TheSkinny October Issue 2025

SPECIAL GUESTS

The Skinny's favourite songs from 2005

Sufjan Stevens - Chicago

Franz Ferdinand - Walk Away Bloc Party - Banquet

Robyn - With Every Heartbeat

Jennifer Lopez - Get Right

The Futureheads - Hounds of Love

Amerie - 1 Thing

Franz Ferdinand - Outsiders

Siobhan Wilson

Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor

The Bravery - An Honest Mistake

LCD Soundsystem - Daft Punk Is Playing at My House

Madonna - Hung Up

Gorillaz - Dare

Chemical Brothers - Galvanise

Fall Out Boy - Sugar, We're Going Down

Crazy Frog - Axel F

Girls Aloud - Biology

Destiny's Child - Lose My Breath

Rihanna - Pon de Replay

Shakira - Hips Don't Lie

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

Issue 237, October 2025 © Radge Media C.I.C.

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by DC Thomson & Co. Ltd, Dundee

Meet the team

Championing creativity in Scotland

We asked: What have you learned from 20 years of The Skinny?

Senior Editorial

Rosamund West Editor-in-Chief

"You don't have to be crazy to work here but it helps."

Peter Simpson Deputy Editor, Food & Drink Editor

"That's not a staple in the middle; it's actually part of a continuous spool of wire!"

Cammy Gallagher Clubs Editor

"Something that's free can be valued highly."

Anahit Behrooz Events Editor, Books Editor

"Everything is better at the grassroots. All of it. "

Jamie Dunn Film Editor, Online Journalist

"That a surprisingly high percentage of PRs regularly still confuse us with The List. Oh, and never interview visual artists, they’re crazier than a bag of frogs."

Tallah Brash Music Editor "That Neil Buchanan from Art Attack used to be in a heavy metal band."

Business

Laurie Presswood General Manager

"Mostly gossip about the rest of the Scottish arts scene."

Commissioning Editors Sales

George Sully Sales and Brand Strategist

"How to pronounce 'Kirkcudbright'."

Eilidh Akilade Intersections Editor

"That learning how to write a pithy one liner to start each issue never gets easier. "

Production

Dalila D'Amico Art Director, Production Manager "Don't fuck with people's work."

Rachel Ashenden Art Editor "I still haven't learned how to get an invite to an exhibition opening."

Phoebe Willison Designer "That nobody will ever notice if you design secret messages into every issue of the magazine."

Sandy Park Commercial Director "The art of leaving a voicemail."

Ema Smekalova Media Sales Executive "It all works out in the end."

Polly Glynn Comedy Editor "Sometimes, if the New York Times gives something a 5 star review, you'll hate it. Don't go. Trust people you know and respect."

Ellie Robertson Editorial Assistant "What the K in CMYK stands for. Which I've since forgotten."

Emilie Roberts Media Sales Executive "That everyone who works here knows infinitely more than I do about what is cool and or interesting."

Rho Chung Theatre Editor "I have learned that I am overdoing it in most cases, actually."

Editorial

Words: Rosamund West

Did we mention we’re turning 20 this month? Did the big 20 on the cover give it away? We’re celebrating with a heavy dose of nostalgia, delving into the archive to dredge up long-forgotten article formats and reconnect with some of the many, many, many people who’ve contributed to this magazine as writers, editors, designers, artists over the last two decades. For a more personal take on the 20 year milestone, cast your eyes to the right for a Love Bites column by yours truly.

We open with the most-frequently-requested column from times past, our horrifying horoscopes blending pseudo science, satire and social commentary, Crystal Baws. Mystic Mark was dra ed out of retirement for one last job, expanded from a column to a full double page spread to allow you to really savour these demented insights into your astrological future.

We found an old comedy format called Braw or Naw around the 2006-7 seam, and we’ve brought it back with Christopher Macarthur-Boyd, who shares his deep disdain for pizza crust dips, amongst other things. Old competition The Skinny on Tour – you guess the very obvious location of a copy of the magazine from a photo, you may win a prize – returns, and we’ve got a revived fashion column, the very fashionable-in-2006 Skinny Jeans, plus a new spot for creative writing that we might just keep. Reading old copies of the problem page revealed that the world has truly changed for the better in more ways than we may realise – Ask Anahit responds to an archival reader.

Former Art editor Andrew challenges that brief moment of positivity as he returns with an opinion piece reviving his very seriously named Scopohilia column of c. 2011. He’s cast his mind back to 2005 when things looked sunnier and posits that they’ve just been getting worse and worse, and artists predicted it so… yeah. Alongside, we’ve got our old designer Lewis’s visual food column to lighten the mood.

The Dirty Dozen invites a band to review the month’s singles and maybe start some fights – we’re passed this over to Roddy Woomble and Rod Jones from Idlewild, who were featured in our very first issue with a review of an intimate live show in Cab Vol. SHEARS takes on Under the Influence, revealing the albums that have informed her musical evolution. We’ve taken more of a survey approach to pick an artist from each year of the magazine’s life, creating a proposed mixtape of the music that has defined Scotland. Slime City’s Michael M takes us back to 2005 and his time in ‘the best band you’ve never heard of’, We Are The Physics. Looking forward, we look at some of the writers who will define the next twenty years of the Scottish literary landscape. The Showcase celebrates the work of Rae-Yen Song 宋瑞渊, who’s got a massive show coming up in Tramway later in the year.

Moving beyond our nostalgia-fest, we’ve got some normal coverage in normal format of things that are happening near you this month. Intersections looks forward to Black History Month, with some words with some of the artists and organisers who’ve contributed to this year’s programme. Film celebrates ten years of SQIFF and meets Louise Weard to learn more about creating a language of trans cinema with Castration Movie. Art meets Grace Ndiritu and we preview this year’s Storytelling Festival’s exploration of fairytale and folklore of the north and Nordic regions.

We close the magazine with another revived format, Starter for 11, where 11 questions are posed to an artist with the mooted prize of a ha is supper which we unfortunately forgot to mention in this instance. The first one we found in the archive featured a bunch of men being asked questions about the Scottish music scene by a bunch of other men, so Tallah approached Hen Hoose to pose some questions for Clare Grogan.

Cover Artist

Phoebe Willison is a graphic designer, artist and facilitator based in Glasgow. She has 7 different Instagram accounts for each of her personalities.

This month, she's taken our very first cover (left) and given it a 20th Birthday update.

IG: @phoebe.willison phoebewillison.co.uk

Love Bites: 20 Years of The Skinny

This month’s columnist, our very own Editor-in-Chief, reflects on two brilliant (and somewhat chaotic) decades

Words: Rosamund West

My adult life is completely entwined with The Skinny to a degree that is, I am certain, deeply unhealthy. The first issue came out in the autumn after I graduated, and the first thing I did of any material value in the chaos of my post-art school life was write a feature for it. I got involved in the precursor publication, Noise, because the editor was the bouncer at the bar I worked in and my flatmate was sha ing him so he was invited to the lock-in we inevitably had after every shift. That’s it, that’s the whole reason for my entire life’s trajectory.

Going back through the archive is a visceral, painful, joyful experience. Back to the start, there’s so much chaos and grime, indie sleaze before we knew that was its name. A lot of out-of-focus photography and unhinged article ideas. Hardly any fucking women anywhere because 20 years ago we still had to make an individual case that we could write, play instruments, be funny.

The magazine started because the people making it wanted a place to express themselves, to document the culture around them without having to appease the London gatekeepers or, worse, move there. A lot of us just wanted jobs we liked and to do something with our arts degrees. It continued, and continues to exist, because it turns out that’s actually really important, and having a space for coverage and criticism of local culture supports the development of that culture in myriad unforeseen but essential ways.

It’s a precarious thing, which never seems to become less precarious. In an old issue, March 2007, I found an editorial, handwritten on lined paper and scanned by Sophie, then publisher, clearly having a breakdown as it felt like it was all collapsing around her. She was still hopeful though, and she did turn it around. The editorial ends: ‘Happiness, regardless of the state of the world, can always be found in a magazine. Enjoy x.’

Heads Up

Night Garden

V&A Dundee, Dundee, 31 Oct, 7:30pm

Get a whole new perspective on V&A Dundee’s Garden Futures exhibition with this late-night event bringing together DJs, installations, food and screenings to give you a secret glimpse into the museum after hours. Heading the night is Dundee’s own KILIMANJARO, with his high-energy sets filling the gallery spaces.

The days are getting colder (boo), the nights are getting longer (boooo), but the events still slap: plenty of film festivals, club nights and gigs to get you out and about.

Slipping & EHFM: Memotone + HAN + Wild Cabin

Safari Lounge, Edinburgh, 11 Oct, 6pm

EHFM and new Edinburgh music label Slipping are putting on a night of experimental music at Safari Lounge. Headlining the night is leading British electronic musician Memotone, whose music combines field recordings with gentle folk-inflected melodies, with support from Glasgow alt-rock fixtures Wild Cabin and HAN (aka boosterhooch).

Scottish Queer International Film Festival

Various venues, Glasgow, 27 Oct-1 Nov

There’s a big focus on short films at this year’s Scottish Queer International Film Festival. Some highlights include How We Loved, How We Broke, an exploration of intimacy, heartache and survival; No Pride in Genocide, a collection from Palestine, the diaspora, and Lebanon; and The Stage is a Body, exploring how the body becomes a site of protest and transformation.

Ethel Cain

O2 Academy, Glasgow, 4 Oct, 7pm

Compiled by Anahit Behrooz

Rinse: Arthi

Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, 24 Oct, 11pm

Superstar DJ Arthi returns to Edinburgh in this collaboration between Sneaky Pete’s and Rinse FM. Last seen in Edinburgh at Sneaky Pete’s Fruitmarket Warehouse takeover last year, she’s bringing her high-energy dance music back, playing her signature selection of dancehall, re aeton, Afrobeats, garage and bass until the wee hours.

Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival

Various venues, Scotland, 20 Oct-9 Nov

Women take centre stage in this year’s edition of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, taking place in venues across Scotland. Australian performer Leah Shelton brings back her critically acclaimed show BATSHIT following its incredible run at the 2024 Fringe, exploring the story of her grandmother who was institutionalised for seeking independence; there’s also WIP performances by Milly Sweeney, Emma Lynne Harley, Ese Ighorae and Skye Loneragan and more.

Eve Stainton: Impact Driver

Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, 18 Oct, 7pm

A co-production between Sadler’s Wells, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Take Me Somewhere, Wysing Arts Centre and Dansehallerne (a real who’s who of performance art spaces), Eve Stainton’s Impact Driver is a delirious mix of movement, live score written by Leisha Thomas and Mica Levi and welding, interrogating stereotypes of gender through the language of fabrication, disruption and absurdity.

The Sick Man of Europe The Flying Duck, Glasgow, 3 Oct, 7pm

Scottish

Photo: Dollie Kyarn

Photo:

Image: courtesy of SQIFF

Image: courtesy the artist

Photo: Cecilia Martin Photography

Photo: Anne Tetzlaff

Photo: Jay Sentrosi

Photo: Michael Pote-Hunt

Photo: Jim Dunn (2025)

Ethel Cain

Memories of Princess Mumbi

The Sick Man of Europe

Anna Lehr

BATSHIT for Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival Moment

Impact Driver

Wild Cabin

Arthi

KILIMANJARO

Samia

The Garage, Glasgow, 26 Oct, 7pm

Across all her records, American indie pop artist Samia takes you by surprise, delicate voice and gentle melodies belied by viciously vulnerable and introspective songwriting. Her third and most recent album Bloodless – following 2020’s The Baby and 2023’s Honey – is her most guttingly intimate yet: a stunning work of self-excavation and self-understanding.

Falastin Frames

Filmhouse, Edinburgh, 2 Oct, 6pm

Over the next six months, Falastin Film Festival is programming monthly films at the Filmhouse, pulling from some of the gems from the last couple of editions of their festival that you might have missed. Kicking off the newly inaugurated Falastin Frames is Fedayin: George Abdallah’s Fight, a documentary on George Abdallah, Europe’s longest held political prisoner.

Take Me Somewhere

Various venues, Glasgow, 15-26 Oct

If your dose of experimental theatre has worn off since August and the Fringe, never fear: Take Me Somewhere, Glasgow’s festival dedicated to weird and wonderful performance art is back. It’s an incredibly strong programme: queer, disabled performance Dan Daw brings his new show EXXY, while India-born, Glasgow-based artist Shawn Nayar explores hybridity and the legacies of colonialism with The Mongrel

Peng Zuqiang: Afternoon Hearsay Common Guild, Glasgow, 11 Oct-7 Dec

Pop Mutations x Tiny Changes

Various venues, Glasgow, 18 Oct, 7pm

AMPLIFI: Theon Cross + Azamiah + Gaïa

The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 15 Oct, 8pm

Gig series AMPLIFI takes to The Queen’s Hall’s main stage for the first time, platforming a new lineup of emerging Scottish and British artists. Headlining is Theon Cross, whose experimental tuba playing dips into contemporary jazz, re ae and afrobeats. Also on the programme are Glasgow nu-jazz collective Azamiah and nu-jazz, R’n’B and neosoul singer-songwriter Gaïa.

TSHA Presents Jackfruit

SWG3, Glasgow, 17 Oct, 11pm London-based DJ and producer TSHA continues her Jackfruit tour in Glasgow, bringing her high-octane brand of house to SWG3’s warehouse space. Following big appearances at the likes of Coachella, Glastonbury and Lollapalooza, this is an increasingly rare chance to see her work her magic in a smaller, intimate space.

Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years

RSA: Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, until 2 Nov

Predominantly known as an outdoor and land artist, making site-specific works that respond to the natural environment, Andy Goldsworthy has brought his art indoors in this rare exhibition that celebrates his relationship to the nonhuman world through largescale, mesmerising installations made in response to the RSA building, as well as drawings, photographs, films, sketchbooks and archival items dating back to the mid-1970s.

Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, 4 Oct, 7pm

Black Sabbath: The Ballet Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, 30 Oct-1 Nov, various times

SHEARS

Photo: David Scheinmann

Photo:

Photo: Laura Prieto Martin

Photo: David Polston

Photo: Tiu Makkonen

Photo: Nicole Ngai, Amelia Studios

Photo: Ian Hippolyte

Photo: Stuart Armitt

Photo Erika Lyijynen

Peng Zuqiang, Afternoon Hearsay (2025). Film still

Altered Images

SHEARS

Black Sabbath The Ballet

Andy Goldsworthy, Oak Passage and Dock Drawing, both 2025

The Mongrel

Samia

Theon Cross

TSHA

Fedayin, George Abdallah's Fight

What's On

All details correct at the time of writing

Music

First up, here’s a quick recap of festivals happening this month. Interesting Things (4 Oct) returns to Stirling’s Tolbooth for a day of sonic discovery; while there, check out Lomond Campbell’s MŮO exhibition which opens in the venue on the same day. In Glasgow, Chlobocop returns to curate the Brick Lane Jazz Festival at The Rum Shack (10 Oct), multidisciplinary festival SPLINTR takes over various spaces courtesy of Flos Collective (9-12 Oct), Tenement Trail brings the heat to the city’s east end on the 11th, and Pop Mutations’ multi-venue fundraiser for Tiny Changes brings an unreal wealth of local talent to Stereo, The Glad Cafe, Mono, The Flying Duck, The 78 and The Old Hairdresser’s on the 18th.

Back at the top of the month, Katie Gregson-Macleod kicks off a string of Scottish dates at Church, Dundee (1 Oct) before shows in Stirling (Tolbooth, 2 Oct), Edinburgh (La Belle Angele, 12 Oct) and Glasgow (Òran Mór, 13 Oct). Tina Sandwich has a similar run of shows celebrating her latest single Grit, playing new Glasgow venue 1990 (3 Oct) with dates in Edinburgh (Bannermans, 4 Oct), Dundee (Hidden, 11 Oct) and Dunfermline (PJ Molloys, 26 Oct). Emma Pollock also hits the road this month in celebration of her latest album, Be ing the Night to Take Hold. She plays Tolbooth, Stirling (25 Oct), Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh (26 Oct), Lemon Tree, Aberdeen (28 Oct) and Òran Mór, Glasgow (29 Oct).

In between and around those tours, you’ll find A Night for MAP at The Queen’s Hall (4 Oct) with appearances from Jacob Alon, Kathryn Joseph and Harben Kay amongst others, SHEARS launches her debut pristine pop record, WE ARE BUT CHEMICALS, at Sneaky Pete’s (4 Oct) and The Cords celebrate their self-titled debut record with a show at Mono (5 Oct). Garage punks Casual Drag launch their latest single at McChuills on the 8th, while the same night brings Scottish mainstays Idlewild to The Liquid Room in Edinburgh in celebration of their tenth album, Idlewild. Glasgow’s Dancer bring the delightful art-rock and indie-pop of their latest record More or Less to Leith FAB Cricket Club (10 Oct) for new promoters Play Nice, while the first of AMPLIFI’s main auditorium of The Queen’s Hall shows takes place on the 15th with tuba virtuoso Theon Cross supported by local stars on the up Azamiah and GAÏA.

On the 19th, Faith Eliott keeps celebrations going for their latest album dryas with a launch party at The Glad Cafe, despite its release being in May; with a SAY Award longlist announcement, you might want to act quick on this one. On 24 October, Scottish hip-hop collective Eastside, featuring Madani, Chef the Rapper and Princyboii, play Sneaky Pete’s, while fans of both surf-rock-punk and fancy dress should head for Maz and the Phantasm’s pair of “really queer and silly” Halloween shows. They bring Phantasmagasm to Edinburgh’s newest hot spot the People’s Leisure Club (30 Oct) and Glasgow’s The Glad Cafe (31 Oct) with all manner of chaos in the works. Of course there are loads of tours swinging through the central belt this month, too. In Glasgow, catch Billy Nomates (SWG3, 3 Oct), Ethel Cain (O2 Academy, 4 Oct), billy woods (Saint Luke’s, 4 Oct), CMAT (Barrowlands, 8, 9 & 10 Oct), JADE (O2 Academy, 13 Oct), Panic Shack (Garage, 14 Oct), The Lovely E s (Òran Mór, 23 Oct) and U.S. Girls (Stereo, 26 Oct). Edinburgh welcomes Beverley Glenn-Copeland and John Grant to The Queen’s Hall on 2 Oct and 17 Oct respectively, while dodie plays The Caves (5 Oct), and The Bug Club play pretty much everywhere but Edinburgh with dates in Aberdeen, Inverness, Glasgow and Dundee. [Tallah Brash]

Photo: Stephanie Gibson

Photo: Flannery O'Kafka

Photo: Victoria Sykes

Emma Pollock

Faith Eliott

John Grant Tina Sandwich

Film

The autumn film festival season is still very much upon us. You can read all about SQIFF (various venues, Glasgow, 27 Oct-1 Nov) on page 46, and the Jali Film Weekender (Filmhouse, Edinburgh, 30 Oct-2 Nov) on our website, while in Dundee, the excellent Discovery Film Festival (25 Oct-2 Nov) returns with an eclectic mix of films from all over the world aimed at younger audiences; highlights look to be Folktales (2 Nov), a doc about a trio of teens who leave the city to enrol in a traditional folk high school in northern Norway, and Spanish sci-fi Jump!, about two brothers who discover a wormhole allowing them to travel to the past. Also look out for the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival (20 Oct-9 Nov), the Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival (1-19 Oct) and the London Film Festival (8-19 Oct), which brings some of its highlights on a tour of Scotland (GFT and Filmhouse, 8-19 Oct).

It’s also spooky season, the highlight of which is Dundead’s screening of the silent horror classic The Phantom of the Opera (1925) starring the man of a thousand faces, Lon Chaney, with a newly commissioned live score from jazz duo Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman. The Dundead screening is at DCA on Halloween, but the film and performance are also on tour at Filmhouse (25 Oct), GFT (29 Oct), Hippodrome in Bo’ness (30 Oct) and Eden Court in Inverness (1 Nov).

Filmhouse also have a great horror lineup ahead of Halloween, featuring Dario Argento’s Tenebrae (23 Oct), John Carpenter’s The Thing (26 Oct), Bong Joon-ho’s The Host (29 Oct) and Nic Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (30 Oct). There’s plenty of horror, too, at the Trashfest all-dayer at Drygate in Glasgow (18 Oct). On the menu: The Guest, Idle Hands, May, Murder Party and a surprise film; and Leith Kino are showing Ana Lily Amirpour’s moody vampire flick A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Leith Depot, 26 Oct).

To mark the recent death of screen legend Robert Redford, Filmhouse are looking back over his glittering career in front of and behind the camera. The mini-season features his pair of mega-hits alongside Paul Newman (Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid [5 & 9 Oct] and The Sting [5 & 8 Oct]) as well as his multi Oscar-winning debut as director, Ordinary People (10 Oct).

Things get melodramatic over at Glasgow Film Theatre, meanwhile, with an epic season of melodramas running throughout October and November. The season is split into four parts. There’s What’s the Tea, Hollywood?, melodramas with a queer sensibility (think All About Eve, Johnny Guitar and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?); the mighty Invisible Women programme a season of Mexican melodramas, titled Stronger Than Love; there’s a series of feverish Tennessee Williams adaptations (think Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Streetcar Named Desire); and Too Much, the headlined strand that takes an overview of melodrama on film throughout cinema history, from Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows to Todd Haynes’s Far from Heaven via Pedro Almodóvar’s Woman on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown. See glasgowfilm.org for details. [Jamie Dunn]

Clubs

On Thursday 2 October, catch in-demand local DJ and UK techno producer LWS, alongside Pariah (1/2 of Karenn w/ Blawan) at Agora inside Sneaky Pete’s. Meanwhile at The Art School, it’s our favourite midweek in Glasgow: THURSDAY DUB CLUB with Hometown Sound System (2 Oct). On Friday 3 October, Clouds come to the Cowgate for CRT at The Mash House – expect high-energy techno, both euphoric and not. In Glasgow, the brandnew BOUNCE 101 launches at Stereo with hip hop and baile funk from leahgte, Salam Kitty, Bellarosa, and ISO YSO (3 Oct). Alternatively, Jute, Jam & Junglism: Crucial Intelligence B2B Jungalice, brings 160+ to the East Coast – venue TBA, Motus soundsystem confirmed. On Saturday 4 October, house and techno legends Stevie Cox and Avalon Emerson share the Sub Club booth at Subculture, while Interesting Things – featuring Mun Sing, Jabu, and Proc Fiskal – is back at the Tolbooth in Stirling. Join JG Wilkes at The Berkeley Suite for what should be a very special Optimo (Espacio) on the same night. Thoughts are with the Optimo crew and their loved ones following last month’s sad news of JD Twitch’s passing. The outpouring of tributes demonstrates what a beloved and influential figure he has been in Scottish clubbing and the music industry at large.

