sitting and watching and being like, ‘Hey, this would be way different if Marty McFly wasn’t a white heterosexual male.’ So much in the story changes and his biggest problem in the 1950s isn’t his mom trying to hook up with him.” “By the way, that’s not a dig at Back to the Future,” Moorhead interrupts. “I mean, every scene in that movie is the best scene. It’s amazing. We’d hate for it to get back to Robert Zemeckis that we weren’t fans.” FYI, Bob, if you’re reading. Mackie’s character gets hold of some synchronic and discovers, as a black man, just what Benson and Moorhead are alluding to: the increased racism and violence a person of colour would experience if they were able to zap themselves to the past. In this respect, the film acts as a pleasing rebuttal to the increased yearning for the past that drives so much rightwing rhetoric in the US as well as here in the UK.

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Talking Pints If you’ve been missing your local due to COVID restrictions, Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets – a rambunctious portrait of a Vegas dive bar on its final night of trading – is for you. Its directors, Bill and Turner Ross, talk to us about the importance of pubs

January 2021 – Feature

Film

Interview: Jamie Dunn

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ometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. Or, more pointedly in the year of our lord 2021, sometimes you want to go somewhere that isn’t your own goddamn flat and drink some delicious alcohol surrounded by intoxicated strangers. Thanks to COVID, there’s little prospect of visiting your favourite howff anytime soon, but you can vicariously experience an evening of boozy bonhomie with Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets, the new film from directing duo Bill and Turner Ross, which makes us a fly on the wall for the last day of trading at Las Vegas dive bar The Roaring 20s. Among the lost souls gathered for the farewell night at 20s are Bruce, a black, misty-eyed Vietnam Vet with a penchant for Kenny Rogers; Pam, an inebriated 60-year-old who’s extremely proud of her “titties” and not afraid to show them off; Lo, an old hippie with white hair flowing down his back, who seems to outdrink everybody; and Michael, the 58-year-old washed-up actor whose every utterance sounds like a quote from a great American novel. If you’re thinking to yourself, “Boy, those Ross brothers really lucked out finding such a colourful bunch all in one bar”, then you’d be sorely mistaken. There was nothing serendipitous about it: each was handpicked by the duo after visiting dozens of different watering holes to find the perfect barflies. The cheerfully crumby Vegas bar, with its fairy lights, bric-a-brac clutter and smelly-looking sofas, is also fake, and situated in the brothers’ hometown of New Orleans rather

than the famous gambling den. What happens across the film’s runtime, however, is real; real alcohol, real conversations, real arguments, real tears. Speaking to the Rosses over FaceTime, they explain that they’d long wanted to make a paean to the American barroom, and came to the conclusion that this hybrid of fiction and vérité was the most ethical approach. “A lot of our previous films do lean more towards non-fiction,” explains Turner, “but in this case, we really wanted to be able to create a distance between the reality and the situation for the participants involved, because we wanted to create a safe space for them.” Also important was for the ensemble to feel as much ownership of the project as the filmmakers. “We didn’t want to create an exposé on alcoholism in a very specific bar, where we would be looking down on people,” he says. “We wanted to create a space with people who knew this kind of lifestyle, and really have a collective experience where everybody, including ourselves, was a participant.” It’s clear from watching Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets that it’s made by people who love these places that become living rooms to our neighbourhoods, and it’s confirmed in our conversation. “Barrooms have been a part of our lives since we were little kids, in one way or another,” says Bill. “They’ve always acted as a really solid access point to an area to learn the flavour of a place.” They’re also spaces that people around the world understand. “They may look a little bit different in other parts of the world, but

that idea of a shared space where we come together to be whoever we want or need to be in that moment – to tell stories and make up stories, to hide out or to be seen, to tell a lie or expose the truth – is universal.” Bars are also our communities’ great melting pots and levellers; they’re one of the few places left in society where people of different classes, political affiliations and social status regularly rub shoulders. “We shot the day after the 2016 presidential election,” explains Bill, “but leading up to it we felt that something missing in our American experience was that there wasn’t a discourse. There was no interaction between various groups of folks, and it just had become distorted. So we wanted to set up a scenario in which people could

“Bars have always acted as a really solid access point to an area to learn the flavour of a place” Bill Ross come together from all walks of life and just talk.” The resulting film is a compelling snapshot of modern-day America, but it’s also a riot. The Rosses’ cast gets very drunk and their wisecracks flow up and down the bar like poetry. Like any good night out down the pub, they also get existential, melancholic and a little sentimental. The film also aches with a sense of loss. The Roaring 20s may not be real, but that doesn’t mean the sadness of its closure doesn’t hit hard, and it’s sure to remind us of all the much-loved pubs we may have lost over the years due to mismanagement, fires or creeping gentrification. It certainly reminds us of our favourite venues that have closed their doors thanks to COVID-19. “We couldn’t have preconceived that it would be a very relevant film this year,” says Turner, “so I hope it gives people an outlet when they can’t do this. But even without the pandemic, it is also speaking to that loss that usually happens when we lose these kinds of spaces and I think it’s a reminder that they’re really important to all of us.” We’ll drink to that. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets is available on Curzon Home Cinema and in selected cinemas now

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The Future of Online Comedy Comedy

Showing admirable resilience and innovation, no doubt born out of several years flyering on Potterow, many comics managed to move things online in 2020. But it’s not been plain sailing, as 2019 Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Jordan Brookes tells us Interview: Emma O’Brien Image: Anneliese Nappa

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Social media has been awash with comedians looking for online validation, some successfully and some less so. The most effective ideas have played to the strengths of online platforms. The ever-inventive Foxdog Studios have taken some of their techy creations off stage and beamed them into fans’ homes, the COVID Arms gigs run by Kiri Pritchard-McLean (and featuring Brookes) have raised over £120k for The Trussell Trust, and Daniel Kitson has streamed his work-in-progress gigs from unused theatres across the UK. Brookes is getting in on the act too. He’s set up an online gig with pals and fellow comics Darren Coles and Charlie Webster. Vagabond Comedy still has stand-ups doing a tight five, but “it’s a lot more loose, allowing for conversations and unrepeatable moments of chaos.” Like many in the industry, Brookes agrees that live comedy is in peril. “As we move more towards a participatory culture that challenges the traditional dynamic of audienceperformer, stand-up starts to feel archaic and something exclusively for a dwindling contingent of comedy nerds.” And though this participation lends itself to comedy moving online for now, it doesn’t leave live gigs in the best position. “An already suffering industry will only get worse,” he states. “By worse, I mean less money,” for acts and audiences, “and fewer opportunities for performers.” As a result, accessibility will free-fall. “Less money in the industry means fewer chances to experiment and take risks. And, inevitably, by and large only the already wealthy will survive, resulting in an even greater lack of diverse voices in stand-up.” For many, the comedy dream will become completely unviable: “The bottleneck has always been narrow for people to squeeze through — 33 —

into commercial (or even just sustainable, fulltime) success, and that will tighten to a pin width.” Brookes remains hopeful though. “Some time off from live performance has given people the chance to think about where else they can put their energies,” and he is pleased the adaptation to online comedy has helped other comics. “There are acts who have really taken to online content in a way that has given them an identity they were perhaps struggling to find on stage.” But more than anything, “Nothing beats live performance. I can’t wait to get back to it. I think.” Buy Jordan Brookes’ previous shows at jordanbrookescomedy .com. Follow him on Twitter @jordbrookes and on Instagram @jordanbrookescomedy