On Sunday 4 October, from Frankfurt to Edinburgh, Roman Flügel and all his kick drums take stage at Sneaky Pete’s MUSAR x Free Time from 6pm. If in search of something left of field, Slipping & EHFM showcase Memotone, HAN, and Wild Cabin at The Safari Lounge on Friday 10 October, while later in Glasgow, Hang Tough host re:ni at The Berkeley Suite. Taikano marks eight years on Saturday 11 October with DJ Assault aboard The Ferry on the Clyde. A week later, The Art School steps it up with 25 Years of Mungo’s Hi Fi Soundsystem on Friday 17 October, and proving age is but a number, SUPERTOUCH turns one at The House Arts

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid

The Phantom of the Opera

Photo: Martyna

Johnny Guitar

Ross from Friends

Photo:

Photo: Indie Sleaze Forever

Optimo

Collective on Saturday 18 October – BYOB. On Saturday 25 October, Plastician descends on Edinburgh with dubstep and grime for Chromatic at The Bongo Club (25 Oct). And of course, Halloween falls on Friday 31 October, and the choices are endless. But our senses point towards PONYBOY HALLOWEEN for design and dress up, Red Museum x Stereo Halloween for fright factor (in a good way), and Optimo Halloween - Espookio made us do it for music purists (31 Oct). [Cammy Gallagher]

Art

Two DIY exhibitions arrive at artist-led galleries in Edinburgh this month, kicking off at EMBASSY. Open from 3 until 26 October, sculptor Lily Lavorato presents their solo show On the Sick Road. Through sculpture and text, Lavorato traverses isolation and steep terrain to trace wounds through bodies and landscapes.

Then, at Leith Makers, twelve pairs of artists come together in The Postal Exchange. Over several months, the artists (who were matched at random) swapped materials and inspiration via post. The exhibition – spanning collage, photography and mixed media – is the culmination of this exchange. There’s also a chance to collaborate via a living collage wall, that will grow and expand during the exhibition, which takes place from 15 until 26 October.

Tai Shani’s sculpture of a sleeping blue giant has been beguiling onlookers in Somerset House, London. The Spell or The Dream is travelling to Jupiter Artland, as part of a programme of exhibitions that draw upon folklore, mythology and the earth. Opening on 11 October, Shani, Florence Peake and Georg Wilson all present works at the sculpture park.

In Glasgow, The Alasdair Gray Archive maps Glasgow through a queer, working-class lens. Titled The City, the exhibition finds inspiration in Gray’s role as ‘artist recorder’ and his ambition to preserve the city and its inhabitants through drawing. Running until 13 November, The City examines how people from marginalised people experience Glasgow, and how their lives are enriched by community.

At Dundee University’s Cooper Gallery, Grace Ndiritu stages Sit-in #5: Compassionate Rebels in Action, centring practices of radical spirituality, social justice and decolonisation. This exhibition is rooted in the transformative power of activism and marks the culmination of an event project called The Ignorant Art School: Five Sit-ins towards Creative Emancipation. Opens on 10 October and continues until 13 December.

A stone’s throw away, Dundee Contemporary Arts present bone stone voice alone, a solo exhibition by Lauren Gault. Encompassing sculpture, print, and moving image, Gault explores the censorship of speech via Echo, a character in Ovid’s Metamorphosis who was punished for taking too much and was bound to only repeat the words last spoken to her. The exhibition, which opens on 25 October until 18 January 2026, draws on Scottish history and illuminates stories of silencing. [Rachel Ashenden]

Theatre

This month, Fraser Scott’s Common Tongue continues its Scottish tour to Edinburgh’s Studio Theatre, then to Peebles, Greenock, Cumbernauld, St Andrews, Dumfries and Paisley. The one-person show follows Bonnie as she navigates speech and culture, exposing the rich and complex experience of speaking Scots (3-18 Oct).

The Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival (20 Oct-9 Nov) offers workshops and performances as part of an expansive programme for all ages. As part of the festival, Live Borders Arts & Creativity and Audaciously Tenacious Theatre are staging Perfect Dead Girls (24 Oct), which tells the story of two young girls who suddenly find themselves in purgatory, surveilled and judged by a chilling, unknown entity. Leah Shelton also continues a tour of BATSHIT (17-25 Oct), which won an Edinburgh Fringe First Award for its run in 2024. Now touring across the UK, the show will come to Aberdeen and Edinburgh’s Traverse. Artist and performance maker Eve Stainton returns to Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket with their new work, Impact Driver (18 Oct). The ensemble performance (also featuring 2024 Besties winner Wet Mess) uses live welding, movement and sound to explore lesbian and trans masc temporalities.

The month closes out with a few enticing festivals. Take Me Somewhere will stage its ambitious programme in Glasgow (15-26 Oct). Citing themes of ‘labour, memory, ritual and desire,’ the programme offers challenging and experimental performances by artists on the cutting edge, including Dan Daw, Ontroerend Goed and Jo Hague.

The Scottish International Storytelling Festival’s Go Local Programme is hosted by Pollok’s Village Storytelling Centre this year (23-31 Oct). With events happening across Glasgow, the programme includes events for a wide

Photo: David Parry, PA Media Assignments

Photo: Diana Davies.

Courtesy Diana Davies and the Sophia Smith Collection

Women’s Strike, New York City, 26 August 1970

Tai Shani, The Spell or The Dream

Image: courtesy of artist

Salam Kitty

Miriam Morris, The Postal Exchange

Photo: Kris Kesiak

Common Tongue

range of audiences, with roots in working class and international solidarity. The festival culminates in a Halloween parade on the 31st, which will proceed from St James’ Parish Church to Crookston Castle, where there will be live installations and puppet shows.

On the east coast, the Edinburgh Horror Festival (23-31 Oct) presents a wide range of spooky productions, including comedy, music, cabaret and storytelling. With over forty listed events and a selection of live streams, the EHF programme is expansive and diverse. Among the many offerings are Gorelesque, a cabaret in which “glamour meets the grotesque”; Red Rabbit, a folk horror play set in medieval Scotland; and Ghost Hunter Academy, a crash course in the paranormal followed by a live ghost hunt within The Banshee Labyrinth. [Rho Chung]

Comedy

Honk honk, fringe hits incoming. From this year, Glasgow resident Kieran Hodgson shows off his impressionist chops in Voice of America at the newly reopened Citz (17 Oct, 7.30pm, £21-24) while the brilliant Olga Koch tours 2023 hit Comes From Money, her deep dive into the economy and privilege (Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh, 10 Oct / The Stand, Glasgow, 13 Oct, 8pm, £17.50).

There’s also a double whammy at Blackfriars with Alison Spittle and Tamsyn Kelly recording their recent Fringe hours, Big and Hot Titty Bungalow respectively, back-to-back, twice (30 Oct, 5.30pm and 8.30pm, £15.40).

In search of homegrown talent? Kim Blythe yee-haws her Fringe hour Cowboy into Monkey Barrel (22 Oct, 7.30pm, £12). If you didn’t catch it at the festival or haven’t seen Blythe before, you’re in for a deeply silly, deeply Scottish hour of comedy about mischief and the internet. She also headlines All Mouth, Glasgow’s monthly queer comedy showcase on 30 October (The Rum Shack, 8pm, £9.90).

There’s also That’s Clown (Gael & Grain, 19 Oct, 7pm, £5), a new regular Glasgow night platforming the best clowning talent in Scotland. This month’s edition is extra special with cult clown Furiozo joining the lineup and performing his lauded Man Looking For Trouble show as part of the gig.

Another newbie is A Pisstake in a Brewery, over at Leith’s Campervan Brewery Taproom (26 Oct, 5pm, Free). It’s a lovely space with even nicer beer, and now made even better with some stand-ups. And another free comedy thing is the launch of Amy Matthews’ vinyl recording of Commute with the Foxes at Monkey Barrel on 21 October (7pm, free and non-ticketed).

Finally, please be kind. We know it’s only October, but we’re dropping the c-word for our big book ahead tip. Adam Riches, disguised as Sean Bean, is doing an early C****tmas show for you all (Adam Riches AS Sean Bean in ‘The 12 Beans of Christmas’, Monkey Barrel, 29 Nov, 8pm, £15). Full of impressions, stupidity and wall-to-wall bastards, get in quick for this one. [Polly Glynn]

Books

The Scottish International Storytelling Festival returns this month, themed around ‘Lights of the North’, exploring Scotland’s northern identity and the tales, songs and myths that bridge its culture with Finland, Iceland and beyond from 22 Oct-1 Nov. Highlights from the programme include Of Stars, Bears and the Beginning of Time, a mythic journey through the origin stories of the Fenno-Baltic tradition with storytelling by Riika Palonen; Selkie: Past, Present and Future by storytellers and musicians Niall Moorjani and Ailsa Dixon; and Stories Drawn from the Land, an exhibition by Hester Aspland. At The Portobello Bookshop, Malik Al Nasir comes to discuss his new book, Searching for My Slave Roots: From Guyana’s Sugar Plantations to Cambridge on 1 October, Helena Fornells Nadal launches her new poetry pamphlet I Could Not Ask You To on 8 October and Chris Kraus launches her highly anticipated new book The Four Spent the Day Together on 17 October. Over at Lighthouse Bookshop, Dean Spade, Wu Tsang and Nat Raha team up to talk about Spade’s Love in a F*cked Up World (1 Oct), Sara Ahmed launches No Is Not a Lonely Utterance (8 Oct), and Hal Shrieve hosts a queer vampire night (21 Oct). Ahmed will also be at Glasgow Women’s Library on 9 October, and there’s more Glasgow book launches at Mount Florida Books: Tom Byam Shaw launches his debut short story collection, You Are Going To Regret This (3 Oct); Thea Lenarduzzi launches The Tower with Daisy Lafarge (22 Oct); and Park Seolyeon and Anton Hur discuss Capitalists Must Starve (25 Oct). And at Good Press, Georgina Starr discusses her debut novel The Discreet Dash (14 Oct) while Kathia Huitrón launches her poetry collection This Too I Called Love (21 Oct). [Anahit Behrooz]

Photo: Aoife Herrity

Photo: Joel Devereux

Photo: Daryll Buchanan

Photo: Ryan Edgington

Niall Moorjani

Leah Shelton

Kim Blythe

Alison Spittle

Riikka Palonen

Features

22 We’ve brought back a bunch of archived regular features for the 20th birthday, opening with the triumphant return of Mystic Mark’s Horoscopes aka Crystal Baws

29 Under the Influence: SHEARS talks us through the music that made her.

30 Erstwhile singles review feature The Dirty Dozen is back – Roddy Woomble and Rod Jones from Idlewild get critical.

32 Twenty years of Scottish music – a mixtape of some of the artists who’ve made an impact on The Skinny.

34 Promoters and programmers report on Scotland’s club scene in 2025.

36 Spotlighting the new generation of writers whose work will define the next two decades.

39 Slime City’s Michael M on doing it wrong in late-2000s buzz band We Are the Physics.

46 SQIFF ’s director, Indigo Korres, reflects on the festival’s contribution to Scotland’s queer scene over the past decade.

49 Louise Weard on Castration Movie and creating a cinema “by, for and about trans people.”

50 The Scottish International Storytelling Festival returns with celebration of folklore, myths and fairytales.

53 Artist Grace Ndiritu on collective reflection, spirituality and activism.

54 We look forward to Scottish Opera’s revival of Puccini’s La Bohème

On the website...

News from The Scottish Album of the Year Award; a chat with Jali Collective ahead of their African cinema weekender; new episodes of The Cineskinny podcast every other Thursday; our weekly new music Spotlight series; fun stuff from Twenty Years’ Worth of Our Various Archives over on Instagram @theskinnymag

Image Credits: (Left to right, top to bottom) Darren Cullen; Laura Prieto Martin; Euan Robertson; The Skinny June 2010; Dalila D'Amico; Jonny Mowatt; Jack Sackey; Colour Me Pink; Castration Movie Part II BTS; Hester Aspland; Kate MacGarry; Ruby Pluhar

Shot of the month

Pest Control @ core. Festival, Glasgow, 13 September by

Marilena Vlachopoulou

Across

9. Happy 20th birthday to The Skinny! To celebrate, please enjoy all the annoying short words to try to fit this month's design. And then: Drink (7)

10. Intricate – compound (7)

11. Preposition (2)

12. Once again – afresh (4)

13. Many – often (4)

15. Chemical symbol for chlorine (2)

16. Saint – street (2)

17. Pig enclosure (3)

19. For example (2)

21. Web address (3)

22. Copula (2)

24. 20 in Roman numerals (2)

25. Objective (3)

26. Check – revise (4)

28. Not any (4)

29. Preposition (2)

31. Consume (3)

32. Summit (4)

34. Chemical symbol for helium (2)

35. Draw (3)

36. Lively (4)

37. Indefinite article (2)

38. A tenth of 20 (3)

39. Original (gangster?) (2)

41. Pronoun (2)

42. Edinburgh (2)

43. Strikingly – abnormally (9)

47. Private message (2)

50. Skinny (7)

51. Therein (anag) (7)

Down

1. "And finally..." (affectionate) (4,3,3,5)

2. Expert – brilliant (3)

3. Skinny (4)

4. Shines (5)

5. Coldly (5)

6. Leave out (4)

7. Aged (3)

8. ! (11,4)

12. Preposition (2)

14. South-east (2)

16. Skinny (7)

18. Expression of gratitude (5,3)

20. Newspaper (7)

22. Sexual orientation (2)

23. He wanted to phone home (2)

24. Initials used to represent Extinction Rebellion (2)

27. German .com (2)

29. Paddle (3)

30. Half of 20 (3)

32. Postscript (2)

33. Mini-album (2)

34. A singular laugh (2)

40. Skinny (5)

41. Possessive pronoun (2)

44. Current events (4)

45. Hebridean isle (4)

46. Den – hideout (4)

48. Epoch (3)

49. For what reason? (3)

Feedback? Email crossword@theskinny.co.uk

Turn to page 7 for the solutions

Compiled by George Sully

In this month’s advice column, we turn to the archives, (re)answering a letter originally printed in our 29th issue, February 2008

Dear Skinny. Since leaving me, my girlfriend goes to all the regular haunts I do. It is devastating to watch her gallivant with other men. I loathe every single man who talks to her now. My problem is that every time I try to masturbate, the only images that come into my head are of her having sex with one of those boys she gets chatted up by. What can I do about this? - Richard Johnson Christ, the noughties were a different time. Worse, you could say. Ethically, politically, ontologically. I don’t think Blair’s Britain has had enough laid at its doorstep to be honest and having sat with this letter for all of about three minutes, I really think we ought to add it to the pile because Fucking Hell. There was an illegal war happening, Richard! They were selling the NHS off from right under you! White people were wearing cornrows!!! No wonder we’re where we are now, when our first line of defence was preoccupied with wanking not just over his ex-girlfriend, but also her imaginary boyfriends.

I think probably at the core of this letter is an actual problem, obscured by genuinely one of the most bewildering scenarios a person could ever admit to in print. I don’t even doubt this is a common and quite distressing issue; I just think most people have enough shame not to spell it out quite like this, and with quite so much vindictiveness behind their words. Still, eh, breakups are a bitch and love makes fools of us all and all that. And this was before the days of Instagram; now at least you can passive-a ressively thirst trap and pretend you have some kind of power before retreating to your bed to cry-wank.

So, all that being said and my sympathies summoned from deep within me, in answer to your weird, weird question: there is nothing you can do. Breakups really hurt and they fuck with your capacity for intimacy and sex and they can make those things feel really bad for a while. Especially if you can’t get distance from your ex. You just… have to accept you’re going to have a bit of a shit sex life for a bit, even with yourself, try and recalibrate your relationship to desire, and maybe find some new haunts. I realise you have far more limited access to listicles and the Top 10 Bars You’ve Never Heard of In Your Home Town in the noughties, but I swear there are analogue methods you can call upon to free you from this prison. Get on a bus, get off at a random stop, and go get drunk somewhere else. You will thank yourself, I promise. And I’m sure your ex and the poor clueless shmucks trying to talk to her would too.

Do you have a problem Anahit could help with?

Get in touch by email on pettyshit@theskinny.co.uk, send us your quandaries with an almost-unhelpful level of anonymity via NGL, or look out for Ask Anahit callouts on our Instagram stories

WE ARE 20

TWENTY! 20! How did that happen?

In news that has prompted varying levels of crisis amongst those who remember The Skinny starting, we’re celebrating a big birthday this month. As well as all the crises, it’s also prompted us to delve into the archive and drag out some old regular features from across the magazine’s history.

Our erstwhile astrologer, Mystic Mark, has dusted off the crystal baw for a very special fortune-telling. Former Art editor Andrew Cattanach is in contemplative / gloomy mood in an opinion piece submitted under the title My Depressing Column. We’ve resurrected the extremely-of-its-time Skinny Jeans column, bringing it into the present day with a look at the relationship between Scotland and the fashion industry.

Christopher Macarthur-Boyd takes on Braw or Naw, a comedy format dating all the way back to 2006, with archival pieces featuring some regrettable words from some now very famous

people. We’ve brought back The Dirty Dozen, where we convince some musicians, in this case Idlewild’s Rod Jones and Roddy Woomble, to review the month’s singles release and maybe start some sort of inter-artist war. SHEARS shares the music that inspires her in the revamped Under the Influence, The Skinny on Tour challenges you to identify one of the world’s most famous landmarks, and our visual food column returns after a decade-plus hiatus.

We cast an eye over the two decades of Music, creating a mixtape with a Scottish artist from each year of our publication. Clubs takes a temperature check of the scene in 2025, how it’s going, how it’s changed. And Books looks to the new generation, with a series of tributes to the writers whose work will perhaps define the next 20 years.

On the back page, Hen Hoose and Clare Grogan bring back Starter for Eleven, a format everyone had completely forgotten about, which we understand to be some sort of quiz with the mooted prize of a ha is supper for a perfect score.

Crystal Baws

As a 20th birthday treat for our readers (and ourselves), we’ve brought back our favourite astrologer to gaze into his crystal baw and conjure a one-off special edition of his much-missed horoscopes

ARIES

This month you’re evicted from your 7th House of Love because your landlord wants to split it into flats and create even more love for himself in the tight-corridored love slums he plans to create. A few doors down outside your 1st House of Self you find the contents of your personality strewn on the lawn below a REPOSSESSED sign. All other ten houses are also empty and locked, acquired for a song by offrealm entities interested in investing in the reality market. Your only option now is to live rough outside your zodiac be ing nightmarish ancient gods for the right to exist.

GEMINI

TAURUS

Swi ing dregs of a paleo bone broth at the gym, your neckless head cranes up to see a poster for a 4D Chess Competition. You sign up, sure your red-pilled high IQ honed in the marketplace of ideas can do battle in the transcendent arena your podcast bros also strategise in. Turns out it’s just chess though. The old lady who lets you in explains that actually, all chess is already 4D chess in that you don’t play in a frozen moment but across a series of moments we call time, it’s just your pawn-like brain didn’t know that. You mutter something half-remembered from a podcast about tesseracts and she tells you to shut up or you’ll get a thick ear. Joke’s on her though, because they’re already thick from MMA.

After much lobbying, secret meetings and firm backroom handshakes, BP convince the world’s governments they own the sun. Expect your first bill through the door this month. To avoid paying too much, BP have released a pack reassuring the sun’s eight billion worried consumers if they want to opt out, they are free to avoid eating food deriving energy from our home star and can instead lick the walls in deep subterranean caverns for nutrients, or simply move to one of the barren, forbidding exoplanets orbiting Proxima Centauri where sunlight is, for the moment, still free.

CANCER

When life gives you lemons, squirt the juice from those lemons into the eyes of everyone you know.

LEO

This month, after a bite from a tomcat with toxoplasmosis, you become Catman. From a tattered armchair before a wall of CCTV monitors covering every corner of your home, tangy with the smell of cat piss, you watch for cat crime amongst the masses of badly-behaved strays you let in. Your newfound abilities include tutting and shouting, “Oi!” and “Stop it!” and packing a utility belt of laser pens, shit scoopers and water pistols. Meanwhile the real superhero in this caper is the toxo, guarding over your grey matter watching for signs of willpower, or the scourge of independent thought. Swooping between neurons it stops chemical-pushing synapses moving dopamine across the brain so you reply to that friend’s text about going for drinks, or smashes no-good serotonin smu ling receptor rings conspiring to make you start a new non-cat hobby.

VIRGO

You develop a pilot for a soap opera in which every character is played by a goat except for yours, a local Casanova who sleeps with everybody in town.

LIBRA

This month you discover intelligent life living in your groin as it makes attempts to communicate, waking you with strong signals from deep beneath the duvet. First contact is a cheesy, rotting meat-like smell. Then after your greeting of “I come in peace,” a potent pong like countless skunk carcasses exhumed from a mass grave of camembert. What could the language mean? It’ll take you months to decipher the nuanced syntax of stinks. Instead of gazing up in wonder with butterflies in our stomachs, we should’ve smelt downwards, feeling sick to our stomachs at the profound grammar of guff long before this historic day! Tomorrow you totally should get whatever is transmitting this eye-watering language seen at the doctor though.

SCORPIO

Like the scorpion, everybody shuns and fears you at work. Your thick exoskeleton makes peoples’ skins crawl and colleagues rightly give you a wide berth to avoid getting stabbed by your barbed comments. You lurk in the stationery cupboard, or buried under paperwork, watching your prey wander the office, to the water cooler or for a nice breakout chat with a workmate. But should they forget you exist and wander too close to the desk you’re laid beneath, then BANG! You explode from under it impaling them with a remark about their flaky heels and then BANG! You fucked up that presentation! BANG! Stupid brain! BANG! Short-thoraxed idiot! BANG! BANG! BANG! You strike until the victim collapses sobbing and exhausted, whereby you drag them under your desk to feed the young you carry on your back, who should really be at school.

SAGITTARIUS

October fills you with pride as your maths wiz tech bro son builds his own LLM to write covering letters for entry-level coding jobs he won’t get. AI will create new jobs though. You reassure him in a few years he’ll either be mining precious metals from dangerous asteroids in the Oort Cloud because he’s less valuable than the robots, or climbing into a vending machine to pretend he’s an advanced LLM every morning for an 18 hour shift.

CAPRICORN

Watching Halloween Most Haunted in the boiling global warmed October you get an idea and dust off your ouija board. You’ll use poltergeists to cool the place down. Flying plates and slamming cupboards are a small price to pay for the cooling benefits of these tormented spirits. Next stop Dragon’s Den to demo your Green Ouija Cooling System to the riveted magnates. Closing the pitch to a white-eyed Deborah Meaden who barks feedback that your father sucks off dogs in hell, you explain that every cubic inch of space is also thick with dinosaur ghosts which, if properly harnessed, can counter fossil fuels with fossil spirits that are carbon neutral, emission-free and angry to have been roused from their aeons-long slumber.

AQUARIUS

As you watch the AGI you developed bathe in its liquid coolant, making hyper-futuristic objects magically pop in and out of thin air, you realise the best we can hope for now is that the young computer finds a non-human fuel source that doesn’t include the elements inside you. Hopefully it proliferates its bottomless mind across some other part of the galaxy, far away from your house, or ideally, drops out of our reality altogether after computing scientific principles so newfangled that to explain them to a human would be like sending a text message to a clam. At a loss for what to do on Halloween you pilfer Morpheus’ stash of red pills and neck the entire bag only to wake up a vast time later in an odd new world with only one shoe on. The last thing you remember is having broken through the last of 9 Matrices. Luckily you discover you also brought Morpheus’s bag of blues for the comedown.

PISCES

After trapping three bald drug addicts in a paddling pool in your basement you force your team of poundshop pre-cogs to read the whole of Wikipedia and then dream the answers to your web search queries, and it’s still somehow 5% more accurate and ethical than using ChatGPT.

FEATURED ZODIAC PROFILE: GEMINI

Famously the sign of the twins, Gemini are known for the wisecracking homunculus fused to their chest since the womb. Although much smaller than you, this twin is the dominant partner in the relationship, making almost all of the decisions which govern your life. In truth, there is no ‘your life,’ you’re simply the twin’s mode of transport to its next port of vice.

The homuncule is luckier in love than you, often barking for you to stay still as it makes out with sexy strangers at parties or forcing you to put a towel over your head so it can have sex in private. It usually demands to commandeer your genitals because, although it has a set of its own mangled reproductive organs, they are benign and resemble a gnawed dog’s toy.

Contrary to your adrenaline-fueled twin, you tend to be drawn towards the duller professions of accountancy, quantity surveying or resource management. After a night being dra ed around coke-fueled boat orgies or jet skiing with strippers you’ll often only just manage to haul yourself into the office to compile the quarterly spreadsheets and get the PowerPoint deck ready for the big pitch. The twin sits under your shirt, snoring loudly as you labour to explain your lateness and the blood on your shoes to a concerned boss. Sometimes you wonder why you bother, your linked bank accounts mean your wages are quickly blown on hailing cabs to meet its LSD dealer at Alton Towers or inviting 10,000 teenagers to a party at your house on Instagram. Its ravenous urges for hard drugs, booze and inner-city gloryholes tend to take a toll on your body. Gemini therefore suffer from a range of medical complaints, such as type 2 diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver, HIV, kidney failure, or syphilis. It is therefore important to get yourself regularly checked out by a health specialist. Your twin will often use these visits to stock up on as many pharmaceutical drugs as possible, getting you to distract the doctor with a shoulder barge so it can raid the cabinets. This can often result in you being denied vital treatment by your local health authority. Recurring nightmares plague you in moments of micro-sleep, that one day you may shrivel up into nothing but an apologising face on the heavily tattooed arse of the small, yet dominant twin. As you drag yourself endlessly back and forth between work and the twin’s parties, you find yourself fantasising about killing the homuncule and freeing yourself from the whims of this tiny, foul-mouthed monster. Daydreaming about an entire night of sleep or eating something that isn’t drugs, you wonder what life would be like lived on your own terms and not as the hostage of this pleasure-seeking tumour. You stare at the wiry tuft of hair on the back of the twin’s misshapen, potato-like skull as it orders another ounce of coke on your mobile and consider plunging a pair of scissors into its neck. But it’s already too late for that. It would only expedite your own painful demise, rotting on your chest and filling your blood with yet more poison.

GEMINI STATS

Symbol: The Twins

Period: 22 May- 21 Jun

Planet: Mercury

Paper size: A2

Mineral: Crystal meth

Shoe size: 8

Number of teeth: 12

Coach: C

Seat: 40A

Subtitles: English

Ingredients: Tomatoes (75%), Sugar, Lemon Juice, Salt, Emulsifying Agent

Words: Mystic Mark Illustration: Darren Cullen

Glasgow O2 Academy Glasgow 12th Nov

Glasgow O2 Academy Glasgow 13th Nov

Glasgow O2 Academy Glasgow 14th Nov

gigsandtours.com loylecarner.com

Braw or Naw?

We’ve dra ed feature Braw or Naw out of the archives, a favourite with the likes of Kevin Bridges and Frankie Boyle from back in the day. One of the Kings of Scottish comedy in 2025 tries it on for size

An enormous NAW for the Cineworld on Renfrew Street closing down. I went for one last film there (The Long Walk on Thursday night) and the Proustian reverie was stifling. I think I’ve taken every girlfriend I’ve ever had to that towering mondoplex (that’s upwards of four people). I’ve seen Mean Girls there, and The Dark Knight, and the film where Robbie Williams is played by a CGI monkey. It was a powerfully shite cinema with the bammiest clientele this side of the Showcase in Coatbridge, but I’ll be sad to see it go. The tallest cinema in the world will now become the ninth tallest bloc of student accommodation in Glasgow. C’est la vie.

A big BRAW to the new independent newspaper The Glasgow Bell run by Robbie Armstrong and Calum Grewar, which is setting my heart on fire with its mix of streetlevel beat reporting and savage

doesn’t have a branch in Glasgow. Their pea-and-meat ragu arancini makes me want to live, in a world where I’m rapidly shedding any reasons to.

A heaping helping of BRAW to The Stand Comedy Club’s new Glasgow venue on Great Western Road. The old room on Woodlands Road meant an awful lot to me, but I’m excited to see what happens now that it’s shifted from the basement of a trade union to the body of a kirk. Extremely dope that the old Landsdowne Church is now the location of confused manboys doing their first five at Red Raw, as well as the climax to the novel Poor Things by Alasdair Gray.

A wry NAW to Paesano Pizza for kowtowing to popular demand by introducing a range of dips to their menu. I found the consistency of their nduja-and-mascarpone sauce to be cla y, at best, in terms of mouthfeel.

Words: Christopher Macarthur-Boyd

The DiMa io’sification of the brand has been sudden, jarring, and unwelcome. At the same time, it’s reassuring to know that although I wasn’t an adult for the golden years of the economy in terms of social mobility and functioning public services, at least I was in my twenties when Paesano’s was cheap and good.

Shoutout to Japanese engineering firm Hitachi for unleashing a BRAW on Glasgow by announcing they are establishing a centre of excellence in the city, after the Cabinet Secretary for Climate and Action met with Hirohide Hirai at the World Expo Osaka. I firmly believe they are here to stress test their massage wands on the hardest fannies in the global north.

A heavy NAW to the recent far-right marches in Glasgow city centre, thankfully drowned out by an anti-fascist counter-protest that completely dwarfed it in size. Good

Skinny on Tour

luck, anyway, to the burgeoning fascists of the west coast on trying to be heard at the top of Buchanan Street, over the guys preaching Bible verses into a karaoke microphone and a Peavey practice amp. My message to the street preachers is that if you really believe in sharing the word of Christ, please invest in your rig. GuitarGuitar at Trongate does some great entry level amplification that could improve your tone sevenfold.

Christopher Macarthur-Boyd brings Howling At The Moon to King’s Theatre Glasgow on 17 Mar 2026, as part of the Glasgow International Comedy Festival

@macarthur.boyd on Instagram

Listen to him on Here Comes the Guillotine podcast (@guillotinepod) and watch his special Scary Times for FREE on YouTube too

For our 20th birthday we're brought back The Skinny on Tour! If you don't remember it, and you haven't already worked it out from the very clear context clues, this is a competition to guess where this Skinny staffer has gone on holiday. Think you know? Head to theskinny.co.uk/competitions for your chance to win a very special prize courtesy of our pals at Charco Press. You could win a 2026 Bundle comprising of nine books, a tote bag, PLUS a copy of Latin American feminist anthology La Lucha.

Head to theskinny.co.uk/competitions for entry details, closing dates and terms & conditions

Photo: Curse These Eyes

But the picture isn’t always so rosy. Shoots often fly in full teams from London, leaving Scottish talent out. Loro Piana’s FW24/25 campaign, for instance, didn’t publicly credit a single local creative – although with the brand’s recent supply-chain scandal, perhaps it’s no surprise they’re not setting the example.

We bring back the original fashion column from 2007 to speak to anonymous informants about Big Fashion’s relationship with Scotland

Words: Phoebe Willison

Fashion loves Scotland – its landscapes and heritage are irresistible to global labels. As one London-based producer put it, “there’s a rawness and authenticity to the people – nature, objects and people feel interlinked.” But do these brands invest in Scotland’s people, or just borrow its image?

Those working in the industry have seen both sides. One photographer recalls a shoot with an LA label whose founder blended her Californian flair with Highland roots in a way that felt joyful and celebratory. Another stylist fondly recalls shooting with a Spanish brand in Skye: “They were the most welcoming crew, teaching me bits of Spanish as we hiked up the hill together.” Dior’s Cruise 2025 ode to the Auld Alliance is another positive example – its show in Perthshire featured a wealth of Scottish talent, from models to makeup artists. When international brands do their homework, Scotland glows.

Empire is falling

by Lakshmi Ajay

“ MAKING THINGS HAPPEN FOR OURSELVES AND FEEDING THE CULTURE IS WHEN THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WORK IS MADE ”

Sometimes the snub comes closer to home, when Scottish brands themselves overlook local talent in favour of London names. “It always stings a bit more when it makes perfect sense to support the Scottish scene by giving opportunities to where they’re scarce,” one photographer tells me. Others warn of undervaluation, with lower rates leaving young creatives exploited.

Of course, there’s work to be done here too – “there’s a feeling that after you’ve built something here, you have to leave – the industry isn’t strong enough to hold you,” another photographer tells us. Without major events like an established fashion week, or sustained funding, the ecosystem is fragile.

But there’s hope for us yet – Hunger magazine’s recent cover, created with a Scottish team, shows us authenticity matters. And let’s not underestimate the collaborative power of working with international teams – as one photographer reminds us, “we should all be able to travel and work in other countries.”

The truth is, Scotland doesn’t just offer a backdrop – we have the whole package ready to go. If global fashion wants to keep mining Scottish heritage, it must also invest in Scotland’s future. But in the meantime, “we have to be creative even when there’s no client proposal in front of us. Making things happen for ourselves and feeding the culture is when the most beautiful work is made.”

All quotes have been anonymised to protect contributors’ future career prospects

Reintroducing our creative writing column. To submit your writing to The Skinny, send us poetry, prose and everything in between of 400 words or less to submissions@theskinny.co.uk.

Empire is falling. Empire with its bodies at the bottom of the sea. Empire building walls in between neighbours, urging them to rip each other apart. Empire with its fingers in your pie, smeared on the walls of your hospitals, in the bricks of your wall street. Empire at your fingertips, in your tastebuds and under your nails.

But you say Empire is falling?

It falls with each nail scraped off the mud underneath. With each brick pulled out of the skyscrapers, with each person freed from detention, with each fence pulled down

- knock on door, biriyani in hand hello neighbour.

Empire is falling; toppled by the uprisers, the downtrodden, the hungry, the angry;

Empire was built of us. It can be levelled by us.

Hand Cra ed

Among the many things pre-dated by The Skinny: AI slop, and influencer bait. The author of our long-running Phagomania* food column returns to celebrate human artists doing interesting things with real food

Words: Lewis MacDonald

Abig part of enjoying food is looking at food. We used to run a regular column that celebrated the idea of offbeat and inventive food from across the globe, and visual creatives exploring food use in their work. In the eight-and-ahalf years since its last outing, wacky food trends have desensitised us from surprise, and AI looks intent on replicating food photographers within its wider consumption of all creative endeavour.

We were curious as to what drives current photographers to continue to work ‘the old-fashioned way’ and endure the challenges posed by real food. “Our process has always been crafty and tactile,” state duo Ilka & Franz. “The challenge of making something physically impossible happen on set. The collaborative effort and lucky accidents that brings about are really important to us.” Even the idiosyncrasies of AI would never conjure something as

PROPHETS OF DOOM

The Skinny’s former Art editor reflects on 20 years of culture, cheap pints and climate dread – and argues that only artists can tell us where this all ends

Words: Andrew Cattanach

I’d like to say I’m happy to be celebrating The Skinny’s 20th anniversary. But the truth is, I’m fucking devastated. You don’t stumble into your fifth decade only to cheerfully toast the passing of two of

wonderfully absurd as pants full of spaghetti for their Bella Italia shoot. Photographer Juan Carlos Verona expands on this notion. “For me, AI can simulate results, but it will never replace the craft of building a scene through the camera, lenses and intentional use of light.” JC’s human touch certainly captures decadence for brunch chain Pablo E s-Go-Bao.

Sophistication and otherworldliness meet with fulfilling results in the handcrafted work of creative duo Nocera & Ferri. “We love to work with organic elements because of their unique nature,” they say, and work such as the award-nominated Totem beautifully captures their approach.

Personal projects often reap fresh results, as seen in Alexis Ko’s whimsical Barbie food series and Hannah Slaney’s zine of colour-saturated food scenes created with GF Smith paper merchants. Living our food fantasies vicariously through digital means will only get us so far, but fortunately there’s still a strong creative desire from artists like these to both surprise and resonate.

ilkafranz.com / jcverona.com / noceraferri. com / alexisko.com / hannahslaney.com

*Def: / fæɡəʊˈmeɪnɪə / noun: a psychological condition characterised by an overwhelming and compulsive desire to eat, or an obsession with food

now – was almost optimistic. Sure, we were mired in a post-9/11 malaise, at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the air still seemed to hold a trace of hope. People talked about the future like it might actually happen.

But this hope was far from universal. At art school, some of my peers had already formed a prescient vision of the future – one where climate collapse would become the defining story of our lives. While I drank like there was no tomorrow – you could get royally smashed for less than a tenner – my classmates were busy warning there wouldn’t be.

darker kind. These doom-sayers knew exactly what was coming. At the time, I quietly dismissed their apocalyptic auguries – while happily tucking into their bin soup. I had a future to dream about and a present to nurture. Pints were £1 at the student union!

them – especially when they didn’t so much occur as disappear into a yawning sinkhole.

The Skinny the year before I graduated from art school, back in 2006. The vibe – at least compared to

One of them made soup from ingredients scavenged from supermarket skips and served it to the public as a protest against food waste. Another su ested we turn public parks into wheat fields – a contingency plan for when fossil fuels would run dry and crops could no longer reach the cities.

When I first joined art school, I thought students were trendsetters in fashion and style. 20 years on, I realise they were visionaries of a

But we’re not students anymore – and the booze is way too pricey. Scotland is falling apart at the seams: the economy’s flatlining and public services are on their knees. Amid all this, years of funding cuts have left the arts under-resourced, stru ling to keep up with everything else that’s falling apart around us.

When we strangle the arts, we strangle our ability to imagine what comes next. And even if what’s coming looks far worse than we ever dreamed, we still have to face it. Artists are our early-warning systems – our emergency alerts, buzzing in our pockets whether we like it or not. Take care of your prophets, I say: they’re the ones holding the keys to our despicable end.

Photo shoot for Bella Italia

Totem

Photo: Ilka and Franz

Photo: by Nocera and Ferri

Under the Influence

This month sees Edinburgh producer and pop artist SHEARS release her debut album, WE ARE BUT CHEMICALS – she talks us through some of the albums that have influenced her sound over the years

Destiny’s Child –Writing’s On the Wall [Columbia, 1999]

This album was one of my favourites for singing to when I was growing up and accompanies a few good memories. I had a group singing class at university and we were meant to prepare a ‘wordy’ song. For whatever reason, we had all forgotten to do this. Thankfully I still knew every single word to Bug a Boo so pulled that out the bag and got kudos for being the ‘only one to prepare’. And yes, I listened while writing this, and yes, I still know every word.

Christina Aguilera – Stripped [RCA, 2002]

I used to spend hours in my room as a 10/11-year-old trying to perfect all the runs and melismatic sequences. Of course, as a 10-year-old, it wasn’t great(!), and I remember complaining to my mum about not getting it right. But it certainly laid the foundation for the future and how I approach songwriting for vocals, even if what I write now is a little more laid-back.

BANKS – Goddess [Harvest Records, 2014]

I think I’ve seen BANKS play every time she’s been in Scotland – before I had a sound of my own I always wanted to do something like this album. My favourite track is Waiting Game, I used to play it live when I played gigs with just me and my piano. The term ‘warmth’ can be quite abstract in music, but the synths and bass in this track are exactly that, especially towards the end – I love it.

Tove Lo – Queen of the Clouds [Island Records, 2014] I’ve been influenced by Tove Lo since this album came out. Her work is everywhere as a songwriter, especially in pop music, so her influence spreads across the industry. I remember watching an interview with her talking about creating little productions of these songs before she took

them to her collaborators, and me in 2014 (never having produced anything then) thought that was so cool, and I wished I could do that. I have a signed CD of this album!

FKA Twigs – M3LL155X [Young, 2015]

I admire artists that are experimental with their work and aren’t afraid of sounding different to everyone else. There’s a close and personal vulnerability in Twigs’ voice that completely contrasts with the bold, dense production – it’s almost eerie. I used to listen to this EP over and over trying to figure out how all of the sounds were chosen and put together, before I started producing myself. I had no idea!

Grimes – Art Angels [4AD, 2015]

I think Grimes was the first female producer creating from home that hit my radar. The album sounds massive, whilst remaining quirky and industrial and with so many strange noises. I think hearing Art Angels was the point I realised that you really could put any sound in a song that you wanted, and it can still sound like a song, and people will still listen to it. I don’t think I realised that was an option before.

Kelly Lee Owens – Inner Song [Smalltown Supersound, 2020]

This album really helped influence my textures in production, how to create an atmosphere without too many sounds, and how to build on it. Melt! is my favourite – hearing that track live was very cool. It definitely made me a little pickier with the sounds I choose on my own songs.

MARINA –

Ancient Dreams In a Modern Land [Atlantic Records, 2021] We were in the middle of COVID when this album came out. Hearing such politically charged, feminist lyrics, especially at that time, made me think about my own

writing and inspired me not to be afraid to say what I thought in my own songs. Writers like MARINA definitely gave me more confidence in the topics I broached when it came to lyrics.

Self Esteem –Prioritise Pleasure [Fiction Records, 2021]

There’s an honesty in this album that is quite rare to find. When you write songs, you’re usually supposed to keep it quite abstract when questioning social norms, especially in pop music, but this album starts from the very specific and very personal. I’m obviously not the only person to latch onto this, and this has definitely influenced my lyric writing – don’t be afraid to say what you’re actually thinking, as there will be hordes of people who feel exactly the same.

Bicep – Isles [Ninja Tune, 2021]

I really admire Bicep’s production as a whole – the tiny changes from bar to bar that you’re not really supposed to notice, but they keep your ear interested. I would listen through a song of theirs just focusing on one element, maybe only the kick drum, just to see how it changed throughout the song – there’s always more going on than you first think.

WE ARE BUT CHEMICALS is released on 10 Oct; SHEARS plays Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, 4 Oct; The Hug & Pint, Glasgow, 26 Nov instagram.com/imshears

Photo: Laura Prieto Martin

The Dirty Dozen

With Idlewild’s tenth album due out this month, we stick Roddy Woomble and Rod Jones in the hot seat to review new music from Sparks, Upchuck, Brogéal, Hen Hoose, Sigrid and more

Words: Tallah Brash

The Skinny: Are you ready?

Rod: We’ll try to be kind. Roddy: You’ve got to watch with these kinds of things because years ago I reviewed singles for the NME – it was The Killers’ Mr Brightside. Anyway, I didn’t like it.

Rod: You called him the Pete Sampras of indie-rock, which I think was very funny.

Roddy: He didn’t like it. He was like calling me out on stage, saying I was an arsehole.

Sleaford Mods – Megaton [Out Now via Rough Trade, 7” due 7 Nov]

Roddy: It sounded like a lot of their other songs, but that’s not a bad thing because they’ve got a very unique sound.

Rod: Yeah, it sounds very them…

Roddy: They’re very much a band you want to watch live.

Rod: It’s not my favourite Sleaford Mods track – I know their whole thing is kind of minimalism and linearity, but it felt like this one was maybe even slightly too linear for me.

Roddy: I like it, it gets my thumbs up.

Rod: I’m going to give it a 30 degree upward angle thumb.

Babeheaven – Picture

This [Out Now via Scenic Route; Slower Than Sound due 24 Oct]

Roddy: There were bands called things like this in the 80s, I was thinking is this an old band that’ve come back?

Rod: I thought it was gonna be Eurodisco... It’s sort of trip-hop, indie-folk... I guess I just don’t know if it necessarily had much depth to it.

Roddy: It’s from [their EP] Slower Than Sound, which is an interesting concept, because sound travels fast doesn’t it?

Rod: Pretty fast.

Roddy: So to be slower than sound...

Rod: That’s probably average. Not to be mean, but it was a little average... I had a listen to a bunch of their other tracks and thought, actually, some of it was pretty good – this was maybe not their best.

Roddy: I get all the criticisms, but when it’s playing I’m enjoying it – I’ll give it a thumbs up.

Rod: I’m giving this one a side thumb I’m afraid.

Brogéal – Draw the Line [Out now via PIAS; Tuesday Paper Club due 17 Oct]

Rod: It’s kind of in that tradition of The Pogues.

Roddy: It reminds me of a cross between The View and The Mary Wallopers.

Rod: It just felt like it was a little more sanitized than The Pogues or The Mary Wallopers, it felt a little over-regimented maybe... It was catchy, well crafted, but it felt like it had a spark that was missing.

Roddy: I guess they’re maybe following that narrative songwriting tradition... which is something I’ve never been able to do... I think it might be quite popular. Good luck to them, I’ll give it a thumbs up.

Rod: Yeah, I’m gonna give it a thumbs up – it’s definitely not the kind of thing I would listen to usually.

Home Counties – Meet Me In the Flat Roof [Out Now via Submarine Cat Records; Humdrum due 24 Oct]

Roddy: What a terrible name for a band – the home counties are maybe the most boring part of Britain.

Rod: It’s got a vibe, I think it’s well put together, it’s not too shiny.

Roddy: It feels like everything’s been done correctly, it sounds good – all the little things that are going on are all kind of really tasteful and working well together, and it’s quite catchy too... I’ll give it a thumbs up.