January 2021 – Feature

hen the UK first went into lockdown in March 2020 (approximately six decades ago by everyone’s internal calendar), among the initial panic and horror of the pandemic, an entire generation of stand-up comedians saw their year’s work evaporate in a stroke. With gigs cancelled, festivals pulled and TV work postponed, comedy crumbled. Luckily 2019 Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Jordan Brookes managed to find some latitude in declaring himself the only person to hold the award for two years. “As unhealthy as it might sound, performing is a big part of my identity. In many ways, having that taken away has been both an existential nightmare and a palatecleansing godsend.” As an act whose comedy thrives on toying with audience expectations, has Brookes found the lack of interaction particularly difficult? For him, an audience isn’t just for seeing which gags land and which don’t. They’re for determining what’s acceptable and “how far you can push something”. No longer having performance-fuelled adrenaline, Brookes has been left “feeling a bit unsure of myself as a performer.” The thrill of live comedy hasn’t been completely replicated through online platforms, e.g. Twitch and Zoom gigs, but it has at least plugged some gaps. “Obviously you have audiences in online gigs, but the back and forth isn’t quite the same. It’s harder to gauge if something that works on Zoom will work on stage, particular with an act like mine. They’ve been a lot of fun though – audiences are incredibly nice. “I tried out an online show in lockdown (based on what I was working on for the Edinburgh Fringe) that had real potential, but I just didn’t have the motivation to see it through,” Brookes explains. Creative fatigue has been highlighted among some of the most prolific comedians on the UK circuit. But just like the speed with which we’re moving through the current tier system, comedy and audience opinions change like lightning. “Even as I was performing it, it felt like a relic of a world now irrevocably changed.”

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Stories Told On Silk Emma Talbot’s upcoming exhibition in Dundee Contemporary Arts sees her create exploded narratives around grief of ‘failing systems’ in the current ‘point of crash’, all within a deftly made, immersive installation of paintings, sculpture and film

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Interview: Adam Benmakhlouf

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Thinking of the inevitable losses that happen between different historical moments, Talbot considers these ideas as especially relevant during the many epochal shifts that are underway. “I was thinking about what our lives are like now… We can see how things are changing in front of our eyes. Systems are failing, and I thought if we come out of this point of crash, we’ll wonder how to live, but we’ll also grieve for how we used to live, how things used to be and people that we’ve lost.” Moving between the ancient and the contemporary, it’s at this point in her thinking that Talbot returned to a Celtic tradition of caoineadh, meaning ‘crying’, also referred to as ‘keening’. Artist-research group The Keening Wake describes the practice as “a vocal ritual artform, performed at the wake or graveside in mourning of the dead. Keens are said to have contained raw unearthly emotion, spontaneous word, repeated motifs, crying and elements of song.” For Ghost Calls, this gave Talbot the “idea that there could be a group of women who are like Celtic keeners, professional mourners... [who] would transform the soul from the living, from earth, to the next world, by doing this. They help the family access their grieving emotions, and I thought wouldn’t it be great if there were a group of women who were like guides who were guiding us now, through this crash and through our grief?” She imagines the women showing the way into an interior landscape of grief, the terrain of which, for Talbot, can be imagined as looking like the Scottish landscape. These keeners could “help us move from one place to another – from now to the future.” While this gives some sense of one of the thematics of Ghost Calls, Talbot is clear that any narrative in the new work remains “open ended”. She sets up a constellation of references, that can allow for lots of openings for different ideas to enter. “Like what you might meet in a landscape, and what keening might sound like.” Speaking about this conceptual and visual layering, Talbot describes it as an analogue of human experience, creating installations “that operate like the thoughts in a head and the layers of sensitivity that make up that experience. Sometimes thoughts are precise – words, images, motifs – clear ideas and sometimes they are more evocative, atmospheric, sensory – with pattern, colour, sound in the work, a kind of atmosphere is created that then contains or sits with a whole load of thoughts around a subject.” Photo: Ruth Clark

January 2021 – Feature

mma Talbot begins describing her latest exhibition in Dundee Contemporary Arts with the story of how she came into contact with The Riders of Sidhe, John Duncan’s Celtic Revival painting at the McManus Museum. “Almost in a cursory way, the Head of Exhibitions showing me around, said, ‘You won’t be that interested in that.’ And I thought, ‘Oh God, I really am.’ It’s this really elaborate image, and it incorporates these archaeological finds that are actually in museums in Scotland. They’re put into this narrative painting as if the painter is imagining them being used in real life by these ancient mythological figures, like fairies and knights.” It’s fitting for Talbot to start with an anecdote, as storytelling is something she plays with and pulls apart across her evocative, deftly made installations of paintings, drawings, sound, animations and sculpture. This historical painting of an imagined, forgotten time brought Talbot to one way of rethinking the relationship of landscape and material, social and cultural histories. “I thought it was so interesting to imagine that there are elements from previous cultures that are buried in the landscape. We’re present, but we’re not really aware of them. We don’t really know what those cultures were, and our own culture might become like that. People might not know how we lived. What we did, what we saw. My work is so much about what it’s like to be alive today, what we think, what I think, what it’s like to be a human being in the world today. So it seemed like a way of thinking about certain landscapes in Scotland, as containers of all these histories.”

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Photo: Ruth Clark

Art

This sense of psychological interiority comes out visually in the unique and personal anatomy that Talbot has developed in the deceptively innocent-seeming, big-headed figures that populate many of her drawings and paintings. “They started out from the idea of being in a body looking from inside out, so feeling what it’s like to be in my body. So, at first, I exaggerated my own physicality – wider shoulders and slimmer hips and the hair is a reference to my hair – but the heads were larger because quite often I wanted to be able to draw something inside the head (like a thought), and the figures often have multiple limbs because they’re doing multiple things or making different gestures. They’re kind of projections of thinking rather than concerns about what things look like in the external world.” The result: an uncanny sense of rapport with the idiosyncratic representations of the human form that feature in the works. As well as creating an alternative system of anatomy, Talbot’s choice of silk as the substrate for many of her paintings deliberately pushes against the usual habits and expectations of the medium. She “didn’t like the format of rectangular, rigid, stretched canvas. They seemed to belong to a tradition and history of paintings that was already so heavy and prescribed.” Silk presented itself as “a surface that I could paint on like paper, but that could be cut, sewn, shaped and draped.” Talbot describes it as “incredibly resilient and strong even though it’s very light.” It also presents new ways of interacting with the images she creates, as they can be seen from both sides. “And once I’d figured out the best way to paint on it, it demands that you are very immediate, you can’t change the marks you’ve made – so it felt very free.”