Rod: I thought this was the catchiest one, in terms of just like melodic songwriting – I’ll give this a thumbs up.

Roddy: Maybe I’ll have to move the thumb slightly down because of their name – thumb down one notch.

Sigrid – Two Years [Out now via Island/EMI; There’s Always More That I Could Say due 24 Oct]

Rod: I’m a fan of hers. I thought [Sucker Punch] was a really good, interesting debut pop record. This

isn’t quite as good as that, unfortunately. It’s catchy and it’s got a bit of a kind of shinier end of Phoenix sort of vibe underneath it, which I quite enjoyed.

Roddy: It’s not the kind of music I can connect to that much... are we gonna be listening to it in two or three years time?

Rod: I think it’s for everyone to listen to it tomorrow.

Roddy: Well, I would definitely give it a thumbs up then.

Rod: Yeah, I’m giving it a thumbs up.

Upchuck – New Case [Out 1 Oct via Domino Records; I’m Nice Now due 3 Oct]

Rod: It’s more my vibe definitely, a bit less quantised, a bit less shiny, DIY punk.

Roddy: I’m not hearing the punk at all.

Rod: It’s sort of like a scuzzy version of the Pixies with a bit of chaos mixed in riff-wise. It’s cool, although not the best version of that I’ve ever heard.

Roddy: When I started listening to music a lot in the early-mid 90s, in the Melody Maker and NME would be bands you couldn’t hear, so you

Photo: Euan Robertson Idlewild

Sleaford Mods

Photo: Nick Waplington

were just imagining what they sounded like, and often they sounded like this. I don’t mean that as a negative thing, but if I read about them I’d probably prefer them. It just never gets going to me, but I don’t dislike it.

Rod: The one thing I wrote that was negative – I thought it lacked a bit of dynamic and a ression as a song.

Roddy: I’ll still give it a thumbs up because I’m judging them purely on this one song and that’s unfair for any band.

Rod: It’s a solid seven I’d say.

Tina Sandwich – Grit [Out 2 Oct]

Rod: I felt like if it was a bit more chaotic and a bit less regimented there would be something there.

Roddy: She sounds like she’s just getting started… listen to early Idlewild stuff and it’s really ropey.

Rod: I’d prefer it if it was a bit ropier... This just feels like what my impression of Garbage was, at the time, and a lot of those bands – sanitised rock music. I think if she was to record it herself on her phone I would probably prefer it, I think I’d like to hear more of her and less of it being produced. Side thumb.

Roddy: My thumbs are up from the side, but not quite to the top.

Rod: I just listened to one of her other songs – I Want – and that’s loads better. That one sounds like I want her to sound, you can kind of hear who she is a bit more... Can I move my thumb up to a 45 degree angle for the fact they’ve maybe just recorded it wrong?

Sparks – Fantasize [Out 3 Oct via Transgressive; MADDER! due 3 Oct]

Rod: It sounds like Sparks doesn’t it? It’s undeniably quite theatrical dance-pop music.

Roddy: It’s not a sound I can connect to emotionally, but it’s a really good Sparks song.

Rod: [It reminded] me of that cat meme – ‘no no no no no no no no no’. I don’t know if maybe that was their reference point? They kind of strike me as cat people, so on that basis I’m giving it a thumbs up.

Roddy: As a Sparks song, I’d say a thumbs up. As something I’d listen to, I’d be more inclined to move my thumb to the more neutral position.

wojtek the bear –kylie’s put a curse on us [Out 17 Oct via Last Night From Glasgow]

Rod: It’s maybe a little too derivatively Belle & Sebastian.

Roddy: The only note I’ve written is – ‘would be interesting if it was actually a bear singing’ which is not very good criticism is it? I like the fact their picture was taken out of the CalMac window...

Rod: The last line was a bit daft – ‘I don’t mean to cause a fuss / Kylie’s put a curse on us’.

Roddy: A lot of Glasgow bands from the last 20 years have done that sort of indie-pop convincingly. It sounds very accomplished, it’s got the Scottish accent up front singing these slightly humorous lyrics I suppose... I’m intrigued... They’re named after a famous bear and they used an interesting photograph so I’m giving it a thumbs up.

Rod: I’m giving this a side thumb I’m afraid.

Hen Hoose – Out of My Mind [Out 14 Oct via Hen Hoose]

Roddy: Over the years in Scotland there’s always people getting together to make these records and share their creativity and it’s always positive... [This is] really catchy, it’s fun as well, I enjoyed listening to it.

Rod: I concur. I especially liked the Rocky montage section in the middle – a bit of a dancefloor filler.

Roddy: I give this a thumbs up.

Rod: Yeah, thumbs up, it’s really cool what they’re doing.

Roddy: Thumbs up for Hen Hoose!

Thundermoon –The Spirit, The Law [Out 24 Oct via New Teeth Records]

Rod: There’s a lot of early 90s references in there, a bit of Underworld in the middle, certainly... In that lane it sounded good. I thought maybe the vocals were a little too linear and a bit washed out, it maybe lacked a bit of dynamics.

Roddy: It’s got a sort of new age-y

vibe to it. The song’s called The Spirit, The Law – they’re not dealing with minor themes in their music. It says here that ‘their hypnotic vocals guide the listener through a sonic exploration of transcendence’... they’re interested in the big issues of existence.

Rod: It succeeded in that.

Roddy: The only thing I wrote down was new age, a genre that’s always around in the background, the way people live in cafes and pubs and festivals, so ubiquitous, but in a good way. Basically, it’s a thumbs up.

Rod: A diagonal thumb upwards.

Maz and the Phantasms – Voices In My Head [Out 24 Oct; Maz and the Phantasms due 14 Nov]

Roddy: I liked it. When it starts off, you don’t think it’s what it’s going to be like.

Rod: It’s definitely got some unique moments. It goes from old school punk riffs to surf-rock and

then there’s cowboys having a circus in the middle.

Roddy: It reminds me a wee bit of [The] Ex, I liked it... I give it a thumbs up.

Rod: I give it a thumbs up. When it started out I thought it was going to be fairly sort of stock, and then, whether I agree with where it went or not, it went to some pretty odd places in the middle.

Roddy: I think that’s a product of now and the way we listen to music. You can’t just be a straightforward punk band anymore. So Maz and the Phantasms, I think they’re doing the right thing.

Idlewild’s latest album, Idlewild, is released on 3 Oct via V2 Records

Read our review on p58

Sigrid

Maz and the Phantasms

Photo: Charlotte Alex

Photo: Paula Díaz

The Skinny Mixtape

Celebrate 20 years of The Skinny with a journey through the artists, albums and moments that have shaped Scotland’s last two decades

Words: Jenna Cockburn

Alot can happen in 20 years. Since The Skinny first hit the shelves in 2005, Scotland’s music scene has kept reinventing itself – giving us chart-toppers, cult icons, underground pioneers and a fair share of unexpected moments. To celebrate two decades of the magazine, we’ve picked out a glut of artists who capture that story, one for each year.

This isn’t necessarily all about the bi est names or the best albums – it’s about the artists and bands who’ve helped shape Scotland’s music culture as it continues to unfold. From grassroots DIY collectives to festival headliners, breakthrough debuts to boundary-pushing experiments, each of these names tells us something about where we’ve been and where we’re heading.

2005: KT Tunstall

A year before the magazine arrived, KT Tunstall burst onto the scene with Eye to the Telescope and an unforgettable Later... with Jools Holland performance, leading to the

album’s re-release in 2005 and a Mercury Prize nod that same year. Suddenly, a Fife singer-songwriter was bothering the charts worldwide. Tunstall balanced folk roots with pop ambition, showing how one moment could spark a career, and inspire a generation.

2006: Belle and Sebastian Belle and Sebastian’s seventh album The Life Pursuit landed in 2006, affirming them as indie-pop royalty. Quirky yet heartfelt, the album showcased their knack for literate songwriting and sonic evolution. That year we reviewed one of their shows, linking the band’s storytelling charm to Scotland’s broader indie boom. Their legacy continues to shape the sound of Scottish indie today.

2007: Calvin Harris

Calvin Harris exploded onto the scene with I Created Disco (four stars, The Skinny), turning Dumfries into the epicentre of electronic pop. With infectious beats and cheeky

lyrics, he showed that Scottish artists could dominate charts worldwide. His early work laid the foundations for a global pop career and redefined what electronic music from Scotland could achieve.

2008: Frightened Rabbit

Released in 2008, Frightened Rabbit’s The Midnight Organ Fight remains a cornerstone of Scottish indie. Its raw emotion and unflinching honesty struck a chord well beyond Scotland, winning the coveted top spot in our end of year poll that year, while Scott Hutchison helped us celebrate its tenth anniversary in 2018. The album has been a lifeline for fans worldwide, setting a gold standard for confessional songwriting.

2009: Franz Ferdinand

By 2009, Franz Ferdinand were firmly cemented as Glasgow art-rock icons. Tonight: Franz Ferdinand added a darker, more electronic edge to their trademark riffs, earning them The Skinny’s October cover. Their sharp suits, sharper hooks and

swa ering ambition made them emblematic of Scotland’s indie cool. Since then we celebrated their 20th anniversary with Alex Kapranos in 2022 and the band are still going strong.

2010: Biffy Clyro

This was the year Biffy Clyro stopped being Scotland’s best-kept secret and became main stage mainstays. Their fifth studio album Only Revolutions secured the band a Mercury Prize nomination and the year culminated in them headlining Edinburgh’s Hogmanay. The Skinny’s December cover featured the Ayrshire trio at their peak as the band that made progpop singalongs mainstream, never losing the grit of their earlier chaos.

2011: Mogwai

Mogwai entered their third decade in 2011 with Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will. Their hypnotic post-rock instrumentals continued to soundtrack both films and political moods. By this point, Mogwai weren’t just a band – they

were a movement, their influence woven deep into Scotland’s experimental scene. Few groups embody endurance and evolution like Mogwai, and since then they’ve been nominated for the Mercury Prize and won Scottish Album of the Year in 2021.

2012: The Twilight Sad

The Twilight Sad’s brooding No One Can Ever Know set a new course in 2012, trading shoegaze walls for industrial bite. They were The Skinny’s January cover stars that year, representing a band unafraid to evolve while staying rooted in emotional truth. Their sonic bleakness felt like catharsis, mirroring the stark realities of the era. The band went on to find a fan in Robert Smith and have joined The Cure on tour across Europe and North America.

2013: CHVRCHES

CHVRCHES’ The Bones of What You Believe exploded into 2013, catapulting the Glasgow trio from SoundCloud demos to global tours. Sleek synthpop fused big hooks with DIY spirit, setting a template for countless acts that followed. They embodied the new wave of Scottish electronic music: glossy, fiercely independent, and always a step ahead of the curve.

2014: Young Fathers

This was the year Young Fathers rewrote the rules. Winning both the Mercury Prize (Dead) and SAY Award (Tape Two), they broke barriers with their genre-defying sound. The Edinburgh trio refused to fit into boxes, instead fusing hip-hop, gospel, noise and pop into something radical, and became one of Scotland’s most vital and politically charged voices. Releasing Heavy Heavy (their third SAY winner) in 2023, they did a full-blown takeover of these pages.

2015: Kathryn Joseph

In 2015, Kathryn Joseph’s haunting debut Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled earned her The SAY Award –making her the first woman to win the national prize. Minimal yet devastating, her voice carried both fragility and power. She embodies how Scotland’s grassroots can nurture singular artistry into national acclaim.

2016: Anna Meredith

Anna Meredith’s Varmints showcased her fearless genreblending in 2016. Her debut album

won the Scottish Album of the Year Award, highlighting her innovative approach that blended classical composition with electronic experimentation. Meredith demonstrated that Scottish artists could be cerebral, adventurous and thrilling, pushing the boundaries of what contemporary music could be.

2017: Idlewild

Idlewild’s breakthrough album The Remote Part was released before our time, in 2002, so we’re celebrating the fact they marked its 15th anniversary with two special Christmas shows at Glasgow’s ABC, playing the album in full. Both gigs sold out within a day, a reminder of their enduring appeal. Their mix of passion, energy, and consistency reaffirmed their status as one of Scotland’s most influential and beloved indie acts whose tenth album arrives this month.

2018: SOPHIE

SOPHIE’s Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides transformed pop in 2018. Emerging from Glasgow labels Huntleys + Palmers and Numbers, she mixed futuristic electronic production with bold explorations of identity. While there’s been debate over her Scottish roots, her radical approach left an indelible mark on electronic and pop music both in Scotland and worldwide.

2019: Sacred Paws

Sacred Paws’ Afrobeat-infused indie-rock landed them a SAY Award for Strike a Match in 2017, but it was the release of 2019’s Run Around the Sun that saw them feature on our June cover. The duo’s rhythmic guitar

interplay and infectious energy highlights the diversity of Scotland’s music scene, while their inventive, genre-blending approach proved Scottish music could be bold, joyful, and internationally compelling.

2020: Joesef

Joesef’s bittersweet bedroom soul turned heads in 2020 with a feature on the BBC Sound of 2020 longlist, while his EP from that year, Does It Make You Feel Good?, received a nomination for the 2021 SAY Award, establishing him as one of Scotland’s brightest new storytellers. With lyrics that wear vulnerability on their sleeve, he captured intimacy and loss in uncertain times, and carved out a sound that feels both timeless and utterly now.

2021: Brooke Combe

While the pandemic froze live music, Brooke Combe showcased her soulful voice and effortless charisma online, releasing her debut single Are You With Me? in 2021. Blending R’n’B, pop and classic soul influences, she embodied a new generation rising online before stages reopened. Combe showed that even in quiet years, Scotland was incubating voices set to shape the next era, her 2025 debut album going on to receive critical acclaim.

2022: Bemz

Bemz emerged as one of Scotland’s most exciting rap voices in 2022, winning the BBC Introducing Scottish Act of the Year. Mixing raw honesty with sharp flows, he represents the growing strength of Scotland’s hip-hop scene. His music speaks to lived experiences often

left outside the ordinary – making him a vital new presence. He first featured in The Skinny in 2020 and has since received three SAY Award nominations.

2023: Barry Can’t Swim

Barry Can’t Swim’s breakthrough came in 2023 with his debut album When Will We Land? and a growing international profile. Blending jazz, house and euphoric electronics, he brought a distinct Scottish flavour to global dancefloors. The record won BBC Radio 1’s Dance Award for Best Album and was shortlisted for both the 2024 Mercury Prize and The SAY Award. Club-ready yet deeply emotive, Barry Can’t Swim proves Scotland’s producers are still shaping the future.

2024: corto.alto

In 2024, Liam Shortall’s project corto.alto took Scotland’s thriving nu-jazz movement to new heights. Nominated for both the Mercury Prize and SAY Award for his debut album Bad With Names, Shortall’s brass-driven, genre-hopping compositions continue to draw global attention – this summer, alongside his bandmates, he opened Glastonbury’s iconic West Holts stage and has recently signed to Ninja Tune.

2025: Jacob Alon

Following a gorgeous appearance on Later... with Jools Holland at the end of last year, 2025 belongs to Jacob Alon who graced our April cover earlier this year. The freespirited artist’s stunning blend of introspection and striking visuals captured imaginations on their debut album In Limerance in May, with a Mercury Prize and SAY Award nomination now firmly in the bag. Alon represents where Scottish music is headed – boundaryless, self-defined, and unafraid to challenge expectations.

Of course, these pages can’t cover everything. Scotland’s music over the last two decades has been huge, messy, diverse and brilliant – from global success stories like Lewis Capaldi and Amy Macdonald, to artists like TAAHLIAH, Auntie Flo, Rustie, rEDOLENT, Fergus McCreadie, Hamish Hawk, Free Love, Honeyblood and Niteworks carving their own paths in Scotland’s thriving scene. Think of this list less as a definitive canon and more as a mixtape: a snapshot of the sounds and stories that have defined the last 20 years.

A lot can change in a few years, never mind twenty. In a series of exclusive statements from venues old, new, and shuttered across the country, The Skinny shares the current state of Scottish clubs through the very eyes of those keeping their doors open

Words: Cammy Gallagher

The Berkeley Suite, Glasgow

“Scottish clubbing is at a crossroads. There’s a huge appetite for good music and meaningful nights out, and the passion from artists, promoters, and dancers hasn’t gone anywhere. But economically, it’s tough – rising costs, licensing pressures, and unpredictable footfall make it hard to operate sustainably. The Berkeley Suite continues to thrive creatively, our crowd is loyal and curious, and we’re proud to offer a space where underground music and culture can still breathe. But it’s not without challenges. The industry feels fragile across the board, smaller nights stru le to break even, and there’s a constant fight to keep things independent and inclusive. With a shift in the post-COVID generation towards big-brand events, we feel incredibly lucky to still be here. As long as people still care about dancing, community, and expression, we’ll keep building.”

Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh

“Club culture feels very healthy. Eighteen years in and we’ve never been busier. There’s a decline in the number of people going out spontaneously. It’s gone more towards destination events, big names, and festivals. That’s why, in some smaller cities and towns where there’s only one place to go out, it may well have shut in the last few years. We put on some of the world’s best DJs, and that includes locals, but keep it low-key, affordable, and accessible to everyone. We’ve always had diversity in our lineups, and that leads to diversity in the crowds. Clubs are places to make and celebrate meaningful connections with others, and I guess you can feel that more strongly at Sneaks than pretty much anywhere else.”

Sub Club, Glasgow

“There have obviously been significant shifts in how people approach their nightlife, and this has coincided with a time where operating costs have escalated massively, so it’s been a very tough few years generally. Here at Sub Club, we continue to look for innovative approaches as we stay focused on promoting and introducing the next generation of DJs and electronic music artists. We encourage everyone interested in clubs and music culture to get out and experience as many different things as they can, and not to get locked into the online social media hype cycle.”

The Bongo Club, Edinburgh

“Social media has altered the way kids perceive themselves.

Clubbing was/is a display environment, but people do that on Insta and TikTok with much more enthusiasm and now with added filters. There are other factors, of course: less money to spend, the hyperbolic spiking stories in recent years, a lack of prospective promoters, but the bi est factor has been lockdown. There also hasn’t been a definable fresh music scene for over a decade, so to an extent, there’s nothing for people to get their musical teeth into or get excited about. Though people who love music will always want to feel as well as hear those sounds, and only good sound systems can provide that visceral component.”

The Small Town Club (ex-The Reading Rooms), Dundee

“Things have changed big time post-COVID. Advance tickets and attendances are well down, with most folk making their minds up the week or the day of the event, which causes plenty of anxiety. The whole scene has also changed due to social media, with very few DJs now coming through organically at the grassroots via a small club residency, then building a following, then headlining/ running your own night, etc and more like ‘can I get a gig I’ve 10,000 followers’. These days, you can’t afford to take the financial risks you could pre-COVID, and have to scale back on guests.”

EXIT, Glasgow

“Two years into running EXIT, longer than we ever thought we would have in our building’s temporary

situation. Forever inspired by all the amazing people, who we are lucky to be able to showcase and work with and deeply emotionally attached to what we’ve managed to create here. But whether it’s possible and sustainable for spaces like ours to exist today in Glasgow is still a big question mark. Are there enough people in the city who want and are able to engage with spaces like EXIT?”

Stereo, Glasgow

“Clubbing feels relevant again. Anti-establishment movements have shown the real value of nightlife: solidarity, support for social causes, openness, artistic expression, and a feeling of belonging. In Stereo, there’s an unprecedented interest in event organising among younger promoters and members of marginalised communities. When newer people in the scene are taken seriously and guided through the processes, it helps create sustainable and authentic events. Not every event has to become something big, but the access and anti-gatekeeping attitude are what keep the scene exciting, fresh, and a meaningful space of co-creation. There are still a lot of problems that exist – resources are limited, government support is nonexistent, but extractive practices (on all sides) won’t take you far. Working together – organising travel shares, and checking in to avoid clashes – rather than against each other might seem idealistic, especially in the current economy, where we are forced to rely solely on sales, but it is the way forward.”

Image: courtesty of Subclub; collage: Dalila D'Amico

6-7 November, 7.30pm

Edinburgh | Glasgow sco.org.uk

New Dimensions

Steve Reich+

With Colin Currie

Under 26s for £6

Introducing... The Next Generation

We look ahead, presenting our Next Generation of Scottish Writers: 12 poets, novelists and essayists who are shaping the future of Scotland’s literary landscape. We asked them to write about each other

Illustration: Jonny Mowat

Eilidh Akilade

I love pieces of writing with a slightly feral intellectual edge, combined with a stylistic friction that gets under your skin. I felt this reading Eilidh Akilade’s Nitpicking, a pamphlet published this year by the excellent Glasgow-based publisher Rosie’s Disobedient Press. I enjoyed its roaming curiosity that takes lice as a jumping off point to (k)nit together its subjects, from Robert Burns to Girls Aloud and the psychoanalytic concept of abjection. All this is held together by Akilade’s elegantly playful style, which I hope to read more of in years to come. [Daisy Lafarge]

Nasim Rebecca Asl

I think I first came across Nasim Rebecca Asl’s work thanks to a performance piece she did which evoked Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sexual pleasure, rising from the grime on the floor of a filthy nightclub, and I knew then that I needed to read more of her work (because she, clearly, had spent her late teens as I had). Finding the multilayered nature of her work, and how well it sits on the page as well as the stage, has been so fulfilling, as a reader; a resurrection in North-West Iran, Imagined, affects me every time I read it. [Heather Parry]

Mae Diansangu

Mae Diansangu’s joy in Scots fills her work with colour and light: she takes seriously all the sonic potential of words and weaves that through myths that remake land and language. Whenever I read Mae’s words or see her perform, I feel sure that Scots is alive – in all the meanings of that word. That here’s someone engaged in a critical and openhearted way with what it means to be alive, in this place, with these words, with this history, with this bloody hope. I always want to be with writers who make me happy about what writing makes possible. [Harry Josephine Giles]

Titilayo Farukuoye

Titilayo Farukuoye is such a luminous talent. Beyond their obvious skill and craft, the real power of their work lies in how it serves as both a call to action and a tool for meaningful communication. I find myself in their words and am grateful for the space they create for reflection. I feel so lucky to be writing at the same time as them, to connect and find community with them through our work. It’s a beautiful thing to see an artist so intentional about their commitment to a decolonial practice. It clearly underpins everything they do, making the work so urgent and impactful. To read their work is to be moved by the healing potential of poetry, especially when it is rooted in community and care.