“Systems are failing, and I thought if we come out of this point of crash, we’ll wonder how to live, but we’ll also grieve for how we used to live” Emma Talbot

Photo: Ruth Clark

At time of writing, Ghost Calls is installed, but its opening is currently pending a change in COVID-related restrictions. — 35 —

January 2021 – Feature

Away from disciplinary strictures or the classical expectations of the many different media she works with, Talbot’s working methods can be responsive and robust enough to contain and confront myriad subject matters. She also candidly describes the ways that her changing situation in life, particularly her role as a mother as her children become adults, have informed the different transformations of her practice. “As time has gone on, the figures have more freedom (as I do, my sons have grown up) and they really travel about in universal space, in broader contexts – so [the work] has become differently existential and it also addresses prevalent contemporary concerns… I’m always aware of being alive now and life’s brevity as well as our interconnectedness with a much longer timespan. It’s like micro and macro thinking, terribly intimate and widely universal. I’m also really interested in a kind of mystery. Life is a mystery, nature is a mystery, there’s magic contained, meaning contained that is exciting. I feel very motivated to think in terms of ancient and futuristic, but I think that’s a theme of our times, the zeitgeist of our times.” Between the ways Talbot describes figures, the expansiveness of her exploded narratives, and the idiosyncrasy of her material choices, her practice seems to have rich parallels in painting, comics, textiles, as well as experimental sound and animation, while still evading any of these categories. The interview rounds off with asking how important it is for her that her practice takes this markedly singular form. “I had to make a practice that was tailored to me, to what I’m interested in, what I like to look at, how I think. I only do what I really want to do, otherwise there’s no feeling in it. It looks just how I want it to look, it says what I really think, it sounds like something that I find exciting. That way, even if no one else was interested, it wouldn’t matter. I would still love making the work.”

Image: Jude Thomas

THE SKINNY

Skaters Gonna Skate Intersections

The Edinburgh Queer Skate Collective is only a few months old but it’s already making a lot of noise. We chat to the Collective about safe skating spaces, names and communal joy Words: Ross Hunter

inclusive values of groups such as New York’s Brujas or Edinburgh’s own all-female skate crew, Skateboobs, they had one issue: the names. The desire for a name that didn’t proscribe a gender to its members was important for Vaila and Jude as it made clear to non-binary, trans, and genderdiverse skaters that they would be welcome. As Jude notes of the name Skateboobs: “It’s inherently gendered regardless of whether the group is or not.” Twice a week the Collective hosts meet-ups at various places across the city, from skateparks to streets to the Colinton Tunnel. They schedule them for the morning, when skateparks are at their quietest and least intimidating. Despite only existing for a matter of weeks, the Collective already have a regular attendance of around 20 people at each session. The gatherings are socially distanced, with most people wearing masks. “I couldn’t in my right mind start up something where people were unsafe,” explains Jude. “But it’s great because in the future, when none of this is going on, the group will just become so much more connected.” The Collective fosters an environment where people of any sexuality or gender identity can come and not have to worry about being the token queer skater. And it’s intersectional in more ways than one: though primarily a skateboarding group, they welcome anyone, including skateboarders, longboarders and roller skaters. The pandemic – and the social isolation, unemployment and boredom associated with it – has meant more people have taken up hobbies that, even a year ago, they may never have imagined themselves enjoying. Roller skating, for example, isn’t a sport you would think is naturally suited to the Scottish winter, yet one of the attendees, Evie, whizzes past, headphones blaring Elton John’s Crocodile Rock, casually skating around like it’s Venice Beach. “It’s probably one of the safest sports you can Image: Lou McCurdy

January 2021 — Feature

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t is a misty November morning in Edinburgh and on what would usually be a relatively underutilised space outside of Loudons restaurant off New Street, a group of skateboarders are ringing in the day with a mighty racket. As Vaila, one of the founders of Edinburgh Queer Skate Collective, tells us later: “Twenty skateboarders can make a lot of noise.” The Collective only started a few months ago but it’s already causing a stir. Jude, the other founder, was relatively new to the sport and met Vaila on Instagram. Vaila, a former professional snowboarder, had skated for years but all of the friends they skated with had left Edinburgh. And though both were comfortable skating amongst the groups of mostly boys who hang around the city’s skateparks, they knew that for other queer people it wasn’t so simple. “Everyone you meet at the skatepark is nice,” says Vaila. “The skaters there don’t care. They want to see you skate and improve. But I guess people who didn’t grow up in that environment see young boys at the skatepark starting fires and stuff and it’s intimidating.” Vaila and Jude took inspiration from other queer skate groups across the world. They wanted to create an environment where people could feel safe to learn, fall over and improve with others of the same ability. But while they appreciated the

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do right now,” they say. “It’s socially distanced by nature.” The Collective is valuable for Evie in others ways, too. With its strength-in-numbers sense of communal safety, the Collective gives Evie a space where they aren’t in danger of becoming a spectacle. “Roller skates really single you out and draw attention where you don’t necessarily want it. I was very reticent about taking it up because I knew I would probably get catcalled.” Sorsha tells a similar story. She used to longboard around The Meadows but got fed up with the wolf-whistles. “I remember thinking that this would never happen to my male friends,” she says. “Being here with the Collective, it’s just a space where you can get away from that and clear your head. Get a bit of playfulness in your life in an environment that’s welcoming.” As well as physical safety, the Collective also acts as a rare sober space for people to dip their toe in the queer community. “I’ve only worked out that I’m queer recently,” explains another attendee, Lili. “So now it’s really nice to have somewhere that I can go that feels safe for me.” Vaila and Jude are modest about what they have created: their focus is on the skating. But, within weeks of setting up the Collective, other ones have sprung up in Glasgow, Dundee and even across the border in Newcastle. Jude hopes that in the future they can get some funding so that all the groups can get boards for prospective members who want to skate but can’t afford to. Among the hubbub of clattering boards, peals of laughter and the faint thrum of pop classics coming from Evie’s headphones, it’s clear that there was a need for the Collective. Even during a pandemic, the human desire for communal enjoyment knows no bounds… or genders. Follow the Edinburgh Queer Skate Collective on Instagram

THE SKINNY

Our House, Our Street, Our City Intersections

Scotland’s housing problems predate COVID-19 but the pandemic has made tenants even more vulnerable. One writer explores how tenants’ unions, like Scotland’s Living Rent, are fighting back Words: Maria Elena Carpintero Torres-Quevedo Illustration: Lotte Schuengel

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he beginning of the pandemic, fraught with precarity and vulnerability, gave rise to calls to unionise across social media, echoing labour activist Joe Hill’s instruction: Don’t mourn, organize! There is certainly merit to this message, but, during a period of mass (and increasing) unemployment and job insecurity, the imperative may sound slightly out of touch. In this context, tenants’ unions offer a collective solidarity outside of wage labour relations that so many of us need. Tenants’ unions are, as the name suggests, comprised of tenants working together to

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they are systemic. Four decades of the increased commodification of housing has resulted in falling homeownership rates. In Scotland, more than half of the tenant population was once comprised of people living in council housing but the right-tobuy scheme delivered a third of this to private landlords. Much of the remaining housing was demolished or transferred to housing associations through stock transfer, and private tenancies increased exponentially. Meanwhile, across the rental sector, tenants face routine displacement, disproportionate rent rises and housing in critical states of disrepair. In this environment, Living Rent’s work both contributes to and is sustained by a significant ideological shift in our communal imagination with regards to housing and the stigmatisation of tenants and rented homes. This is not limited to a critique of the current housing system; it involves actively challenging both private and social landlords and taking the fight to the government. It protects our material conditions while reminding us that we have power and we have each other. The point here is not to enact a form of sentimentality that allows us to feel that we’re in the same boat, or even to exercise compassion for or receive sympathy from those who are facing this pandemic under different circumstances than us. The point is to feel and act in solidarity with each other – to recognise our shared stakes in a system full of injustice and inequality and to change it. As urban planner Raquel Rolnik states in a recent interview on the podcast A World to Win: “A house is a portal to other human rights: access to education, a good environment, access to health, access to cultural and economic opportunities.” Through my experience with Living Rent, I would add to this that a house can connect you to your street, your block, your city, and these, in turn, can help you make your house a home – not just as a building, but as part of a community. All of this marks a significant shift in our collective narrative about our homes, our cities, the country, even the world we share. The housing market is not a god that should decide our fate; it’s up to us to build a community where people’s needs are met. This work isn’t done, but your neighbours are doing it, and you can join them. Find out more about Living Rent at livingrent.org/

January 2021 — Feature

challenge the conditions that oppress them. In Scotland, the tenants’ union, Living Rent, push national campaigns and the member defence team organises around specific cases, while neighbourhoods form branches to work together on local issues. Often, these feed into and inform each other. Personally speaking, a stranger, who later became a friend, helped me get my rent reduced when my freelance work disappeared overnight. I got to do the same for another friend in turn. But the work Living Rent does goes beyond individual cases; recently, a mother fighting an eviction mid-winter sparked a campaign that resulted in a nationwide eviction ban. What doing this kind of work tells you is: you aren’t alone because your neighbours won’t let you be; you matter; you deserve a home. This isn’t charity. It’s a recognition of our mutual humanity, worth and interdependence. While Scotland’s housing problems predate COVID-19, tenants’ unions are especially crucial right now because they serve the purpose of protecting public health, both physical and mental, while working to shape the narrative and material conditions of our society during these uncertain times, as well as post-pandemic. Branch meetings put people in touch with their neighbours. Your problems, previously individualised, are situated in a broader context. You learn what problems your neighbours are facing. Coming together over common goals and working towards them as a community provides some relief to the sense of isolation and helplessness so many of us have experienced throughout the pandemic – it fulfils our desire for a collective life. Broadly speaking, the work tenants’ unions do serves to challenge the myths of the housing market and the system that traps people in a lifetime of what tenancy entails in a neoliberal society. These conditions are not a personal failure;

November 2020 — Feature

Film

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THE SKINNY

Music Now As a reward for surviving 2020, treat your ears to some new music courtesy of Bunkhouse, James Yorkston, Berlin Anatomy, Alex Amor, Comfort and Josephine Sillars

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Alex Amor

As the instrumentation on Comfort’s single is cold, so too is Josephine Sillars’ new single Enemy (15 Jan), albeit with more of a pop sheen. Sillars returns with a more mature sound, over three years since her last release, and on the track, she pleads throughout that you ‘don’t forget me’, admitting: ‘I can be my own worst enemy’. But the hardest line to stomach comes towards the end, and it’s a fear many of us likely have, that ‘If I stop everyone will forget who I am.’ Enemy is the first release taken from Sillars’ forthcoming new EP, Desperate Characters, and if the single is anything to go by, we can’t wait to hear it. December releases you may have missed... Far too much stuff came out in December, so instead of our usual paragraph or two detailing what you might have missed, here is simply a list of stuff. Modern Studies, Mima Merrow, Adam Stafford and CLING all released new EPs Dundee’s Make-That-A-Take Records released their 68-track(!!) Make Yer Ane Comp VIII to raise money for Dundee Women’s Aid Flux Velociraptor and Who Cried Wolf? released new singles 3000 Fists and Used To, respectively, and LAU’s Aidan O’Rourke released The Best of 365, the final instalment in his 30-album project, 365 Complete Works.

January 2021 — Review

Photo: Allan Whyte Bunkhouse

under his Berlin Anatomy moniker via Dead Hound Records. Set in a demon, scorpion and ghoul-infested America entering election season, The Draculus Gate plays out like some sort of dystopian radio broadcast, where tracks are broken up by quirky interludes, news-style interview broadcasts and witty skits. In a lot of ways this record absolutely should not work, but it flows beautifully and the music is brilliant. Alex Amor is one of those rare musicians that appear, seemingly out of nowhere, as a fully-formed artist. In the final third of 2020, the Glasgow artist released three woozy and exquisitely produced pop singles – The Part with Each Other, Prove Me Right, and Motion – collectively gaining over 100k streams on Spotify, and she was announced as one of the first 50 for Brighton’s The Great Escape festival in May. After all of that end of year excitement, to kick off 2021 Amor is releasing her debut EP, Love Language, on 15 January via Believe. Documenting the progression of a relationship, Amor says of the EP: “This EP reflects a recent time of my life where I am a woman struggling for autonomy. I’m moving into adulthood and I’m desperately trying to make sense of its complexities. Though there’s no happy resolve at the end of the EP, I feel more self-assured than ever, more me than I’ve ever been.” Staying in Glasgow, following their shortlisted nomination for the 2020 SAY Award for their exciting and challenging self-titled debut, sibling duo Comfort are barrelling head-first into 2021 with their brand new single, Received Life. Due on 4 January, it’s the first track taken from Slow Dance’s upcoming Slow Dance ‘20 compilation due later in the month (26 Jan). Full of exciting metallic noises and lyricism that holds a magnifying glass up to the privileged in our society, Received Life is another satisfying and ice-cold slab of sub-two-and-a-half-minute political punk from this pair, and we’re excited to see what the rest of 2021 holds for them.