[Mae Diansangu]

Harry Josephine Giles

Harry Josephine Giles is a writer who seems to effortlessly get better with each book and each project; she first came into my consciousness with Tonguit almost a decade ago and it was clear her voice and ambition were something special even then. Deep Wheel Orcadia in particular is one of those books that’s doing something that feels totally fresh, bringing together a deep intertextuality, an embrace of genre and a linguistic playfulness that is uniquely Josie – but the rage, politics and sheer linguistic delight within Them! makes Josie’s most recent book my favourite yet.

[Heather Parry]

Katie Goh

Katie Goh’s full-length debut, Foreign Fruit, has one of the strongest opening chapters of any non-fiction work I’ve read. I still think about it, months later. Through personal and geopolitical history, the book refuses to remove racial capitalism from where it’s always felt: in the flesh. I’ve had the privilege of working with Katie in their capacity as editor and events chair a few times, and it’s struck me how generous and clear-sighted they are: a wonderful, inspiring mind working on multiple aspects of literature and in-between them. [Jessica Gaitán Johanneson]

Jessica Gaitán Johanneson

Jessica Gaitán Johanneson is truly one of our great thinkers. Someone who imbues her writing with a staunch commitment to a more just society and avoidance of climate despair. This is evident in her ability to move across form, brave multilingualism and to shift and shape words to say what needs saying. Her debut novel, How We Are Translated, is a humorous take on this conceit and demonstrates its author’s acute awareness of human fallibility and our chameleonic histories. Then to read her essay collection, The Nerves and Their Endings, is to truly appreciate her commitment to something greater. Lyrical prose yearning for something much more magnanimous and imaginative. Her words read as an invitation to lay bare one’s grief, both for what we have lost but what we still have time to save. [Andrés N. Ordorica]

Daisy Lafarge

Undeniably, Daisy Lafarge is already a firm favourite in Scottish writing. Working across both poetry and prose, Daisy’s scope of talent is astounding. To write with such brilliant complexity, yet such ease of reading, is truly quite remarkable. In particular, I find myself returning and re-returning to essays of hers often, admiring each beautifully parcelled turn of phrase, each astute observation. Daisy’s creative output – and the generosity with which she navigates the writing scene – is most certainly something to be grateful for.

[Eilidh Akilade]

Andrés N. Ordorica

Andrés N. Ordorica’s work is the raw, lyrical, impassionate appreciation of what it means to be human, to love as well as to live beyond and in defiance of borders. In his work, the internationally celebrated poet and novelist describes “what it means to be from ni de aquí, ni de allá (neither here, nor there).” Deeply emotional (especially for queer readers and people of colour), his pages convey deep connection to family and ancestors and make visible stru les of honouring one’s truth. Ordorica’s vulnerable way of telling stories, merged with the profound love for loved ones (current and ancestors), spills over the page into our hearts and gives us a taste of what it means to let love win. [Titilayo Farukuoye]

Heather Parry

Heather Parry is able to throw readers right into the middle of every scene she creates. We’re not on the outside, clutching a book, wondering where the story’s going – we’re thrust into the beating heart of her language. Her writing is so crisp, so precise, her scenes are paintings we’re drawn into. It’s gory, and brutal, but beautiful. To read Heather is to know the human body in all its grotesqueness. The body becomes a vessel for biting social commentary, and her work is rooted in this, as well as the wonder that comes from asking ‘what if’ about historic events and periods. Off page, Heather’s just as talented – she’s a warm and engaging chair, fiercely intelligent, funny and witty. She pulls up the writers around her and has given so much time and energy to helping other writers and the literary landscape itself. [Nasim Rebecca Asl]

Graeme Armstrong

Alycia Pirmohamed

Alycia Pirmohamed is the embodiment of community. It’s impossible to read Pirmohamed’s writing as separate from her work as a community organiser and champion of the other. As co-founder of the Scottish BPOC Writers Network and through her collaborative poetry projects with fellow nature writers Pratyusha, Jessica J Lee and Nina Mingya Powles, we witness a poet working towards rhizomatic connection. Pirmohamed’s debut collection, Another Way to Split Water, explores water as something both ethereal and deeply felt, something that divides past and present. In the poem, You Know It but It Don’t Know You she posits the question, “When does a country become a window?” This line is in essence the viewfinder through which we enter Pirmohamed’s lyrical world, excavating homelands and belonging through the natural landscapes of Canada, Scotland and Tanzania. She invites us to find meaning in the elk, an ocean, fractals of a leaf. Like her poems, solace can be found anywhere, if only we dare to look. [Andrés N. Ordorica]

K Patrick

Oliver Robertson I first encountered Oliver Robertson’s writing through my work in writing development and it’s been a joy to follow his journey ever since. Oliver’s spoken word calls our attention to the wonders of the familiar – whether that’s our family, friends, or local area. In an age where we’re increasingly disconnected, Oliver’s work brings a grounded intimacy that resists false authenticities; in this, his work is essential listening. With an enviable warmth and humour, his presence on stage is truly a welcome (and welcoming) one. [Eilidh Akilade]

Nat Raha

There is no shortage of incredible, experimental, groundbreaking writers in Scotland. Some more to seek out at your local bookshop...

Check out: The Young Team

Iona Lee

Check out: Anamnesis, What I Love About a Cloud Is Its Unpredictability

Check out: Mrs. S, Three Births

Ely Percy

Check out: Vicky Romeo Plus Joolz, Duck Feet

Check out: apparitions (nines), of sirens, body and faultline

Mohamed Tonsy

Check out: You Must Believe in Spring

More writers we love...

Doing It Right

Following the release of his book You’re Doing It Wrong, Slime City’s Michael M helps us celebrate our 20th anniversary with a stumble down memory lane, recalling his time in ‘the best band you’ve never heard of’, We Are The Physics

It wasn’t just The Skinny that first stepped on stage 20 years ago – I did too. I say ‘step’ because it was literally that. A dark sticky plinth at the back of the Barfly on Clyde Street in Glasgow, obstructed by a couple of chipped red poles. I was barely in my 20s, playing for 20 screeching minutes to 20 uninterested friends. As I writhed about that ‘stage’, I had no clue I’d be doing exactly the same for increasing and decreasing numbers of people over the next ten years; 20 if you include all the years nobody turned up.

From 2005-2015 I was the singer and bassist for Glasgow’s premiere mutant science punk-rock band, We Are The Physics. Never heard of us? Don’t worry. We’ve routinely forgotten to be forgotten. We don’t even make those indie landfill lists of the 00s. Like hundreds of bands, our existence has become lodged in the murky toilet of time but, for a brief 14 minutes of fame, we were everywhere, un-flushed.

We were on the cover of NME, the other music and culture magazine, hailed as ‘the most perfect new band ever’. We toured the UK and Europe with a Hollywood-adjacent rockstar and had a top 30 single, charting above Adele. We were playing sold out tours in Japan where fans cosplayed as us. And then suddenly we weren’t. Or that’s how it seemed – sudden. Really, it was a slow, grim erosion eked out for years. But it was without bitterness. We trundled through it all with clueless glee. Fame and longevity were never the drivers, but it took me a long time to realise we hadn’t failed.

Some people would rather write a 300-page memoir than go to therapy, and I am some people. Last year, I released You’re Doing It Wrong, a story about my life in a stru ling Glaswegian band in the mid-00s. A time just before the smartphone devolution and the persistent

documentation of social media. Before YouTube, even! It was just MySpace, and a whole lot of sitting in vans. Not so much sex, drugs and rock’n’roll but budget hotels, imposter syndrome and malnutrition. Imagine Slash’s autobiography if he was a wee specky guy from Dennistoun who never took drugs.

As well as fame, all that stuff just sort of eluded us. Our most enduring ‘hit’ was going on BBC Radio Scotland and covering Katy Perry’s Firework, accidentally changing all the words so it was only about a plastic bag. The station rinsed us for weeks. Our guitarist’s aunt heard it piped into a doctor’s waiting room. Further torture for the unwell. Frankie Boyle tangentially compared my career to America’s clown scene: good, but without an audience. That sort of sums it up.

But the more I revisited my memories, the less it felt like failure, just a blip. Something that wasn’t meant to be what it accidentally became. Like most musicians, I made music that excited me with my pals because I felt I had to. Most of us aren’t in it for money, or to ‘graduate’ to the Hydro. We’re doing it because there’s an inexplicable need to create and communicate in that medium. It’s a culture that still flourishes in corners of every city, in repurposed DIY spaces, in bedrooms tapped out on GarageBand. Audience or no, we’ll do it.

But, 20 years on, the industry meant to support it feels unrecognisable, both for better and worse. There’s nothing on that stretch of Clyde Street now. With even the stalwart indie venues closing, less money in the pot and fewer people supporting smaller bands, how do we find and spotlight young artists, especially those from working class and marginalised backgrounds with no inherent capital to propel the long stretches around Britain’s grey motorways?

There’s a lot to love about the internet’s democratisation but we’ve also conjured the notion that artists must develop a gamut of despicable business practices to break through the noise. TikTok industry influencers bleat about posting constant content – 20 new videos a week, strategy decks, KPIs. The power was meant to return to artists, but we’ve accidentally just made our artists business-speaking cunts. The sort of people we got into music to avoid. The horrors of the industry didn’t go away, our artists grotesquely ingested them.

The algorithm has one purpose: to keep you on the platform. It’s not there to surprise you or open your heart to something new, just to keep you sated. And if there’s one thing I learned after 20 years of screaming in dark rooms with barely enough money for chips, it’s that excitement rarely comes from being comfortable. I’m still doing it. My newer band Slime City are, objectively, bi er than my old one in sales and audience size, but you’d never know, because Spotify metrics tell you

“ MOST OF US AREN’T IN IT FOR MONEY, OR TO ‘GRADUATE’ TO THE HYDRO ”

otherwise. That’s why human input matters, that’s why passionate curation matters, that’s why we need venues, communities and real people talking excitedly about new music. You may not like everything you read in The Skinny, but that’s the point. Except this article – you love this one.

Happy birthday, The Skinny, you’re doing it right!

You’re Doing It Wrong: My Life As a Failed International Rock Star (In The Best Band You’ve Never Heard) is available now at linktr.ee/michaelmdoingitwrong

Slime City launch their new album National Record of Achievement at The Art School, Glasgow, 29 Nov linktr.ee/idst

Photo: John Sackey

We Are The Physics in 2006

Photo: Michael Barr

Rae-Yen Song, song dynasty ○

Rae-Yen Song, song dynasty

Photo: Michael Barr

Rae-Yen Song

We’ve been captivated by Rae-Yen Song’s practice ever since Edinburgh Art Festival’s Platform in 2018. Guided by Daoism, the artist explores diasporic-futurism, self-mythologising, science fact/fiction and belonging. In Platform, a group exhibition for emerging artists, Song handmade a lion costume to draw parallels between the Scottish coat of arms and lion dancing in Chinese culture. In an interview with us at the time, Song told us such symbols are rooted in “language that I can occupy positively, rather than have this emptiness between the two cultures, where I don’t fit in.”

Ever since, we’ve eagerly observed Song’s ideas blossom and alternate between sculpture, drawing, text, video, performance and beyond. By 2021, Song participated in Glasgow International, showcasing a wi ly-armed sculpture with five heads alongside works by Rabiya Choudhry, Jasleen Kaur and Raisa Kabir. It wasn’t long until Song secured a debut solo exhibition, titled Held at Dundee Contemporary Arts, Song invited us into a tent-like creature, epic in scale, with inflated limbs and decorated with microbe-like patterns. As with many of Song’s works, there were nods to family stories and histories throughout.

Our most recent homage to Song emerged in 2024 alongside the exhibition life-bestowing cadaverous

soooooooooooooooooooot, at CCA Glasgow. It was here that Song united over 20 artists and thinkers in an “ecosystem of ideas” informed by feminist and decolonial practices. Song’s installation, ○ squigoda song cycle ● water~land~air ○, incorporated a fermenting pool of tea fungus connected to microphones, a hydrophone and other sensors. life-bestowing cadaverous soooooooooooooooooooot was Song’s testing ground, stewing ideas for an upcoming solo exhibition at Tramway. In the artist’s most ambitious presentation to date, Song will transform the old tram depot into a sub-aquatic world shaped by ancestral knowledge, memory and imagination. At the exhibition’s heart, Song transforms the ancestral figure of tua mak ( , translating “big eyes” in the Teochew dialect), who drowned at sea in Singapore at thirteen years old. The figure, who is only known through Song’s familial memories and myths, is transformed into a lifeform who is ever-evolving and in perpetual migration.

[Rachel Ashenden]

Rae-Yen Song , Tramway, Glasgow, 15 Nov until 24 Aug 2026, WedSun, 11am-5pm

glasgowlife.org.uk

Rae-Yen Song, song dynasty

Photo: Luke Pickering

Changing the Act

Outdated and harmful, Scotland’s abortion law demands urgent modernisation. We speak to the campaigners behind Let’s Change the Act about the importance of decriminalisation

In the last days of summer, I mention to my friends that I am writing about an upcoming campaign to decriminalise abortion in Scotland. One asks why, given that abortion is already legal. Another echoes them. My friends are somewhat confused; admittedly, much like I am when said campaign is first brought to my attention. It is an uncomfortable truth to acknowledge: that my friends and I – and likely, countless other individuals – have made it this far under the misguided belief that we, as individuals living in Scotland, have an unconditional right to abortion.

October marks the launch of Let’s Change the Act, a collective national campaign that seeks to end criminal penalties by fully decriminalising abortion in Scots law and replace the 1967 Abortion Act with a modern, rights-respecting healthcare model. Engender, Scotland’s feminist policy and advocacy organisation, is joined by a coalition of campaign stakeholders, such as Back Off Scotland, Amnesty Scotland, Abortion Rights Scotland, and many more. “Let’s Change the Act is led by a coalition of medical, policy and legal experts and human rights and equality campaigners,” says Jade Stein, Communications and Engagement Manager at Engender. “It is vital to have this breadth and diversity of experience within our coalition, when campaigning for the full decriminalisation of abortion and replacement of the Abortion Act 1967 with a modernised, rightsbased framework for abortion care. Our coalition brings us strength and a huge range of expertise.”

Quality and timely abortion care is integral to our physical, mental, and emotional health. With the NHS estimating that one in three women* will access abortion in their lifetime, it is vital, routine healthcare. Meanwhile, public opinion is overwhelming in its support. In January 2024, 93% of those polled by YouGov agreed that ‘Women should have the right to an abortion.’ And yet, under the current law, pregnant people in Scotland have no legal right to end a pregnancy. The Abortion Act 1967 outlines circumstances in which an abortion may be permitted: two doctors must authorise all abortions; an individual seeking an abortion must demonstrate that their reason sits

within specific ‘grounds’; and the abortion must be provided in specific locations, by specific healthcare professionals. Under this act, abortion remains within criminal law.

It is easy to consider such laws as nothing more than a technicality – an outdated yet necessary filing system. But the law is taken as fact, not fiction. The Concealment of Birth (Scotland) Act 1809 criminalises concealing a birth if the ‘child be found dead or be amissing’. Although the act does not directly govern abortion, it has reared its ugly head in recent years to prosecute individuals when an illegal abortion is suspected. Over the past 20 years, at least eight people have been investigated for offences relating to abortion, as noted in data released from Police Scotland in response to Engender’s FOI request. South of the border, we’ve seen an increase in prosecutions for abortion related offences. In England and Wales, 67 people have been prosecuted over the last ten years. As Stein notes: “We need to future proof now, against an increase in unnecessary prosecutions, as has been seen in England.” Here, at home in Scotland, individuals have indeed been charged and prosecuted for crimes related to abortion in the 21st century. The emotional and mental distress of this upon an individual cannot be overstated.

“Countries around the world are modernising and liberalising their laws on abortion care – and we, in Scotland, run the risk of falling behind”

Jen Ang, Director of Lawmanity

Words: Eilidh Akilade

Illustration: Vaso Michailidou

Jen Ang, Director of Lawmanity, is a human rights lawyer. With over 20 years of experience and qualified to practice in New York State, England and Wales, and Scotland, Ang’s expertise is expansive. “Criminalisation of abortion harms individuals and communities, by using the enforcement powers of the state – the police, prosecutors and the prison services – to create fear and stigma about a woman’s choice to access their fundamental human right to reproductive health care,” Ang tells us. The criminalisation of abortion – and the stigma it creates – does not keep us safe; it puts us at risk. For Ang, the need to decriminalise abortion is, undoubtedly, a human rights issue. “Access to safe, legal and timely abortion healthcare is a fundamental human right, and should not be regulated with criminal penalties,” says Ang. The World Health Organisation recommends the decriminalisation of abortion, while countless international human rights organisations likewise advocate for the matter. It’s troubling, then, that our government refuses to listen to those in the know. “With a few notable exceptions, countries around the world are modernising and liberalising their laws on abortion care – and we, in Scotland, run the risk of falling behind.”

Likewise, in the UK, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) advocate for the decriminalisation of abortion in regards to workplace rights. Indeed, abortion is not detached from financial realities. Public Health Scotland found that the 19% increase in abortion rate in Scotland seen in 2022 is linked to the cost of living crisis; financial concerns are frequently cited alongside requests for a termination. In the same report, it was also noted that the abortion rate in the most deprived areas of Scotland is now double that of the most affluent areas.

Meanwhile, as we all know, the NHS is stru ling – staff shortages, insufficient funding, long waiting times. As it stands, the law puts an added unnecessary pressure on healthcare professionals. The Scottish Abortion Care Providers argue that other appropriately trained individuals should be able to provide abortion care – not

simply doctors. Gratuitous requirements such as these do not make abortion care safer; simply, more difficult to access. In Engender’s 2024 report, Dr. Audrey Brown, Consultant in Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare and former Chair of the Scottish Abortion Care Providers, states: “Recent cases in the media have raised suspicions when women present with a later pregnancy loss. Instead of clinical staff focusing on care and support for the woman, they can be uncertain if they must report a potential crime.” Care, rather than criminality, ought to be the priority of all healthcare – and Scotland’s current abortion laws force professionals to straddle the two. With stigma surrounding abortion persisting, many healthcare professionals have raised concerns that individuals may delay abortion care; this, in turn, can increase the risk of varied complications.

Decriminalising abortion does not mean that abortion care would not be appropriately regulated. Malpractice or unsafe abortion would be dealt with by medical regulations and existing general law – just as any other form of healthcare is. As Stein

says, “Abortion is treated differently from other forms of crucial healthcare under the law without medical justification; we must urgently eradicate this stigma, there is no place for it in modern Scotland.”

The campaign for abortion rights is, of course, nothing new. “When I was a teenager growing up in the United States, it was feminism and the pro choice movement that first drew me into activism. The first demo I ever attended was a pro-choice rally at the home of then President George Bush Sr at Kennebunkport, Maine in November 1989,” says Ang, reflecting on her involvement in the current campaign. “We rented a bus and raised money by selling tickets at $5 to other high school students. We thought it was only a matter of time before women’s reproductive choice would finally be secure, in all 50 states. It is amazing to think that we are fighting for the same rights, now, some 35 years later.” In recent years – in both the UK, USA, and beyond – the rights of multiple marginalised groups have been stripped back. Abortion has predictably found itself on the table of public debate, laid out to

be picked at and prodded. Such times call for us to move forward, rather than retreat.

And so, what does getting involved with Let’s Change the Act look like? In encouraging individuals to email their MSP, sign up to the newsletter, and donate, where possible; the campaign makes involvement easy yet impactful.

This autumn, my friends and I will discuss the need to decriminalise abortion in Scotland. We will understand our rights and we will know which rights we still have to advocate for. We will say to each other and to our government, “Let’s change the Act.”

Find out more about Let’s change the Act on Instagram @letschangetheact

*Much of the available legal, health-based and research material refers only to cisgender women. Engender’s 2024 report recognises that transgender men and boys, people who identify as non-binary or gender diverse and people who are intersex can also become pregnant and need access to abortion

THE SCOTTISH MUSIC INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION (SMIA) PRESENTS

Resistance & Resilience

We take a closer look at this year’s Black History Month Scotland, a vibrant programme of events which centres acts of solidarity –both historical and contemporary

As October comes around, remembering the activist roots of Black History Month in Scotland is crucial: far from a performative talking point, the month has long functioned as an opportunity to reflect on the past and plan for the years to come. “Scotland’s Black History Month began in 2001 with the anti-racist movement, building solidarity from common experiences of racism and fighting for a better future for all of us,” says Amy Rich, Communities and Campaigns Officer at Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER). Such sentiments are especially weighted this year, amid the ongoing violent rise of the far right. From tours to exhibitions, talks to screenings, 2025’s Black History Month Scotland offers hope and strength in the fight for justice, both in Scotland and internationally.

This year, CRER’s programme cover art features the work of Glasgow-based artist Christian Noelle Charles. Against a layered green backdrop, two open hands reach upwards. “From my series Reaching Hands, the print Growing Opportunities explores the profound act of forging one’s own path. Inspired by discovering new trails in nature, the work depicts fingers transforming into pathways – a metaphor for creating possibility where none is readily given,” says Charles. Such creative pulls speak to both the political and the personal. “This act holds a poignant weight for me

as a Black individual in a systemic society, serving as a testament to the resilience required to grow your own way forward.”

This resilience is rooted within this year’s programme. At City Arts Centre on 10 October, Dr Maryam Ohadi-Hamadani presents Visualising Resistance in Art and Black Power Across Britain, sharing recent research on anticolonial movements and the network of Black artists and activists campaigning in the 60s and 70s in Scotland, alongside the rest of the UK. As OhadiHamadani tells us, “I’m looking forward to sharing my current research on how Black Power movements and political organizing resisted the misrepresentations and invisibility of Black life within mainstream British media, and how the search for an anti-colonial visual vocabulary became central to artistic practice.” Previously untold stories are likewise brought to the forefront in From Belize to Scotland at the Burrell Collection on 23 October, a screening of BAFTA-nominated documentary Treefellers, which shines a light on the 900 Belizean lumberjacks who left British Honduras in 1942 to fell trees in Scotland. At the Tron Theatre, on 24 October, activist Stella Dadzie joins CRER to discuss her new book, A Whole Heap of Mix Up, which collects her personal, political and creative writing, offering a vital insight into Black women’s lives and activism in Britain.

Words: Eilidh Akilade

While Scottish exceptionalism often pushes aside Scotland’s role in empire and enslavement, CRER understands the importance of acknowledging the country’s past. On 4, 18 and 31 October, Nelson Cummins, Curator of Legacies of Slavery and Empire, will lead tours reflecting on the collection of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, exploring how its history has been shaped – and continues to be shaped – by colonial endeavours.

Meanwhile, at Strathclyde Students’ Union on 6 October, History and Future of BME Teachers in Scotland sees Mary Osei-Oppong – a retired teacher and author of For The Love of Teaching: The Anti-Racist Battlefield – join a panel of teachers reflecting upon their experience of teaching in Scotland, while also discussing how we may create a more just education system. As Rich notes, “Throughout Black History Month, CRER sets out to broaden understanding and knowledge around the achievements and resilience shown by African, Caribbean, Asian and other adversely racialised communities in Glasgow and across Scotland and the ways in which these communities have deep and rooted ties to Scottish history.” But the programme also looks beyond Scotland. At City Arts Centre on 17 October, in The Return of Sudanese Cinema, James McCune Smith scholar Umloda Ibrahim explores the history of Sudan’s film industry. Sudan’s brilliant cinematic output has long been overlooked; unpacking both its colonial and post-independent eras, Ibrahim will provide the past context to its present success.

Outwith CRER’s programming, Black History Month Scotland offers a number of brilliant events. On 25 October at Dovecot Studios, In Progress sees Sekai Makache present tapestry designs – inspired by 17th century Scottish paintings of the Greco-Roman prophetess, the sibyls –and explore the sibyls’ African roots. In BerwickUpon-Tweed’s Paxton House on 4 October, academic and food historian, Dr Pe y Brunache presents Consuming History, a cooking event celebrating Caribbean food and its history of joy and resilience. For bike-lovers, MOUR (Migrants Organising for Rights and Empowerment) offers a cycling tour of Glasgow on 10 October, exploring Black cyclists alongside the city’s colonial history.

“Black History Month seeks to be a starting point to celebrate and educate on our histories, and a call for sustaining this year-long in Scotland,” Rich tells us. Black history isn’t confined to October; rather, taking pause to reflect and connect aims to enable us to hold this history all year round.

Black History Month Scotland takes place at venues across Scotland, 1 Oct-1 Nov, full programme details and tickets at blackhistorymonthscotland.org

Image: courtesy of Black History Month Scotland

Horace Ové, Barbara Beese at the Mangrove Demonstration, 1970

A Warm Embrace

This year sees Scottish Queer International Film Festival turn ten. The festival’s director, Indigo Korres, reflects on SQIFF’s contribution to Scotland’s queer scene over the past decade, looks to its future and helps pick out some highlights from this year’s event

Over the past decade, the Scottish Queer International Film Festival (better known as SQIFF) has been a bastion of queer, experimental film in Scotland. It was founded in 2015 by members of Glasgow lesbian and queer filmmaking collective Lock Up Your Daughters, amongst others, who grew the festival from its grassroots origins into the SQIFF we know today. “They saw the need for queer independent cinema in Scotland because there just wasn’t any at the time,” reflects SQIFF’s current director, Indigo Korres.

Since becoming SQIFF director in 2022, Korres has upheld the legacy of those founders, and on top of the annual festival, she’s incorporated year-round filmmakers’ workshops into SQIFF’s remit. As well as expanding beyond the annual festival format, these workshops, talks and screenings occur within and outwith the Central Belt, allowing rural queer communities to join the discussion. The result is many more films being made in Scotland by trans and non-binary, queer people of colour, and refugee and migrant artists. “This year we’ve seen a big increase in films being made by Scottish queer filmmakers,” notes Korres. “Almost double previous years.”

When I ask about SQIFF’s future, Korres says she dreams of a permanent home: an independent, queer hub for collaboration and community rooted in Glasgow. Her vision is an accessible venue with workshop space and a regular film programme showing mainstream and independent cinema that wouldn’t otherwise come to Scotland. This desire for artist-led collaboration can be felt palpably in this year’s programme, though, from the exhibition The River and The Glen: Camp Trans Scotland with artist-run space Listen Gallery to this year’s guest programme A Nova Era by Brazilian artist-run project Mostra Queer Brazil. Korres is particularly excited about the latter. “Being Brazilian, I love showing films from Brazil at SQIFF. Glasgow is really diverse, and I love it when people get to see stuff from their own cultures.”

One of SQIFF’s priorities, Korres explains, is platforming underrepresented independent and experimental work. “Our community really wants to see fresh perspectives, not just the queer person dying, which we see a lot in mainstream queer media. We need to see joy, we need to see love, all of those beautiful human emotions.” Concentrating on short films, meanwhile, means that SQIFF can champion filmmakers who find feature or TV work inaccessible, and the programming team can curate a more diverse and vibrant lineup.

Many familiar favourites return this year, like the Scottish Shorts opening night and Animation Now, a collection of powerful animated films. Of the new strands, look out for Aunties, curated by Nat Lall, which honours the love given to us by the many and varied queer ‘aunties’ of our community.

Words: Oren Shoesmith

Another highlight is the Halloween night screening of The Serpent’s Skin, the sixth feature from Sydney-based trans filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay, who’s only 20 years old. And Shatara Michelle Ford’s Dreams in Nightmares, a road movie featuring three black queer femmes travelling across the US, will close proceedings. Korres describes it as “the most beautiful portrayal of polyamory that I’ve ever seen in film; it’s very poetic.”

Returning to SQIFF this year is the 1993 documentary Cinema Fouad, which is part of the NO PRIDE IN GENOCIDE programme assembled by curator Huss. It’s a portrait of Khaled El Kurdi, a trans woman living in Beirut who’s grieving the death of her Palestinian lover. Korres had no qualms about screening the film at the festival for a second time: “SQIFF is not afraid of showing films which are important to revisit. Each film from the past resonates with what’s happening now.”

Unlike many other festivals in the UK, SQIFF uses a social model of disability to guide its structure, which means people with additional access needs can trust they will be provided for when they show up. From BSL interpretation to sliding scale tickets and travel funds, SQIFF is determined to set a standard of reliable and in-depth inclusion. “I really hope seeing our approach changes the industry in general,” Korres says. “We are always trying to remove barriers at the heart of what we do.” This extends to gender neutral toilets, which has become an increasing issue after the EHRC ruling in April incited antitrans policies across the country. As the only trans woman film festival director in Scotland, Korres describes the complexity of steering the festival through this time. “Half of our team is trans; we

believe trans people should be together, we’ll always be here.”

SQIFF has always been a place to meet new friends, future collaborators and potential lovers. It brings our LGBTQIA+ masses together at a time when many of our gathering spaces are being shut down. Korres’ time at SQIFF has taken the form of many different roles, but the constant of the festival has been the warmth and joy of the community. “The best advice I ever got, and I even have it tattooed, is ‘go where it’s warm’,” says Korres. “It speaks to working with people you feel good about, where you feel warm.” Anyone who’s ever attended SQIFF will have felt a similar warmth that moves unspoken through the cinema as the lights go down as we all weep and laugh together.

SQIFF, various venues, Glasgow, 27 Oct-1 Nov; full programme at sqiff.org

Photo: Tiu Makkonen

Colour Me Pink

Drag Fox

Two Travelling Aunties

Creating a Trans Cinema

Louise Weard’s Castration Movie now spans over nine hours of chaotic, cathartic, camcorder footage. The Canadian director discusses the origins of the project and her influences in creating a cinema “by, for and about trans people”

In October 2024, Weird Weekend, Glasgow’s festival of obscure and outsider cinema, hosted Louise Weard for the world theatrical premiere of her debut feature, Castration Movie Anthology I: The Fear Of Having No One To Hold At The End Of The World. The four-and-a-half hour epic, shot entirely on a Hi8 camcorder, concerns two tales set in Vancouver. The first, Incel Superman, follows internet troll Turner (Noah Baker), who spirals further and further down the 4chan rabbithole in a cringe comedy fairytale; and the second concerns Traps, a politically incorrect and foul-mouthed sex worker, played by the director. In person, Weard is affable, erudite, and completely unlike the character she wrote for herself, but what she does share with Traps is familiar to many trans people: experiences of life on the margins. “I was couchsurfing with my friends or living out of my car, selling my stuff on Facebook Marketplace to afford gas – but I had my parents’ old video camera on me. I loved seeing myself as a kid, how I would hold it, how I would interact with people and spaces.” She brought the AV antique along to her friends’ gig at a DIY punk venue. The crowd scene she captured was the first footage that would make its way into Castration Movie, which she began to produce with the bandmates, Aoife Josie Clemens and Magda Baker.

After getting a day job as a set PA, Weard was free to spend weekends filming her friends, putting together a sprawling, slice-of-life story. From the start, she wanted her script to use unconventional narratives that tied together in unexpected ways. “I want the audience to be thinking of Joyce’s Dubliners,” she says, “but I think, by the end, they’re going to be thinking more of Infinite Jest.” When work dried up during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, a Canadian arts grant and an internet fundraiser pushed Anthology I over the finishing line. But Castration Movie is far from over: this October sees the online premier of Anthology II: The Best of Both Worlds

“I wanted to make the scariest trans girl horror film,” explains Weard. The sole story of Anthology II revolves around Circle (Alex Walton), the newest initiate of an emotionally dysfunctional, sexually co-dependent polycule of trans women, kept as a doomsday cult in the basement of a corrupt YouTuber. The claustrophobic thriller contains five hours of overstimulating parties, excessive amounts of hot dogs, and grotesque rituals, often delivered in a dialogue of internet-pilled, brain-rotted discourse. “I basically had to start a cult, bring eight people down into a basement, get them to completely lose their own personality and take on another, and then say go.” Two core questions

Words: Ellie Robertson

defined the project: “What if community can’t help you?” and “What if the way we talked about each other on Twitter was real life?”

The Best of Both Worlds eventually takes the viewer to the surface, showing that real life is just as inhospitable to trans women. In the basement, the situationship from hell was inspired by a Cronenbergian fusion of humanity and technology, while above ground, Weard was looking at other nighttime thrillers set in NYC, like Taxi Driver or The Driller Killer. In fact, the director’s influences for the overarching project include Third Cinema, a 1960s concept encompassing films from outside the Western or Soviet systems, usually from countries in South America, Africa or Asia – like the Argentine political documentary The Hour of the Furnaces, which had to be exhibited underground because of its anticapitalist subject matter. Screenings of Castration Movie, like the one at Weird Weekend, can physically bring together a community. “You watch it, you take an intermission, you chat about it, you watch the rest, and everyone gets to talk, and think about their place in this modern political reality, and hopefully feel some degree of anger, or inspiration, or empathy.”

The Best of Both Worlds was also filmed in New York to platform the American trans community in particular, following the re-election of Donald Trump. Weard’s goal to “create a trans cinema… by, for, and about trans people” is coming to fruition – Anthology III, set to release in 2026, features cameos and contributions from trans artists like Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw The TV Glow), Vera Drew (The People’s Joker), and author Alison Rumfitt (Brainwyrms).

And though Trump is across the Atlantic, the UK’s queer community has suffered under a botched medical report and subsequent Supreme Court ruling. “If I could come up with a cool idea, I’d love to tap into the same stuff going on in the UK and give people on the ground there an outlet, to just fucking be mad,” says Weard. But catharsis is just one goal of many in her framework for trans cinema. “It doesn’t matter what country I’m in, what city, what area, rural or urban, trans communities laugh at the same jokes, they relate to the same things. I made a movie that was so specific about the people I know in Vancouver, and it branched out so much.”

Castration Movie Part II is released in cinemas from 10 Oct by Matchbox Cine, and Parts I and II will be available on-demand via Matchbox Cine’s online platform from 1 Oct watch.eventive.org/matchboxcine

True North

Storytellers Tom Muir and Eileen Budd, and programmer Daniel Abercrombie, on the 36th Scottish International Storytelling Festival, which looks to the folklore, myths and fairytales of the Nordic region, Scotland and Northern Europe

Lights of the North, the 36th edition of the Scottish International Storytelling Festival, brings together the storytelling cultures of Scotland, Scandinavia and Germany for a 2025 programme full of folklore, myth and fairytale. Because where better to look than north for recognition that as the dreich nights draw in, stories are there to keep our spirits afloat? “The dark nights of winter were made for storytelling by the fireside,” says Orcadian storyteller Tom Muir.

Yet, in speaking with him, it becomes clear that – contrary to common presumptions that the tales of our past have always been happily valued and preserved – much Northern folklore survives thanks to a continual and concerted effort to keep it alive, even in the face of powers whose interests clash with storytelling’s myriad empowering benefits. “When I was a child [in Orkney],” says Muir, “fairytales were only found in books. Orkney had lost its storytelling culture in the 19th century as the church clamped down on what it saw as ignorant superstitions. Later, people were taught to despise the old tales as ‘rubbish’.”

Such revelations mirror our current global climate, in which the ruling class seem set to discourage and suffocate intellectual and emotional education in favour of pushing their own self-serving ideologies. Muir’s childhood tale is a reminder of the ways in which history repeats itself, and how it is in the hands of the people to light alternative paths. “I was in my early 20s before discovering that Orkney once had a rich tradition of folk tales,” he says. “I have dedicated most of my life to resurrecting our lost tales, making them available in books, spreading them as a storyteller, encouraging others to use them… During dark times we need to turn to our ancient tales for comfort, compassion and hope.”

These are dark times indeed: violent invasion and occupation befalls Ukraine and Gaza; far-right movements take hold around the UK, US and Europe. And while Lights of the North is less overtly motivated by our political past and present than SISF’s editions immediately prior to this one (2023’s programme marked the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and 2024’s marked 35 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall), the idea of looking back in order to better understand the world around us is a tenet of folklore. “Our stories are a multi-generational community memory bank,” says Perthshireborn storyteller Eileen Budd. “I believe in [their] importance for providing better understanding of our identities, culture and heritage as well as the role they can play in communicating complex ideas which can transcend language, culture and backgrounds.”

There are “some beautiful crossovers between Scottish, Scandinavian, Nordic, Greenland

Words: Louis Cammell

and North America” in terms of their folklore, she says, and given that many of the stories are influenced by the same sea and sky across which we all look out (not to mention the history of passage and migration throughout the regions), it is no coincidence. “In these great expanses we can find connections with other people who might be a great distance away from us geographically but are close to us in our stories.”

For Daniel Abercrombie, leading a team of four programmers, following the crossovers as mentioned by Budd has been central to the programming of Lights of the North. The title invokes the Aurora Borealis that can be seen from Scotland, Canada, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, where respective stories personify the lights as merry dancers, playful spirits, the reflections off valkyries’ armour and the shimmering Bifrost bridge connecting the living and the dead. But whether through festival partnerships or the way stories have travelled and become global (European fairytales have long been reinterpreted

as Disney movies, for example, and Marvel owes a huge debt to Norse mythology for super-siblings Thor and Loki), the events have a wide international outreach.

Alongside Nordic-inspired events featuring Muir (Stories Drawn from the Land, an exhibition by Hester Aspland; The Return of the Vikings; Orkney Storytelling Festival) and Budd (Land of Many Waters; Picts & Vikings), we’re taken as far as Ghana by African folklorist Chief Gift AmuLogotse via Wild Wings of Hope, presented in partnership with the National Museum of Scotland. And from Germany, Anna Lehr hosts a workshop of Gruesome and Grimm Tales where she’ll teach the warts-and-all versions of the beloved yet sanitised children’s stories we’ve come to know and love via their myriad TV and film adaptations. See the full festival programme for all events across Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Inverness, Fife, Aberdeen, Orkney and beyond.

Scottish International Storytelling Festival takes place across Scotland, 22 Oct-1 Nov, sisf.org.uk

Photo: courtesy of the artist

Ceramic by Hester Aspland

Rebellious Togetherness

Artist Grace Ndiritu stages Sit-in #5: Compassionate Rebels in Action at Cooper Gallery, Dundee. She speaks to us about collective reflection, spirituality and activism

As you approach the front doors of the Cooper Gallery, you are confronted with images of protest, frozen in time yet pulsing with the weight of countless movements, stru les, and calls for change. They invite you in, not to simply witness, but to cross a threshold. Stepping on to carpet, you are gently ushered into a space where time slows, where the everyday rhythm of life suspends. This is the first act of participation in Sit-in #5: Compassionate Rebels in Action, the closing chapter of The Ignorant Art School: Five Sit-ins towards Creative Emancipation – an exhibition and event space for reflection, a rehearsal for revolution, a chance to practise slowness, engaging in the possibilities of coming together in collective contemplation.

Staged by artist, filmmaker, and writer Grace Ndiritu, Compassionate Rebels in Action invites visitors to enter a space that transforms the very act of being present. From the moment you cross the threshold, the gallery becomes a site of ritual, a space where the boundaries between past, future, and present swirl together through radical spirituality and activism. “The church, the library, the park, museum are the last four spaces within contemporary cultures, especially urban spaces where it can be a space for contemplation and dialogue,” Ndiritu notes, highlighting the need to carve out environments where both intellectual and energetic shifts are possible.

Ndiritu’s family history, rooted in activism, is central to her practice. Raised in an environment where protest was not an abstraction but an

intimate part of life, she reflects on the influence of her mother, a feminist and anti-Apartheid activist. “She was involved in organising debates, film screenings, they printed t-shirts and they would have discussion groups around the dining table but also, we would go to do practical things, like marches,” Ndiritu says. Her work carries this legacy, not as reenactment, but as a living thread, folding protest into the textures of tending-toward togetherness.

This sense of collective power runs through Compassionate Rebels in Action, which uses protest imagery, carpets, film, mirrors, and study space to draw participants into a state of communal entanglement. These elements are more than just visual tools for Ndiritu, they function as channels for healing and decolonisation. Ndiritu states that this is where spirituality and activism converge: in the recognition that we cannot separate our political movements from the healing processes necessary for lasting change.

“As an artist and as a spiritual practitioner, everything is so intermingled between spirituality, creativity, and politics,” Ndiritu says. “Spirituality is integral to activism,” emphasising that healing must be central to the process of social transformation. For Ndiritu, healing is not about escapism or superficial remedies. Instead, it is a tool in the process of institutional critique, a way to challenge the colonial and economic systems that perpetuate injustice. “Healing is cathartic,” she explains. “What we need to do with institutions is to go through these deeper processes.” Sit-in #5 and its

Words: Brooke Hailey Hoffert

“The church, the library, the park, museum are the last four spaces within contemporary cultures, especially urban spaces where it can be a space for contemplation and dialogue”

Grace Ndiritu

accompanying public programme, filled with gatherings and discussions, are shaped with this very intention, to create conditions for that depth of reflection, dialogue, and repair.

Commissioned as part of Sit-in #5, Ndiritu’s new book, Glossary for Art and Action, gathers together a collection of terms she has developed over the past two decades to address the spiritual and political dimensions of resistance. “There’s a limited vocabulary, we use words like ‘solidarity’ and ‘collectivity,’” she explains, “Over the years, I’ve invented terms that are both spiritual and political, ones that could start this new language.” Terms such as Compassionate Rebel, Dissent Without Modification, Transition Zone, and Healing as a Form of Institutional Critique offer language for thinking and acting differently. For Ndiritu, this glossary is not just about language, but about “having a vision for the bi er picture,” expanding how we imagine resistance, relation, and renewal.

Ndiritu hopes visitors won’t just leave with something learned, but with something shifted, a sense of how to move and act differently in the world: “I want visitors to meet different people, and the exhibition will keep working after it closes.” Ndiritu offers a grounded proposition, that transformation begins with how we gather, how we listen, and how we care, an ongoing rehearsal for how we might gather, resist, and rebuild. It holds space for slowness, for reckoning, for solidarity not yet fully formed, and space to envision a more compassionate and transformative world.

Sit-in #5: Compassionate Rebels in Action, Cooper Gallery, Dundee, 10 Oct-13 Dec, Tue-Sat, 12-5pm dundee.ac.uk

Photo: Kate MacGarry

Modernist Metropolis

We speak to soprano Hye-Youn Lee about Scottish Opera’s revival of Puccini’s La bohème by directors and designers Barbe & Doucet

For Hye-Youn Lee, the soprano taking on the latest incarnation of Mimi – among her favourite parts to sing – in La bohème, story is everything. Citing La Traviata and Madama Butterfly alongside La bohème, Scottish Opera’s upcoming revival of its 2017 production, Lee can be called a credible authority when it comes to the standard Italian repertory. This class represents some of the most iconic operas in history, not least several by Giacomo Puccini, whose smash successes like La bohème – first staged in 1896 and frequently performed to this day – persist in pop culture and modern-day media.

Lee credits La bohème’s relevance to its story, the characters, topics, and conflicts it faces head-on, but also interestingly Puccini’s score itself, all of which lend the opera to “adaptability”. Beyond the success of contemporary stories that

adapt these operas, like Jonathan Larson’s Rent or the jukebox musical Moulin Rouge!, the production history of La bohème during the 20th and 21st centuries reveals that Puccini’s opera and those like it motivate adaptation and reinterpretation with a contemporary swing. After all, La bohème has been set in as diverse contexts as 1957 USA and the cultural bombshell of 1920s Paris, the setting of Scottish Opera's 2017 production by design, stage direction and choreography team Barbe & Doucet. Now, eight years later, Hye-Youn Lee returns to this modernist metropolis with a ‘developed’ revival of one of the opera’s most endearing works.

In Puccini's original setting, we have a painter, poet, philosopher and musician stru ling to live in an 1830s garret at Christmas time. There’s a landlord who comes for their rent.

Words: Aidan Monks

A seamstress with consumption who lives in their building, who falls in love with the poet. A singer who used to love the painter and the wealthy government minister courting her now. Three acts. A platter of bohemians who create for a living, and thus stru le to live, and the various contemporary dilemmas they must face, from financial insecurities to sickness and death – not merely 19th century problems. Puccini’s opera is about young love, friendship, loss, doubt, innocence and the ins and outs of la vie bohème. According to Lee, there is something for everyone in the story and, specifically, the Scottish Opera’s forthcoming revival – for audiences of all generations, even children –whether that’s the themes themselves or this production’s illustrious scenic design and choreography.

No doubt, the themes of La bohème are universal. They continue to connect with the lived experiences and passions of audiences worldwide, and in the opera’s countless stagings over its past 130-year existence. Whether we take Rent, the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical brimming with the nerve-endings of Puccini’s original, or the English libretto used by Canada’s Against the Grain Theatre in 2019, the same central situations, conflicts, and misfortunes permeate every iteration. La bohème’s story is not necessarily contemporary by definition, though its close-up focus on poverty can be viewed as progressive, its central characters and concerns clearly make for effective retellings and unique renditions. This continuing search in every new staging of this thoroughly staged opera has been at the heart of the rehearsal process for Barbe & Doucet’s upcoming La bohème, as it was in their celebrated 2017 version – a search which has transported Puccini’s story to the hustle and bustle of Paris in the ‘crazy years’.