Photo: James O'Donohoe

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can’t believe I’m writing this, but it’s 2021 (insert celebratory emoji here)! We only bloody well made it through 2020 – phew! – and the extra good news is, there’s lots of lovely new Scottish music coming your way this month to help get you through what could otherwise be one of the bleakest months in the calendar. Starting in Glasgow, three-piece act Bunkhouse, who were brought together in late 2019 by “a desire to push pop into strange places”, are doing exactly that on their self-released, self-titled debut (29 Jan), where fuzzy garage-rock collides with joyful organs, Casio drum beats and droll lyricism. Weird lyrics like ‘Cheeky little, cheeky little, cheeky little breadcrumb’ and ‘Hello whingebag / Hello sad sack’ sit alongside the blatantly obvious: ‘Allergies make me sneeze’. Laura Kelly’s occasional B-52s-esque vocals are a delight, especially on Whingebag which has a real whiff of Rock Lobster about it. Bunkhouse is a fun and playful listen, and perfect for all you weirdpop fanatics out there. Over in the East Neuk of Fife, James Yorkston is gearing up for his latest release on Domino Records, The Wide, Wide River (22 Jan), a collaborative effort with Swedish outfit The Second Hand Orchestra, led by Karl-Jonas Winqvist. The album, composed of eight songs recorded and mixed over the course of three days in Sweden, features some of the most beautiful tracks we’ve heard from Yorkston, the instrumentation and backing vocals from The Second Hand Orchestra elevating his delicate storytelling to the next level. Turn the page to read a more in-depth story on the album from Yorkston himself. Following on from his inclusion on Paradise Palms’ Bonnie Tropical 5 compilation last month, on 15 January Edinburgh-based Austin Barnes is releasing his concept album The Draculus Gate

Music

Words: Tallah Brash

THE SKINNY

Track-by-track James Yorkston talks us through his latest album The Wide, Wide River, a collaborative effort with Sweden’s The Second Hand Orchestra

Local Music

Words: James Yorkston The Wide, Wide River is released on 22 Jan by Domino Records jamesyorkston.co.uk

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hese songs were recorded over two sessions, both in Stockholm but months apart. For the most part, The Second Hand Orchestra hadn’t heard a note of the songs, and the arrangements sprang up around us bit by bit as people found their wee nook in which to carry the song. I love the freshness that approach has brought to the album. Ella Mary Leather Ella Mary Leather was a folk song collector from Herefordshire. This song wasn’t written about her at all, but I liked the lyrical nature of her name, so used it as a mask to protect the innocent party, someone I knew many moons ago. The song, although opening the album, was the final song we recorded. I remember hammering away on the piano, while behind me The Second Hand Orchestra’s arrangement slowly took place, cranking into place like a mechanical organ. I love the theatrical drums, the way they hold back, coming in only sparingly to emphasise the lyric.

As I sat sipping, the band were repeating the song over and over, developing this groove among themselves. It was so hypnotic and enticing, I went back through and joined in. After the vocal success of Choices, Like Wide Rivers, we had an open mic policy where I was encouraging everyone to sing if they found a space. The results are very evident on this track. I love those wee moments when someone or other will pitch in with a harmony, perhaps coming in a little early, or later, but sounding joyous nonetheless.

“I really lucked on my feet with this album” James Yorkston

Photo: Nadja Hallstrom

There Is No Upside This was the first song of the first session, and I can hear that energy fizzing through The Second Hand Orchestra. Some of my favourite bits of music are those that sound like a live band having fun, jumping through the music as it tumbles forward, working out what’s going on. I’d say this is one of those. I asked Ullis to play solo violin throughout, a nod to the great Linton Kwesi Johnson track Story, for I love that tone Ullis gets with her violin. I’ve been asked if There Is No Upside is about Brexit. It isn’t, but if the cap fits…

January 2021 — Review

A Droplet Forms This lyric was written for a collaboration I did with Max Cooper. I loved what he did with it, but wanted to give it a musical backing I could carry myself, so I wrote this little piece. Similarly to Struggle, the band repeated the loop, over and over, finding this slinky little shuffle. It was a luxury, for me, to be able to drop into such a luscious sound. My voice sounds weary, but it suits the music, the lyric. Emma’s perfect, simple piano drops are genius, but there’s nothing about this beautiful piece of music I don’t love. To Soothe Her Wee Bit Sorrows Before we arrived at the studio, in my head I had this song sounding like a cross between Veedon Fleece and Neu! However, it went off in a slightly different, but no less satisfying, direction. As we were recording, the swelling section in the middle, where the cello and violin take over, was thrilling to hear, although I became nervous – I knew it was sounding amazing and was wary I’d fudge it up before we got to the end of the song. Choices, Like Wide Rivers When I asked The Second Hand Orchestra to sing with me on this track it was as though we had opened a whole new palette of sonic colour – a gathering of (very) human voices. They were so soft and harmonious; I was playing along listening, on occasion forgetting to sing myself. I also love Ullis’ violin solo and Emma Nordenstam’s gentle piano. Struggle I sang the song to the band, showed them the chords and retreated to the mixing booth to make myself some sweet tea. — 40 —

A Very Old-Fashioned Blues When I was young, one of the few songs I owned was a 7” of The Kinks’ Sunny Afternoon. It’s a perfect pop song, for me. Every now and then I find myself writing a song that follows that verse/chorus/verse format, and this is one such time. The highlight of recording this song was when The Second Hand Orchestra’s voices kicked in with this uplifting, emotional chorus. Through the writing, recording, mixing and mastering of this album, I must have heard this song over 100 times, but their soaring voices still bring up the hairs on the back of my neck. We Test The Beams When I first played the band this song I had my eyes closed as I sang. At the end, I looked up and two of the band were crying, caught up with the emotion of the song. It meant a lot to me that they got the story I was trying to portray, and when we went to record they got it just right, leaving plenty of space, responding to the lyric in a thoughtful fashion. I really lucked on my feet with this album. Every single band member was perfect, capable of playing, but not interested in overplaying, just doing their own thing, while helping me and the songs.

THE SKINNY

In Cinemas Sound of Metal Director: Darius Marder Starring: Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke

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Sound of Metal

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Building on their filmography of mind-bending genre films, directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead take a step into more mainstream fare with Synchronic. Compared to their previous efforts, the film is a less confident mixture of inventive visuals and personal drama, but Benson and Moorhead still manage to wrangle the twisty time-travel mechanics into an engaging watch. The film sees two New Orleans paramedics, Steve (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis (Jamie Dornan), encounter violent deaths across the city, all seemingly connected to a new synthetic drug that alters your perception of time and space. The gradual introduction to the fantastical story

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“I want to have a baby. I just don’t want to turn into a mum,” Rose Matafeo’s Zoe says to her partner Tim (Lewis) as they peer at a urinesoaked pregnancy stick. If there were any doubt as to what she means, she clears it up almost immediately. “I don’t want us to become dicks”. A welcome addition to the pregnancy film genre, Baby Done is a sweet yet cynical take on the miracle of life in all its annoying, administrative glory. Determined to prove that she is still her own person, baby or not, Zoe swaps antenatal classes for tree climbing, cutesy baby showers for international travel, pulling the bemused Tim – trailing parenting books and baby toys – in her wake.