With design inspired by the fantasy comedy film Midnight in Paris, we can expect Barbe & Doucet’s production to engage with the theme of time, not just as a motif in the story, but in the form of questions surrounding the longevity and pertinence of La bohème itself: how we correlate with the past and what the past unveils in the present. We can expect, in Lee’s words, a ‘visually stunning’ production, presented by a virtuosic ensemble and creative team. We can expect an enthralling, emotional run to herald the Scottish winter. And, importantly, for those who caught the production in its previous iteration, we can expect a new staging that draws and fulfills the adventurous artistry that revitalised Puccini’s masterpiece on the Scottish stage eight years ago.

La bohème, Scottish Opera, 11 Oct-21 Nov,Theatre Royal Glasgow, His Majesty’s Theatre (Aberdeen), Eden Court (Inverness), and the Festival Theatre (Edinburgh).

Callum Thorpe, Edward Jowle, Roland Wood and Mario Chang in La bohème rehearsals

Photo: Ruby Pluhar

PRESENTS....

WORLD CLASS ARTISTS

UNIQUE PERFORMANCES

STUNNING ISLAND VENUES

Album of the Month

Sudan Archives — THE BPM

THE BPM keeps a close eye on its titular concern – namely, to keep it racing at almost all times and to drag you along for the ride. Sudan Archives’ Brittney Parks continues to experiment with electronica and strings, redlevel intensity and navel-gazing contemplation on her thrilling third album.

This all-caps affair goes deeper into the sounds of Detroit techno, Chicago house and Jersey club, managing to use them as jumping-off points amidst her whirling electronic effects and string arrangements. It could read as overstuffed – and at times, it can feel that way – but the sheer force of performance and skilled production more than carry the album.

The drums (programmed or live) and bass particularly stand out. The former are full of elastic snap, and when paired with Parks’ rapidfire delivery on MY TYPE or the title track, the effect is like Joey Purp dosed with Ritalin. The injections of violin add colour and flourish this time round, rather than anchoring the sound as they did on Natural Brown Prom Queen, melding into the funk on COME AND FIND YOU and creating an organic counterpoint to the synth runs on A BUG’S LIFE.

The evocation of blurry, half-remembered nights full of booze, drugs, lust and music is a strength of Parks’ snapshot writing style; it’s blunt and to the point, though stops short of spelling everything out to the listener. MS PAC MAN is Parks’ raunchiest outing to date, reminiscent of Rico Nasty in its full-throated profanity atop a bed of video game bleeps and gloopy effects. Moods swivel on a sixpence as we move from blissful hedonism to moving meditations on growth, complete with arboreal metaphors on LOS CINCI. But there’s no jarring whiplash as the spontaneity feels organic throughout, as seen through lines that feel improvised on the spot: ‘Speeding – no, he floats’; ‘String me along / Interactive marionette-ish’.

A COMPUTER LOVE embodies the hybridised nature of the album, containing its most claustrophobic, warped production; blunt lyrics on social pressure; lyrics that bring out its human core despite the futuristic framing: a line like ‘See the sand running through your fingers / And right then got some bad news in Costa Rica’ stops you in your tracks on one of the most digital songs on the album. Like the rest of THE BPM, it’s glorious mayhem that you simply have to surrender to.

[Lewis Wade]

Madison Cunningham Ace Out 10 Oct via Verve Forecast

Skullcrusher

Your Song

Witch Fever FEVEREATEN

claire rousay a little death

via Thrill Jockey

All Systems Are Lying Deewee/Because Music, 17 Oct rrrrr

Listen to: Run Free, Idiots in Love

Belgian brothers David and Stephen Dewaele never hit the heights with Soulwax that they have with other ventures. As remixers they’ve breathed fresh life into songs by Gorillaz, Marie Davidson, Fontaines D.C. and Tame Impala. As 2manydjs they created one of the best mashup compilations, As Heard on Radio Soulwax Pt.2 Now, the brothers are back with their first new Soulwax record since 2018’s Essential They describe All Systems Are Lying as “a rock album made without any electric guitars”. Imagine it to sound like what’s inside R2-D2’s head – all beeps and whirrs, whistles and grrrrrs. The album’s second track, Run Free, is arguably their best self-created track with its acid house wi les, angelic harmonies and an ending of disjoined electro madness. It’s a frontrunner for electro song of 2025.

The album has more. The empty skull beat of New Earth Time with it’s modem dial-up riff, the 80s electro pain of Cabaret Voltaire-sounding The False Economy and the squelchy bass and xylophone of Idiots in Love, which turns into an indie banger. There’s not much depth to the lyrics. But when it sounds this good, who cares? [Rick Fulton]

Listen to: Like I Had Before, (I Can’t Help) Back Then You Found Me

Idlewild breach dreary themes, such as one’s sense of self and heartbreak, across their self-titled album. All the while the melody on each song, especially Like I Had Before, creates a juxtaposition of danceability. The diversity of feeling pushes for a cathartic release of the song’s sombre lyrics onto the dancefloor.

On the same track, Idlewild’s lyricism captures how our perception of self is shaped by what we witness in the media before we’re able to reshape it through relationships and the seismic shifts they create in our lives.

On I Wish I Wrote It Down, Idlewild continue to blend superb musicality with cutting lyrics. ‘Alone to memorise that you shouldn’t be laughing if you don’t know why’ are just some of the words that finish a song which ventures into the world of indie-pop, its bassline so thick you can feel it crawling on your skin. It’s a treat when a band that’s spent the better part of three decades crafting their sound and poetic sensibilities has all those endless hours of commitment come out crystal clear on their tenth record, and it’s precisely what Idlewild have accomplished here. [Billie Estrine]

Rianne Downey

The Consequence of Love Run On Records, 17 Oct rrrrr

Listen to: Heart of Mine, The Song of Old Glencoe, The Consequence of Love

Having stepped into some formidable shoes as Paul Heaton’s vocal foil at arenas and festivals across the country, Rianne Downey is now establishing herself as a singular vocalist in her own right with her debut album, ten tracks that wear their heart on their sleeve and have an unmistakeably Scottish flavour.

It’s a polished album, though the lush strings never get in the way of Downey’s soaring vocals. The standout title track deals with difficult subject matter, without straying into self-pity. It has a clear echo of New Slang by noughties indie favourites The Shins, and like them you can imagine Downey’s music featuring in a pivotal scene of a heartfelt Hollywood flick. Fans of Nashville’s Caitlin Rose will also find much to love here.

‘They say God loves a trier’, sings Downey on Heart of Mine, ‘Lord knows I’m trying hard’. In reality, her debut sounds effortless, and marks the arrival of a new Scottish superstar. They used to say that Americana was just a posh way of saying you liked country music. Downey has captured something that you’d perhaps have to call ‘Caledoniana’ – Scottish country with a pure heart. [Andrew Williams]

Mustard WE WERE JUST HERE Partisan Records, 24 Oct rrrrr

Listen to: POLLYANNA, WE WERE JUST HERE

Since their 2018 debut Wednesday, Dundalk shoegazers Just Mustard have continued to refine their visceral brand of noise rock. Their sophomore effort Heart Under enhanced their capabilities with a sonically claustrophobic aura, crafted through lenses of grief and longing. With their third effort however, things are different.

WE WERE JUST HERE sees Just Mustard embrace melody intrinsically. This is ever present in Katie Ball’s hauntingly mesmeric vocals, which rise intentionally higher in the mix than any of their previous material, peaking at points including DREAMER and opening track POLLYANNA. Ironically for a shoegaze outfit, this brightness is what makes the five-piece’s new album so intriguing. The title track showcases this best; whilst still leaning towards their usual warped, electronic influences via loops and industrial rhythms, there’s also a tangible feeling of light and euphoria present.

Other highlights such as ENDLESS DEATHLESS and SILVER further illustrate this immediacy of emotion, while OUT OF HEAVEN showcases the group’s focus on writing more fully encompassing songs, citing Nirvana and My Bloody Valentine as inspirations. Still disorientating yet more alive than ever, this is a bold album that skillfully pairs darkness with light. [Jamie Wilde]

Soulwax

Just

Idlewild Idlewild V2 Records, 3 Oct rrrrr

Jay Som Belong

Lucky Number, 10 Oct rrrrr

Listen to: Float, Past Lives, Want It All

Where Melina Duterte’s earlier work was characterised by fastidious self-production, on her first album in six years she enacts a trust fall, opening her craft to collaborators and letting her palette spill outward. This sense of community lends weight to Duterte’s nostalgia. Float, assisted by Jimmy Eat World’s Jim Adkins, weaponises turn-of-the-millennium poppunk to ask what preservation might be found in fear. The solemnity of Appointments melts into the weightless bounce of Drop A, a movement from stasis to momentum central to Duterte’s embrace of flux. Past Lives, buoyed by Hayley Williams’ harmonies, erupts into a scale Jay Som once shied from, before collapsing into the spectral murk of D.H.

The record constantly oscillates, shifts of texture and tone underscoring this surrender of control. Nowhere is this clearer than on closer Want It All, arriving as atonal guitar scrape and blown-out drums, but as Duterte’s hook cuts through, the mix galvanises, marching from hesitation to determination. As it winds down, we’re left on the ambient sounds of Duterte and her collaborators laughing in the studio: an unpolished humanisation that quietly codifies Belong, letting the work itself dissolve into the act of belonging. [Rhys Morgan]

They Are Gutting a Body of Water LOTTO

Julia’s War x Smoking Room x ATO Records, 17 Oct rrrrr

Listen to: american food, trainers, rl stine

Shoegaze revivalists They Are

Gutting a Body of Water have spent nearly a decade taking the genre’s combination of surging power and spectral weightlessness and warping it into something off-kilter and seasick. LOTTO by contrast is comparatively straightforward. Most of its runtime is a no-frills, wellexecuted take on the genre, with just a touch of the dirty jean grandeur of indie-rock vets like Built to Spill or Lift to Experience. They’re a really powerful unit, but you get the sense they could knock these tunes out in their sleep, and it feels like a lot of what they’re capable of is missing; slow crostic feels like the directionless bar band vamping of a world where the old lads want to be in Swervedriver rather than Oasis.

The record is at its best when it retains the sense of adventure that has defined their earlier work; american food pads like a gormless dog and retains some of their best fried electronics sensibilities, while the strangulated lead line of trainers starts plainly enough until their instincts wrench it into something queasily unfamiliar. Throughout LOTTO you find yourself wishing it’s an instinct they’d indulged more.

[Joe Creely]

Somewhere Press, 3 Oct rrrrr

Listen to: Personal Assistant, Heart Shaped Burn, Write My Name

Admiral Fallow First of the Birds Chemikal Underground, 31 Oct rrrrr

Listen to: Dead in the Water, All the Distractions

“Recorded after midnight,” say the liner notes accompanying Dania’s collection of hypnagogic reveries, Listless. The majority of these amorphous compositions reflect the waking dream of pushing through the night, throwing up contradictions that arise when watching clock hands tick slower than seconds should be. Like its title, the record can feel like walking underwater – journeying without movement. On its closer, A Hunger, Dania’s vocals are staticky and seem to pass by like a loudspeaker in a moving car, while the song’s undulating electronics circle the drain.

But when percussion appears on Heart Shaped Burn and Car Crash Premonition, it brings a tumbling, welcome chaos. The enigmatic Dania spends some of her time as an emergency doctor in remote parts of Australia – it’s on these songs that the mental tightrope of working the night shift of a high stress job seeps through. The insomniac momentum of Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead comes to mind.

Where artists have this year used trip-hop and downtempo – just two of the modes Listless exists in – to convey sexual liberation or as a way to stand out from the crowd, Dania’s album truly lives in its darkest corners. [Tony Inglis]

This fifth studio album from Admiral Fallow is their first in four years, with at least one track, The Shortest Night, dating back further, to the early days of the pandemic. Clearly, the Glasgow five-piece are the kind of band happy to allow their ideas room to breathe, to crystallise at their own pace, which is something palpable on First of the Birds; the best songs here are stately and refined, unfurling at their own pace. Opener First Names (Storms) is a case in point, as is the stunning Dead in the Water along with gorgeous closer All the Distractions – all tracks where the sparse, elegant instrumentation provide a foundation for frontman Louis Abbott’s stirring vocals to wash over. Elsewhere, there’s experimentation, with mixed results; the ambitious art rock of Daydreaming (Why Any of This?) might be the record’s standout, with its shifting sonic landscape, but stabs at boisterous pop-rock (The Shortest Night; Headstrong) feel cluttered, and are jarring when set against the album’s otherwise measured feel. Regardless, First of the Birds still marks Admiral Fallow as one of Scotland’s most thoughtful indie-rock outfits, as they inch closer to 20 years together. [Joe Go ins]

Dania Listless

Sounds Good

October

2nd Beverly Glenn-Copeland with special guest Elizabeth Copeland

3rd Elis & John - That Feels Significant: Live!

4th A Night for MAP (Medical Aid for Palestinians)

5th The Music of The Lord of The Rings

9th Edwyn Collins - The Testimonial Tour - SOLD OUT

10th Jason Mraz

13th New Town Concerts: Doric String Quartet

14th The Blow Monkeys & The Christians

15th AMPLIFI: Theon Cross | Azamiah | Gaia

16th Harben Kay Quartet: Album Launch

17th John Grant - SOLD OUT

18th Ziggy Alberts

19th Mary Gauthier

22nd Kerry Godliman: Bandwidth

23rd SCO 25/26: Haydn’s Drum Roll

24th Jen Brister: Reactive

25th Breabach

26th An Evening with Johns’ Boys Welsh Male Voice Choir

27th Scottish Ensemble: Shifting Patterns

30th SCO 25/26: Yeol Eum Son plays Mozart

31st Legend - The Music of Bob Marley

Music Now

It’s another packed month for new Scottish releases; we celebrate records from Auntie Flo, SHEARS, Lomond Campbell, Stillhound, Possibly Jamie and more

Words: Tallah Brash

As we’ve come to accept over the years, it’s impossible to know about everything in time for a monthly print magazine. Releases we didn’t find out about in time for last month’s issue included Beat, the debut album from Edinburgh experimental electronic artist Sam Wood, and Escalate, the debut from Glasgow rave-punks Vlure. As the month unravelled, there was also new music from Saint Sappho, BPK, corto.alto, Bratakus, Lou Mclean, Midi Paul, Aylee and Pictish Trail among others.

At the time of writing, October is already very busy. At the start of last month, my tally for new October albums and EPs was comfortably over the 250 mark, with a decent chunk from Scotland. As I type this in the final flickers of September, that number continues to rise. A last minute entry from Edinburgh trio Stillhound discovered via a very late in the day post on Instagram caught me off-guard, but of The Scene Is Spotless they say they “didn’t make this record to chase trends, prove a point, or win anyone’s attention. They made it for themselves.”

Due on 3 October, The Scene Is Spotless is a delightfully hazy, laid-back return to form; with gorgeous warm and clean production and some lovely guest features, it could well be the perfect antidote to the ensuing shorter days of autumn.

On the same day, for something far more outlandish, seek out Male Pattern Narcissism, the latest EP from Glasgow pop provocateur Possibly Jamie, a record he describes as “an exploration of queer love, anxiety and euphoria on dancefloors, inspired by late-night memories and the desire for belonging.”

Across its five tracks, Jamie Rees packs in earworms left, right and centre, proving his expertise at penning a catchy pop chorus on Geometric Heart. Seek out the bonus track, an edit of the already brilliant FTDJ (that stands for ‘Fuck the DJ’ btw) featuring striking new verses from Glasgow-based artist EYVE

On 10 October, the debut album from Leith-based producer and pop behemoth SHEARS arrives following a good few years of solid single and EP releases. After writing the album’s tracks and realising there was an even split in themes, the album has been deftly cut into two halves, the first taking her

experiences and frustrations both as a woman and as a woman in the music industry into account while the second sees her celebrating the wins and letting go. Bringing together a glut of influences (read about those on p29) and styles and drawing from SHEARS’ learnings in production and songwriting over the years, it’s her pristine vocal, singular vision and deft production style that helps her achieve something pretty close to dancepop perfection.

An interesting sidestep this month comes courtesy of Lomond Campbell who releases his 14-track Transmission Loss EP via One Little Independent (10 Oct). It’s been a minute since he’s been in these pages, but here he’s not producing Kathryn Joseph, reworking Dot Allison or turning cosmic rays into music. Rather, he’s experimenting with the rhythm of his own body with each of the EP’s tracks built around Campbell’s own heartbeat. But don’t let this statement mislead you, this is not a dance record built upon beats. Transmission Loss is a largely ambient and experimental exploration of sounds rooted in ethereality, feeling cosmic, atmospheric and futuristic; like the product of an 80s dystopian sci-fi flick, it unsettles, intrigues and constantly surprises.

On 23 October, Brian d’Souza returns as Auntie Flo, releasing Birds of Paradise on his own A State of Flo Records label. The last time we spoke, d’Souza was using biosonification to turn electronic pulses from mushrooms into music, but here the former SAY Award winner is back in a far more familiar mode of musicality, although nature still plays a big part in the record. Birdsong features prominently across Birds of Paradise, owing in part to his time spent in Goa, where a lot of the record was written and recorded in a small riverside studio. There’s a warmth from the record’s use of vintage drum machines, with rubbery basslines, textured repeated motifs and Latin-American polyrhythms making the record feel immersive and meditative; deeper listening offers up something different each time, with subtle gear shifts that both delight and ground. Turn back a page for full reviews of new records from Rianne Downey, Admiral Fallow and Idlewild, the latter of whom in turn review Brogéal’s single Draw the Line from their forthcoming album Tuesday Paper Club. Elsewhere, Finitribe anthology The Sheer Action of Fini Tribe: 1982-87 lands on 10 October, with Edinburgh’s politically charged outfit Gutterblood releasing Good Dogs Will Never Die on the same day. On 13 October, Glasgow-based rapper Psweatpants releases his brand new full fat EP Life Was Shit, It’s Better Now, while the 17th sees singer-songwriter Liv Dawn blend folk, pop and country on latest EP Hope Wandering, recorded at Chem19 and produced by Jamie Savage. We’ve also been promised a new EP from Post Coal Prom Queen at some point. Finally, expect singles from Feyvo, Casual Drag, Hen Hoose, Tina Sandwich, wojtek the bear and Thundermoon, along with an overwhelming number of other EPs and albums we've run out of room for. Support your local scene, it’s thriving.

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

Photo: Benedetta

Margoni

Photo: Rachel Shnapp

Stillhound

Auntie Flo

Film of the Month — Bugonia

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Starring: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, Alicia Silverstone RRRRR

Released 31 October by Universal Certificate 15

theskinny.co.uk/film

Bugonia is a savage examination of civilisation’s descent into madness that hits very close to home. A remake of the 2003 South Korean movie Save the Green Planet! from director Jang Joon-hwan, Yorgos Lanthimos’ genderswapped take kicks off its outlandish proceedings with a jab at conspiracy theorists, with Jesse Plemons portraying Teddy Gatz, a beekeeper who believes Earth has long been a playground to a sophisticated alien race, the Andromedans.

Painstaking research has led Teddy to Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), a high-powered Big Pharma CEO who rises at dawn, reads the news in an LED face mask before training and heading to work. The epitome of health and wealth, Michelle is ethereal, almost superhumanly so by most people’s standards, as she cruises the office in her lacquered Louboutins. To Teddy, however, she’s more than just an aloof, greedy executive who has made some questionable decisions — she’s an alien of the most vicious kind. As such, he believes Michelle needs to be kidnapped in order to save the planet, and involves his goodnatured cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) in pulling off his plan.

Lanthimos maintains a sharp eye for the grotesque in his latest collaboration with Stone, who produces with Ari Aster. The result incorporates everything from Mediterranean lore to classic sci-fi tropes, and reveals itself to be a riotous ode to destruction and re-creation inspired, curiously, by bees, with Lanthimon celebrating nature’s smallest, most tireless workers. Not a wordplay on the perennial flower, “bugonia” refers to an ancient, extremely detailed ritual based on the belief that the

striped pollinators could be generated by a cow’s carcass.

Much like the practice to which it owes its name, Bugonia toys with the lines of reality and fiction, planting the bug of doubt in its viewers’ ears over its two-hour runtime. The movie holds some truths at the core of its absurdist premise, which su ests an alien political pastiche eyeing Mars Attacks! Will Tracy’s script amplifies the boisterous discomfort of Jang’s original, offering a mournful meditation on corrupted humanity.

The second team-up with Stone and Plemons is an improvement on the previous one, Kinds of Kindness. Lanthimos finds his stride in this delightfully grim two-hander, which feels like a tight, cross-class tennis game of status and species. Joined by Delbis, who adds layers as Bugonia’s comic relief, the two protagonists vibrate so perfectly on the film’s frequency that it’s hard to imagine any other actors filling their shoes. In lesser hands, this humanist War of the Worlds could’ve been tragically watered down, but the duo gladly shed any vanity and go berserk.

Their physical comedy quiets down, though, in the melancholic third act, a grand finale that plays out as a disquieting yet tender look at the tribulations of the human experience. Lensed by The Favourite and Poor Things cinematographer Robbie Ryan, the film is visually stunning, even in its bleak, gasp-inducing conclusion. A reminder of humans’ minuscule but devastating role in the world, Bugonia is a blast of a bi er picture that turns the threat of annihilation into a real treat. [Stefania Sarrubba]

Scotland on Screen: Robert Aramayo on I Swear

The Rings of Power star Robert Aramayo swaps Elvish for expletives in I Swear, a funny and tender real-life drama based on the life of Robert Davidson, a man from Galashiels with Tourette syndrome

Words: Jamie Dunn

Film (selected): I Swear (2025), Palestine 36 (2025), Lilies Not for Me (2024), The King’s Man (2021), Antebellum (2020), Galveston (2018), Nocturnal Animals (2016)

TV (selected): The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022-present), Behind Her Eyes (2021), Mindhunter (2019), Game of Thrones (2016–2017)

I Swear is released 10 Oct by StudioCanal

Anyone who thinks acting is a doddle should meet Robert Aramayo. This talented 32-year-old from Hull takes his craft extremely seriously. Deep research, immersion and specificity are key to his performances, which range from treading the boards as Alex, the lead hooligan in A Clockwork Orange, while he studied at New York performing arts school Juilliard, to portraying a young Ned Stark in Game of Thrones, to donning elf ears to play Elrond in Lord of the Rings prequel The Rings of Power. However, it’s his latest role in I Swear that he calls the “bi est challenge of my life.”