Synchronic

elements is captured in flowing, voyeuristic camera movements that stare at eerie crime scenes, and the flashes of visual effects instil a great feeling of unease. What the film is lacking, however, is the same steadily building dread of its directors’ other films, The Endless (2017) or Spring (2014). The time-hopping sequences toe the line between immersive and silly, and the time-travel rules feel somewhat arbitrary and made up on the spot. Still, Synchronic benefits from playing its out-there story completely straight. This is thanks to a pair of strong performances from Mackie and Dornan, and although the latter feels underused, they both get opportunities to show real vulnerability. Despite its messiness, Synchronic is suitably weird, sufficiently fun, and it’s refreshing to see filmmakers grounding high-concept thrills so faithfully in their characters. [Rory Doherty]

Baby Done

Pieces of a Woman Director: Kornél Mundruczó Starring: Vanessa Kirby, Shia LaBeouf, Ellen Burstyn

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Brace yourself for sorrow. Pieces of a Woman, the first English-language film from Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó, is the kind of blistering melodrama for grownups that Hollywood barely makes anymore. Vanessa Kirby is vivid and utterly compelling as Martha, a young Bostonian woman coming to terms with the tragedy that opens the film: the death of her daughter, who stops breathing in her arms after a complicated home birth overseen by her well-meaning but feckless partner Sean (LaBeouf) and a nervy replacement midwife (Molly Parker) who subs in at the 11th hour. The birth takes place in one astonishing unbroken take. The aftermath – the breakdown of Martha’s

Released 29 Jan by Signature; certificate TBC — 41 —

It’s a classic fish-out-of-water scenario that perfectly suits the film’s deadpan tone, although more could be made of the concept, both satirically and emotionally. Yet while the script says nothing new, there is real charm and incisive humour found both in the details (the genderreveal Gothic of tiny baby figurines frozen in ice cubes, hideous cradles fashioned out of fruit salad) and in Matafeo and Lewis’s performances, which are delightful at every turn. Both are comedically pitch-perfect, Lewis’s vulnerable tenderness grounding Matefeo’s chaotic energy, their chemistry skimming over the script’s occasionally manufactured tension. If nothing else – and there is much else – Baby Done offers a vehicle for the sparkling Matafeo and severely underrated Lewis to shine, and they don’t hesitate to deliver. [Anahit Behrooz] Released 22 Jan by Vertigo; certificate 15

Pieces of a Woman

relationship with Sean, scorching arguments with her imperious mother (Burstyn), a court case judging the midwife’s negligence – plays out in short sharp scenes as icy and jagged as Benjamin Loeb‘s wintery cinematography. It’s an acting masterclass so good you barely notice Pieces of a Woman’s obvious theatrical roots. Mundruczó’s previous films (White God, Jupiter’s Moon) were heavy on metaphor and he overindulges here too, with rotting fruits, dying plants and an incomplete bridge all heavy-handed symbols that come off as clumsy next to the powerhouse performances. But Pieces of a Woman shines when Mundruczó’s focus is his actors or when simply observing Kirby, a raw nerve behind a cool exterior, as she gazes at the children she sees everywhere around this close-knit Boston and longs for what might have been. [Jamie Dunn] Released 1 Jan in cinemas and streaming 7 Jan on Netflix

January 2021 — Review

Synchronic Directors: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead Starring: Anthony Mackie, Jamie Dornan, Katie Aselton

Released 29 Jan by Vertigo; certificate 15

Baby Done Director: Curtis Vowell Starring: Rose Matafeo, Matthew Lewis, Emily Barclay, Rachel House

In Cinemas

Sound of Metal is a visceral and immersive experience. Over three acts we follow Ruben (Ahmed), a heavy metal drummer whose hearing begins to deteriorate rapidly, as he embarks on an emotional journey, grappling with rage, identity and closure. After four years of sobriety, Ruben’s bandmate and girlfriend Lou (Cooke) fears he will relapse, so the pair leave behind their tour and nomadic lifestyle to travel to a rural addiction facility for Deaf people. There they meet Joe (Paul Raci), a recovering alcoholic who lost his hearing in the Vietnam War. Director Darius Marder has crafted a profound story about deafness, intimately exploring the

nuances of hearing loss and the many degrees of deaf identity that have been hidden away from the screen, and wider society. The integration between sound design and perspective enriches this character study, with the presence of captions cementing both the film’s narrative and genuine advocacy for access. Ahmed and Cooke are quietly devastating, with Cooke’s empathetic character a catalyst for the pivotal moments in Ruben’s journey. The consultation and inclusion of Deaf talent, such as Lauren Ridloff, emphasises the significance of authenticity in the storytelling of deaf experiences. This dedication to realism is integral to the film’s first-person narrative, and the innovative soundscape enables both Ruben and the audience to find stillness in silence. [Charlotte Little]

THE SKINNY

Books

Book Reviews

Luster

Luckenbooth

By Raven Leilani

By Jenni Fagan

January 2021 — Review

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Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape

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The Prophets By Robert Jones Jr.

By Cal Flyn

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Although The Prophets is Robert Jones Jr.’s debut novel, it wouldn’t be a surprise to learn that it’s the result of decades of labour. Set on a plantation in antebellum Mississippi called Empty, the book chronicles the lives of two gay enslaved men, Isaiah and Samuel, a couple who look after the animals during the day and seek refuge in each others’ arms at night. Orbiting the couple at its crux, the book cuts between different characters’ perspectives: Amos, an ageing man who finds a version of God; Paul, the plantation owner; Sarah, a queer woman taken away from her lover. Each of Empty’s occupants is bestowed with empathy, depth and care by Jones and particularly notable are the female characters who are as complexly drawn as the men at the heart of the story. Excruciatingly detailed and ambiguously lyrical, this is a novel tackling big ideas: the nature of love, the body without agency, religion without justice. The prose is so poetic that when actual poetry is introduced later in the book, it feels somewhat futile and unnecessary. “Did Black queer people exist in the distant past?” Jones asks in the novel’s introduction. “Of course they did.” The Prophets shades in this history that has been erased and whitewashed in America. This is historical fiction that feels essential, like a prayer to the past. [Katie Goh]

quercusbooks.co.uk

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The last few years have seen a litany of stories that purport to speak for this generation of women, from Sally Rooney’s Normal People to Candice Carty-Williams’ Queenie and Naoise Dolan’s Exciting Times. And the truth is they do, in their own way, because women’s lives – of course – cannot be captured in a singular narrative. But there is nevertheless something very special about Luster, a novel so incisive and acutely aware that it shines bright even among its luminous predecessors. The novel follows Edie, a 23-year-old New Yorker who strikes up an affair with an older, white man living in Jersey and unwittingly becomes entangled in his family: his inscrutable wife and their adopted Black daughter Akila who comes to Edie to have her hair done. It is in many ways a classic tale of suburban melodrama, but Leilani takes the format and renders it fierce and daring – formally innovative sleights of hand sitting alongside keenly discomforting mediations on gender, race and class – reflecting the current zeitgeist back with poetic, critical clarity. There is a way that Leilani writes, carving into the everyday and refashioning it into something both achingly familiar and startlingly fresh, that feels almost alchemical, a momentary distortion that, after a few seconds, reveals itself as the way things have always been. ‘Luster’ is apt – this novel sparkles. [Anahit Behrooz]

Living in a tenement is a strange thing. They house so many, at all times you hear the noises of lives you know nothing about. The structures themselves are so old, you wonder what their walls may have borne witness to across the years. No 10. Luckenbooth Close is one of those tenements. Over the course of nine decades, Fagan takes us inside its walls and into the lives of its many inhabitants. From the Deacon Brodie-esque Mr Udnam, who holds dark secrets behind his community-minded façade; to Agnes the psychic; to Dot drifting through the city on Hogmanay 1999; those who dwell there are as diverse and shifting as the Edinburgh outside its walls. Every character offers a glimpse into a different life, yet each one is more complex than the last. It is a testament to Fagan’s skill at her craft to write so many very different characters from different eras so deftly. Luckenbooth is an ode to Edinburgh’s crumbling Old Town, but as ever with Fagan the supernatural underlies everything within its pages. It would be easy for a novel like this to feel disjointed, but the sense of place and the presence of something other throughout make the transitions of time and character effortless. No 10. Luckenbooth Close itself may be the novel’s beating heart, but something darkly mystical flows through its veins. [Emily Hay]

Picador, 21 Jan, £14.99

William Heinemann, 14 Jan, £16.99

What links the zone around the site of a nuclear disaster in Ukraine, derelict streets in the fourth largest city in America, and a Scottish island inhabited by feral cattle? For one, they’re all places that have either been almost entirely abandoned by humans. But they’re also three of the many (mostly) uninhabited places that journalist Cal Flyn traversed across the course of two years to form her new book Islands of Abandonment. While her travels to these locations – from the Buffer Zone in Cyprus to the man-made Five Sisters bing in West Lothian – form the central focus of each chapter, Flyn weaves so much more into the fabric of this book. Social histories, comparisons to similar cases across the globe and references to cultural touchstones help illuminate the areas’ current state further. But it’s Flyn’s lyrical, incredibly evocative writing style that truly brings the book to life; her time on Swona in the Orkney Isles is memorable for bookending its historical perspective with somewhat gothic undertones describing her stay. Through this, Flyn interrogates the ecological impact of human activity on each location and to what extent nature can bounce back in a truly engaging manner. By turns cautionary but with glimmers of hope, Islands of Abandonment is not only a compelling travelogue but also a fascinating insight into the relationship between man and nature. [Eugenie Johnson] HarperCollins, 21 Jan, £16.99

panmacmillan.com

penguin.co.uk

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Riverrun, 5 Jan, £18.99

THE SKINNY

Eat Your Words Words: Peter Simpson Illustrations: Kaitlin Mechan

2

might sit on Twitter wondering why no-one seems to know about your favourite food TV show, or favourite cookbook, or favourite childhood chocolate bar (RIP the Cadbury Fuse, gone but never forgotten). You might have an interesting take on food history, or the politics of food and how it’s distributed, or how ‘we’ decide which is ‘our favourite’ cookbook or chocolate bar. You could look at food as art, food as a way to share stories with people, you could examine your personal relationship with food. You might have something to say that doesn’t meet any of these criteria, but is an interesting look at food nonetheless. New perspectives, fresh ways of thinking, hot spicy takes and cool, well-chilled analysis – we want to read them all. If you want to get involved, send your submissions of up to 300 words to food@theskinny.co.uk by Monday 1 March. We’ll work with the winning writer to develop your idea into a full-length feature for publication in our April issue, and offer a £200 top prize. We’ll also publish a further selection of entries in our April issue, and we’ll pay each of the selected writers for their work. We’re also planning on running some online workshops for those of you who want some help getting your ideas together, and a Q&A if you have some specific questions that would be easier to ask us in person rather than waiting for us to write another 600 word article. Keep your eyes on our socials [@theskinnymag] and the website for details. Eating and drinking are universal but individual. We all experience the world of food in different ways, and we all have stories to tell; if you want to share yours, here’s your chance.

‘If you’re an early career writer, you’re based in Scotland, and you have something interesting to say about food, we want to hear from you’

For more details of our Food Writing Competition, and for our guide to Pitching To The Skinny, head to theskinny.co.uk

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January 2021 — Review

020 was, as any second-rate national newspaper columnist will tell you, a year like no other. Cinemas – shut. Live music – forget about it. Going round to your friend’s house to watch the telly – nuh-uh, buddy. While some parts of life were changing enormously, and some were hobbling along as ever, food and drink was doing a bit of both. When we ventured outside we were confronted by a very different environment than we’re used to; harder to go where we wanted to, spending less time when we got there, and all taking place amid a weird sense of collective denial. It forced us to reassess what it is we want from the merry old world of hospitality, and to think about what we’ve been doing up to now. With more of our time spent inside, we were reflecting on our personal relationships with food. We were trying out new things, pondering the impact of our consumption, and doing a lot of cooking with varied levels of success. It’s been a time of change, and a time for thinking about things a bit differently. That’s why we’re launching The Skinny Food & Drink Writing Competition. If you’re an early career writer, you’re based in Scotland, and you have something interesting to say about food, we want to hear from you. But what counts as ‘something interesting to say about food’? We want to cast the net as wide as possible, partly because we want to be surprised and excited by the submissions we receive, but mostly because food and drink really does cut across most other parts of our lives. Maybe you have a favourite cafe or bar that sparks a particular emotion, or has a particular resonance in your community. Your street might be packed with interesting or slightly odd shops that deserve to be known by a wider audience. The food in your neighbourhood could have a particular set of eccentricities that make it different from anywhere else. You

Food & Drink

Emerging food writers, The Skinny is calling – here are details of our new Food and Drink Writing Competition

January 2021

THE SKINNY

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THE SKINNY

ICYMI Fringe 2019 Best Newcomer nominee Huge Davies takes on the might of comedy sacred cow The Blues Brothers Illustration: Miranda Stuart

The plot and dialogue move at a snail’s pace. Watching it was like watching a play, but you can see the actors walking slowly to a different theatre to perform the next scene. When the brothers get pulled over you watch both cars slowing down, the police walking to the car, checking their licenses then walking back to their car, with almost no dialogue, all in

Almost all the celebrity cameos are unnecessary. Frank Oz is a prison guard. Twiggy gets chatted up at a gas station. Steven Spielberg works at the bank. It’s staggering they had so many iconic people attached, but had them play normal characters doing nothing interesting. Maybe that’s the joke? It’d be like putting Lady Gaga in The Hangover but having her play a hotel receptionist who just smiles and wishes Zach Galifianakis a nice day. The supporting characters are also quite unlikable. At one point Aretha Franklin’s husband tells her that women belong in the kitchen, throws his apron on the floor, storms out, joins the Blues Brothers and the scene just ends. It doesn’t even feel as offensive as it should, it’s just a strange scene with seemingly no joke or payoff. I now understand that The Blues Brothers were two popular SNL characters given a movie due to their popularity. That’s probably why it felt like a recurring sketch that lasted two hours. I also don’t like SNL, which could be most of the problem. This film was a bit like watching Kayne West’s music video for Bound 2. You’re quite enjoying the music, but you don’t really understand why you’re watching Kim Kardashian pretend to ride a motorbike in front of wild horses on a green screen for four minutes. I really wanted to like it, but it just made me want to blow the dust off my Anchorman DVD for old time’s sake. Huge Davies stars in The First Team (available on BBC iPlayer), Harry Hill’s Clubnite (All 4) and Jonathan Ross’ Comedy Club (ITV Player). You can catch him on Twitter and Instagram @HugeDavies

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January 2021 — Review

They say timing is the most important thing in comedy but this joke finished ten minutes ago

real-time. It takes like three minutes. Every scene is like this. As I was watching it, I imagined a version of Shaun of the Dead that includes real-time footage of Shaun walking to his job at Dixons, tapping into the tube, then waiting in line for two minutes to buy flowers for his Mum.

Comedy

I

was really looking forward to watching this film. I read the blurb and thought this could possibly be a perfect comedy film. A ridiculous nonsensical plot, over-the-top expensive car chases, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, James Brown all performing songs, led by two of the most lauded comedy actors in American cinema. It’s always on ‘Best Comedies of All Time Lists’ and has been a cult classic for decades. But watching this was disappointing. I’ll start off with things I liked. As anyone who earns money from live shows can attest, a film premise about raising a large amount of money just from gigging is quite a good joke. If I wanted to raise five thousand dollars in three days, I’d have a better chance of signing on than scoring a paid gig after a three-year hiatus. The music is outstanding. Watching some of the best musicians of all time dance and sing did put a fat smile on my face, particularly Freedom and Shake a Tail Feather. I downloaded the soundtrack halfway through the film. There are also many moments that are genuinely funny. When the nun stopped beating the brothers with a stick, only to get out a bigger one and continue hitting them, it made me chuckle. The intense and stupid Carrie Fisher scenes are great too. But where there are hits, there are many misses. I actually liked the ideas of the jokes: the over-the-top car chases, the bar that throws bottles at them before they start playing, the thousands of police officers, army troops and national guards chasing them for a speeding ticket. The stupidity of it. But the joke just goes on forever. The final chase scene is over 20 minutes long. It reminded me of that bit in Anchorman, where all the news teams fight to the death. It’s completely out of the blue and probably the most memorable scene, but it only happens once. Scenes like this happen about ten times in TBB. They say timing is the most important thing in comedy but this joke finished ten minutes ago.

THE SKINNY

The Skinny On... Thanyia Moore The Skinny On...

South London actor and comic Thanyia Moore is making an impact with her straight-talking stand-up. With last year’s Fringe having been cancelled, we’re hoping Moore makes a splash on the (presumably virtual) festival circuit this year.

T

hanyia Moore’s breaking through to the mainstream. Having started on the comedy circuit in 2012, she’s gone on to win the Funny Women Awards (previously won by the likes of Katherine Ryan, Desiree Burch and London Hughes), reached the semi-finals of the BBC New Comedy Award in 2018 and

recently supported Dane Baptiste on tour. Over the past year, she’s made appearances on Comedy Central at the Edinburgh Fringe and recently debuted on Mock the Week, cementing her reputation both on and off screen as a comic on the brink of UK-wide success. Here she talks to The Skinny in our first Q&A of 2021.

What’s your favourite place to visit and why? My favourite place to visit is any restaurant where I enjoy the food. I’m a foodie and that is literally the only time of the day I feel genuine happiness... When I’m eating good food!

Image: Verona Rose

Favourite food and why? Favourite food is hard to answer BUT my favourite meal is my mum’s shepherd’s pie. With cooked cabbage, runner beans, sweetcorn and lashings of gravy... OMG!! Favourite colour? Purple. It’s my birthstone and I think it promotes peace and tranquillity.

January 2021 — Chat

Who was your hero growing up? I don’t think I had one tbh – was too busy being a self-centred middle child. Whose work inspires you now? I’m inspired by a handful of people because I want so much out of my career. Davina McCall for presenting. Viola Davis for acting. Whoopi Goldberg for all of the above and stand-up! What three people would you invite to your dinner party and what are you cooking? Whoopi Goldberg, Angie Le Mar and Neyo. I look up to the women so would love to sit and pick their brains. Ne-yo is simply the entertainment. What’s your all-time favourite album? Jagged Edge’s Jagged Little Thrill. What’s the worst film you’ve ever seen? How Stella Got Her Groove Back. — 46 —

I mean... We really didn’t need to know if that is all it was [shagging]. What book would you take to a protracted period of governmentmandated isolation? The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra. Who’s the worst? Every leader of every country. When did you last cry? Tuesday 8 December 2020 – had a moment with my little sister for her 30th and it was lovely. What are you most scared of? Failure and never finding love. When did you last vomit and why? Wednesday 2 December 2020 – filmed a thing where I had to get drunk and threw up when I got home. Absolute fucking lightweight. Tell us a secret? A secret. Which celebrity could you take in a fight? None. I can’t fight. Can just about manage 10 press-ups (but don’t tell anyone, feel free to change this and make me sound tough)! If you could be reincarnated as an animal, which animal would it be? Definitely a cat. They have a lot more power than they let on and it would be nice to lounge around all day, eat, sleep and repeat... all while paying no bills. Thanyia Moore should be bringing her debut hour, Bully, to the Edinburgh Fringe 2021 thanyiamoore.co.uk

THE SKINNY

October 2020

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January 2021 — Chat

The Skinny On...

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