Directed by British film veteran Kirk Jones (Waking Ned, Nanny McPhee), I Swear is a funny, moving and deeply empathetic biopic telling the story of John Davidson, a warm, kind-hearted man from Galashiels with Tourette syndrome, a neurological condition that causes him to involuntarily come out with the kind of creative epithets that would make Malcolm Tucker blush. Aramayo plays John as an adult as he tries to build a life for himself around his uncontrollable tics (as well as epic, inappropriate swearing, his tics also manifest as barking noises and violent, full-body convulsions), while young newcomer Scott Ellis Watson is equally impressive as John at 13 years old, the age he was when his tics first emerged, resulting in him being bullied at school and misunderstood at home. “What was exciting about the project was I felt from the word go that Kirk was quite collaborative,” Aramayo says of first reading the script, “and maybe there would be space for me to really get in there; really work on it with him.”

He was initially unaware of John’s incredible journey. The Scot came to prominence at 15 when he was the subject of the acclaimed 1989 BBC documentary John’s Not Mad, which gave many people in the UK their first education in Tourette syndrome. Three decades later, Queen Elizabeth II gave John an MBE for his efforts in educating people about the condition. “I

was thankful that I could start afresh, to be honest,” says Aramayo, “and start building the character from the script, which is my job. And from there do the work.”

This work was extensive. It began with a YouTube dive (he watched John’s Not Mad and sundry other Tourette’s documentaries), then lots of reading and meeting people through Tourette Scotland, to finally a period living in Galashiels. “I spent a couple of months there just hanging out with John, watching the football with him, going on walks with him, going to the community centre with him, having meals, and just being in Galashiels and that surrounding area; it’s very specific, Galashiels.”

Aramayo’s been doing this level of prep since he first graduated from Juilliard and got a small part as a gang member in Tom Ford’s 2016 film Nocturnal Animals. “The character was from Jasper in Texas, and I was like, ‘How the hell am I gonna play a guy from Jasper, Texas?’” Aramayo’s solution? He became a guy from Jasper, Texas! “Yeah, I just decided to move there, and I was lucky enough in that moment to be able to prepare in that way. And ever since then, I’ve realised that [a person] is influenced so much by where they grew up, the landscape, the accents, the sounds surrounding them. So it’s important to saturate yourself in a place if you can.”

Having heard this level of commitment, it comes as no surprise when Aramayo tells me one of his favourite working experiences so far was on the set of Mindhunter, where he was directed by reportedly the most exacting person in the film business: David Fincher. “He’s unbelievable,” says Aramayo of the famously fastidious filmmaker. “The meticulous nature of his directing is just breathtaking. One of the things that I believe in acting is asking the question, ‘How specific can you be?’ And I think that’s part of the way David looks at his work as well. He’s so specific, he’s so meticulous, and he’s really going after something. So if I could work with him again, that would be my absolute dream.”

On the set of I Swear, he found several other actors who like to lock into their roles. Take Shirley Henderson, who plays John’s uptight mother (“Shirley is quite immersive in the way that she works, which I really enjoyed”). Or Maxine Peake, who plays Dottie, a mental health nurse who takes John under her wing (“Maxine was just really in the trenches with me”). Less keen on going method, though, was Peter Mullan, who plays John’s salt-of-the-earth boss. “Oh, Peter doesn’t need to get immersed. Peter could be having a conversation with you about what he had for breakfast as they’re saying ‘action’ and then snap into [the scene]. It’s an amazing skill of Peter’s.”

Despite being deep in prep ahead of his return to Middle Earth for the third season of The Rings of Power, Aramayo is doing lots of press and appearances to promote I Swear. His passion for the project shines through. “I really want people to see this film, and whether they love or hate it, hopefully they walk away understanding a bit more about Tourette’s, and then they go and talk to somebody about Tourette’s. Whatever the response is, I just hope it helps some to make it a larger conversation.”

I Swear

Good Boy

Director: Ben Leonberg

Starring: Indy, Shane Jensen, Arielle Friedman, Larry Fessenden, Stuart Rudin, Anya Krawcheck rrrrr

It is safe to say that being the family dog doesn’t always bode well in horror films. At the very least, you’re likely to be fundamentally imperilled, while many suffer a worse fate so that the human protagonists comprehend the stakes. In Ben Leonberg’s Good Boy, the family dog – Indy (played by Indy) – is the protagonist. It’s a novel move that transpires to be far more than just a gimmick in this nerve-jangling haunted house story with one of the all-time great canine performances.

There are two primary reasons that placing the dog at the heart of a film like this turns out to be a smart move. One is perhaps obvious: it’s a speedy shortcut to audience empathy. We don’t need to warm to the central character; Indy is a cute and

Frankenstein Director: Guillermo del Toro

Starring: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi rrrrr

Gothic maximalist Guillermo del Toro has cited Mary Shelley’s tale of God-like aspirations and lost humanity as one of his earliest sci-fi influences, and here he reworks it into yet another entry in his filmography of melancholy kids.

The stunning but at times vacuous film takes us on a tour of Edinburgh, making the most of the city’s surgical tradition and bodysnatching tales, before the action heads to Geneva. Shelley’s plot is tweaked to frame genius scientist Victor Frankenstein’s (Isaac) obsession with life and death as a trauma response rather than sheer ambition, making his arc more palatable but less compelling, with Isaac playing him like a livelier, though no less narcissistic, counterpart to his previous role as AI creator Nathan in 2015’s Ex Machina

Unlike other Frankenstein

incredibly loyal dog, so we innately fear for his safety and want him and his human, Todd (Shane Jensen), to be OK. The second is that Indy is unable to really comprehend what is going on; he just knows it’s scary and dangerous. That means the mechanics of the haunting – the who, the why – can be dispensed with. There is also no threat here of rolling our eyes at the stupid idiot making the clichéd mistakes of the genre. Indy doesn’t understand what’s happening but knows he has to protect Todd.

This makes for some impressively unnerving moments, some thrilling sequences and the potential for a genuinely harrowing ending that keeps things gripping until the final shot. [Ben Nicholson]

After the Hunt

Director: Luca Guadagnino

Starring: Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield rrrrr

After the Hunt, at first glance, seems unfit for Luca Guadagnino’s intimate sensibilities. As cinema’s foremost sensualist, his movies detail the complexities of relationships fuelled by love and lust – but what happens when that line is crossed? His latest, written by Nora Garrett, broaches every thorny topic of interest in today’s climate – consent, institutional misogyny and racism – but in doing so, the film resembles an exhaustive debate more than a compelling story.

follows is the fallout of that gathering. Ma ie confides in Alma that Hank sexually assaulted her afterwards. He refutes that allegation. Caught between her loyalties to two close friends, Alma resists choosing either of them.

Released 10 Oct by Vertigo; certificate 15

adaptations, del Toro takes great care to humanise his creature (Elordi). Elordi, however, is unconvincing in the part, with his scenes playing out like Hulk-esque outbursts crossed with wordy negotiations of identity.

Completing the central trio is Mia Goth, who’s underutilised as Elizabeth, a noblewoman engaged to Victor’s brother. A sorrowful sister to Nosferatu’s Ellen Hutter, Elizabeth attempts to graduate from being an object of desire but remains trapped in a superficial romantic quadrilateral.

A hasty experiment with a huge budget and stellar cast — which also includes Christoph Waltz, Charles Dance and Ralph Ineson — Frankenstein drags along like its creature. Del Toro has crafted another gorgeous showstopper, but it’s one that stru les to locate its soul in the juxtaposition of its limp body parts.

[Stefania Sarrubba]

Released 17 Oct by Netflix. Frankenstein had its world premiere at Venice Film Festival

A debate kicks off the film, too. Philosophy professor Alma (Roberts) is hosting a party with her Yale colleagues, joined by fellow lecturer Hank (Garfield) and Ma ie (Edebiri), a PhD student who worships Alma so much that she mirrors her wardrobe of sharply tailored suits. What

The Smashing Machine Director: Benny Safdie Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt rrrrr

The Smashing Machine su ests Benny Safdie is the Safdie brother with the softer, naturalistic touch. Despite the violent subject matter, it’s more Heaven Knows What than Good Time. Dwayne Johnson stars as MMA fighter Mark Kerr during the late 90s, when the UFC was still in its relative infancy. Fights are sparse, with the camera shooting at a distance from the action so that the strikes are less seen than heard. The real sparring happens outside the ring between Mark and his girlfriend Dawn (Emily Blunt, in a thankless role), who resents him not letting her in while he’s consumed by chronic pain and opioid addiction.

Johnson may seem perfect for the role, but the metatext of casting the most famous wrestler-turnedactor is more interesting than the

Guadagnino’s movies thrive on the intensity of their feeling, where intimacy and desire spill through the screen. After the Hunt is decidedly more austere, but even with its intense subject matter, the film is lacking in tension or emotional weight. Garrett’s wordy screenplay is the clear crux: characters don’t just address cancel culture, they belabour through every talking point – and by voicing everything, the film ultimately says nothing. For a movie that attempts to poke the hornet’s nest of politics, its most provocative element is the use of Woody Allen’s go-to typeface in the opening credits.

[Iana Murray]

Released 17 Oct by Sony; certificate 15

performance itself. When Mark cries, he hides his face behind his hands. This could be explained as a character choice, that Mark refuses to show his vulnerability, but what’s more likely is that Johnson just doesn’t possess the emotional dexterity (and he’s further hindered by layers of prosthetics that freeze his face). The Rock is unrecognisable, sure, but that’s not necessarily an improvement. While Blunt wails in agony, be ing to be seen through tears, her scene partner is frustratingly stone-faced.

The film is similarly stoic, never staying with any of Mark’s stru les long enough to understand the weight he carries on his broad shoulders. Safdie is more than capable of delivering knockouts, but with this solo effort, it’s difficult to feel the force of its punches.

[Iana Murray]

Released 3 Oct by Entertainment Film; certificate 15

Frankenstein

Good Boy

The Smashing Machine

After the Hunt

NISHIKI, EDINBURGH

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day – at Japanese izakaya Nishiki, it’s all about exciting flavour combos and riffs on well-loved classics

IFri-Mon, 9am-9pm

@nishiki_edinburgh

f 20 years of this magazine have taught us one thing, it’s that ‘mixing it up a bit’ can produce very interesting results. Sometimes on purpose and occasionally by accident, combining disparate elements together into a new whole is in a sense what this whole magazine is about. In another, more accurate sense, it is just very interesting to smoosh two things together and see what the new third thing looks like, and that’s especially true in the food world. Do these crossovers always work? No! Will we give them a go anyway? Generally speaking, yes! It’s with that spirit that we’re off to Haymarket bright and early for the promise of exciting new developments in the sphere of ‘breakfast’.

From the folk behind Edinburgh sushi bars Yamato and Kanpai, Nishiki styles itself after a Japanese izakaya – somewhere between a tapas bar and a gastropub – with small plates and plenty of sake. But we’re here at 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning, so that sake will have to wait. Inside, Nishiki is a gloriously minimal space that will please fans of Japanese and Nordic interior design, as well as anyone who enjoys a nice, clean geometric shape. It’s a split level with low seating by the bar, a huge sharing table on the lower level that looks straight out of the trendiest library you’ve ever seen in your life, and some enormous sash windows. It’s grey, it’s white, it’s light wood; it’s the morning sun beaming in, and our minds wondering as to what this will all look like at the darker end of the day.

But, as discussed, we’re here in the morning, and some Japanese riffs on some western breakfast classics. We should say at this point that there are a good few classic Japanese options on the menu – fish plays a prominent role, and there’s a very solid selection of teas to choose from – but we’re drawn in by a couple of morning staples, each with a new spin.

First up is a Nori Avocado Toast (£13), which isn’t the largest dish in the world but it makes up for it with some very interesting flourishes. There’s a sweet zinginess from the

yuzu that’s folded through the avocado; the seaweed in the butter gives a faintly nautical air to proceedings; a jammy-yolked ramen e on top is flecked with a good amount of togarashi chilli that balances it all out quite well. It’s nice but it is on the small side, and while it does combine its different influences in a tasteful way, it is maybe in need of a little extra oomph.

That ‘oomph’ is not a problem at the other end of the table. The Japanese-inspired English Breakfast (£15) is a whirlwind run through the standard reviewer’s list of adjectives. Take the miso-glazed bacon as an example: it’s fatty but it’s also sweet, but it’s also extremely savoury in both a deep umami sense and a salty, immediate, ‘close your eyes while this burns off your hangover’ sense. And that’s just the bacon – there’s a subtly sweet Japanese

sausage with an extremely satisfying snap, earthy shimeji mushrooms that help keep things grounded, and some excellent bread from down the road at The Palmerston to be topped with more of that nori butter from earlier. The onsen e is very faintly poached in a bowl of broth; work your way through it with a tiny little spoon, or just dip the various components of the breakfast into said e and add another layer of flavour onto the pile.

It’s a real success, and steps well beyond any concerns of coming across as a stunt or gimmick. It’s refined, it’s interesting, and it’s served on a delightfully minimal bit of crockery. We’re not sure how it works as an introduction to a sakeforward izakaya, but it doesn’t feel like that’s the point. As a new thing entirely, something to slap you awake with a miso-coated hand after a big night out, Nishiki’s breakfast is a hit.

Nishiki, 151-155 Morrison St, Edinburgh, EH3 8AG

Words: Peter Simpson

Nikishi

Image: courtesy of Nikishi

Craft for Autumn

Curator Stacey Hunter rolls her sleeves up to pull together Harvest, a contemporary craft exhibition inspired by a farmer’s market

As we’ve officially slipped into autumn – the time of home and hearth and dinner parties – domestic gods and goddesses, take note. HARVEST: Contemporary Art Fair, running from 11 until 19 October at the City Art Centre, is where you’re bound to find the homeware picks of the season. Led by independent curator and The Skinny’s design columnist Stacey Hunter and presented by Craft Scotland, HARVEST brings together the best of contemporary Scottish handicraft, guided by a vision of warmth, gathering, and autumnal abundance.

Hunter gathered inspiration from the City Art Centre’s unique past as a commercial centre.

Constructed during the heyday of Scotland’s Arts and Crafts movement, the elegant Beaux Arts building housed newspaper offices and printing studios at the turn of the century. Fast forward to the late thirties, the building received an unexpected second life as a fruit and vegetable warehouse, with pyramids of produce sold right outside its doors. HARVEST, with its focus on Scottish artisanry and hospitality, responds to the building’s history as

“What makes an object extraordinary – and not just ordinary – is the presence of an emotional connection”

Stacey Hunter

a trading post for Scotland’s rich culture and ripe produce. “I wanted to show off the fruits of our labour,” smiles Hunter.

The exhibition will present 80 Scotlandbased makers from a variety of creative disciplines. This year’s open call has been the largest to date, attracting over 200 hopefuls. While standing for different artforms and career stages – you’ll find both emerging talent and internationally-recognised names on the list – these makers all share a “hyperlocal” approach, many using traditional techniques and sourcing raw materials from the countryside.

Artist Julia Rebaudo, for example, makes unspun wool rugs in the Highlands with fleece collected from her own small but hardy flock of Shetland-Soay sheep; restauranteurceramicist Akiko Matsuda – who was recently profiled by The Skinny – works with clay from her family farm in Angus; and designer Joe Ginniff builds playful, rural-inspired furniture (one of his cabinet features a fairytale-reminiscent thatched roof) with Scottish timber.

“We’re all about craft and design in Scotland,” says Hunter, “how we harvest material from the land.” The show brings together a wide collection of artists who share a dedication to craftsmanship, sustainable design, and caring for the Scottish outdoors. As Hunter takes me over the catalogue, she enthuses over the finer points of various pieces. Her eye for heritage and quality is evident. “I’m most interested in the stories behind what people bring to the table,” she says.

Unsurprisingly, Hunter is passionate about platforming Scotland’s talent: “We have such a high concentration of world-class makers in Scotland.” She emphasises: “HARVEST is a snapshot of the country’s best output.”

Unlike your run-of-the-mill white cube exhibition, HARVEST will take a gallery-cum-retail approach.

“It’s a bit like a farmers’ market,” explains Hunter. More than anything, the exhibition is going to be cosy. Promising an intimate, domestic atmosphere with its low ceilings and natural light, the showroom will invite visitors to picture its display of furniture, textiles, jewellery, crockery, and more in their own home. A busy programme of craft workshops – including copper tile embossing and Japanese stab bookbinding – further bring an interactive dimension to the exhibition.

In keeping with the spirit of a farmer’s market, HARVEST shows off approachable luxury: high quality handicraft at crowd-pleasing price points. Sure, some pieces in HARVEST will be worth a few figures, but you’ll also be able to find pieces for department store prices, heirloom pieces made without the stamp of department store banality, made to be handed down.

“What makes an object extraordinary – and not just ordinary – is the presence of an emotional connection,” Hunter says with conviction. “Each piece I’ve chosen tells a story through its materials and craftsmanship.” HARVEST promises to be a stunning showcase of sublime, handpicked design that reimagines the traditional craft fair.

HARVEST: Contemporary Art Fair, City Art Centre, Edinburgh, 11-19 Oct, 10am-4pm

Words: Gabrielle Tse

Joanna Kitchener

Photo: Fun Makes Good

Eleanor Young

Image courtesy of artst

Hayley Tompkins: surroundings @ The Modern Institute

The Glasgow artist’s new body of work is a shapeshifting explosion of paint that is both subtle and moving

This autumn, much acclaimed Glasgow-based artist Hayley Tompkins brings new works to The Modern Institute. Acrylic paint on wood panels, sticks and clothing offcuts form an installation which is dreamlike yet wonderfully palpable. In a gorgeous release of pale nudes, sharp yellows, and loud blues, we are welcomed into worlds so familiar that they escape us.

The title of Tompkins’ exhibition, surroundings, is plural – not singular. It indicates multiplicity, yet offers no specific locations. Inside their paintings, abstract shapes su est the presence of hills or furniture, while bodies appear and disappear. This unruly collection of works refuses to offer any specificity or permanency and that is its undeniable draw.

Working across large-scale panels and smaller, more contained canvases, Tompkins allows her medium its own fancies. Paint builds and builds upon itself, resting in small mounds. Elsewhere, brush strokes are frenzied and heavy. It drips, watered thin and fickle. In allowing the paint to shift from state to state, Tompkins reminds us too of the transformative potential of spaces themselves – both subject to change and capable of changing us.

A surrounding, much like a piece of clothing, may dress us; we may put it on and take it off. With a nod to punk aesthetics, in Tie, Cuff VII and Cuff VIII, painted shirt cuffs and a tie join the works. Both the absence of a body and the su ested severing of a body offers an eerie intimacy that is irresistible. Unknowing the origins of each fabric piece only exacerbates such mystery. Their positioning, too, is purposeful. One cuff is vertical; the other hangs horizontal; the tie is hung fairly low. Tompkins demands that to join these wayward surroundings, we must physically move ourselves, whether through lowering our body or turning our arm sideways. This subtlety of meaning is highly compelling.

Our journey through the exhibition is partially guided by the painted sticks, tu ing us onwards. Pinned against the wall, but never laid flat, they’re delightfully restless. So

restless, even, that they abandon us half way through the exhibition; this playful lack of commitment echoes the whimsy of the paintings themselves. Tompkins invites us to lose ourselves in abstraction.

In the far right corner Transceivers hangs, hidden upon first entering the room. Weighed down by heavy black at its centre, the work takes on a cave-like quality, with slithers of neon pink and baby blue attempting to enter the light. In this deeply evocative piece, Tompkins allows us a moment of pause in the almost darkness.

Each work has a place, which appears to contradict Tompkins’ abstract, ungovernable style. With its careful curation, surroundings refuses to fully disorient us. In doing so, a brilliant multiplicity – promised

by the beautifully ambiguous title – is sacrificed. Long stretches of white gallery wall stagnate and suspend the works. In a slightly smaller, mundane room, we’d lose ourselves not simply in the paintings but between them too. Such is remedied by the room’s own shapeshifting: from above, sunlight spills out of a skyline window and, to the left, Osborne Street goes about its day. With Tompkins’ surroundings, the multiplicity of intimacy is celebrated and beautifully so. Connection is known and unknown, certain and uncertain. Great artistry meets a boundless exploration of personhood and its particularities. surroundings moves and we move with it.

surroundings, The Modern Institute, Osborne St, Glasgow, until 19 Oct themoderninstitute.com

Words: Eilidh Akilade

Hayley Tompkins, Surroundings

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

Photo/ Patrick Jameson

Ed. Carolina Orloff rrrrr

Edited by Carolina Orloff, this collection brings together some of the region’s most prominent feminist voices, from scholars and novelists to grassroots activists. Orloff’s editorial task is formidable: to trace shared experiences of feminism across a continent marked by profound linguistic, historical, cultural, and geographical diversity. Yet, despite these pluralities, she identifies a unifying thread within Latin American feminism: a rejection of the assumption that gendered experience is universally shared, a central tenet of much Western feminist thought.

Each essay in La Lucha offers a striking contribution, but the collection is at its most compelling when the authors draw connections between the past and the lived realities of women in contemporary Latin America. Esther Pineda G.’s essay Sexism and Racism: The Experience of Black Women in Latin America, for instance, situates the transatlantic slave trade within a specifically Latin American context, linking this historical violence to the ongoing stru les faced by Black women across the region. While the method of connecting past and present is not itself new, it is profoundly refreshing to see the slave trade addressed not through its usual North American lens, but as a devastating history that reshaped much of the world.

This, ultimately, is the strength of La Lucha. It opens space for feminist thought unbound by the assumptions of the Western canon, inviting readers to engage with ideas that emerge from the continent itself, ideas that are as urgent as they are transformative. [Laila Ghaffar]

Charco Press, 7 Oct

The Four Spent the Day Together

By Chris Kraus rrrrr

The Four Spent the Day Together, the new novel from I Love Dick author Chris Kraus, takes its name from a news report on a Minnesota murder case. However, expect something more expansive and personal than its crime-styled title implies. Protagonist Catt Greene is a writer whose life closely mirrors Kraus’s own to the extent that Greene is Kraus in everything but name. When we meet her, it is as the precocious daughter of Emma and Jasper Greene, a working-class couple whose fortunes fluctuate with post-war America’s changing face in the latter half of the 20th century.

Catt’s life is told through three distinct parts: first her parents’ early years in the Bronx of the 1940-60s where Catt is born before the family moves to Milford, Connecticut; their move to Balsam, North Carolina, where teen Catt comes of age in a storm of truancy and substance abuse, eventually blossoming into a successful writer with a well-meaning but ill-fated sideline in affordable housing; and finally Catt’s late-career years enthralled by a murder near her North Minnesotan summer cabin, her research a welcome distraction from COVID-19, her failed marriage to alcoholic partner Paul, and her tumultuous life in LA where accusations of slumlordism mire the release of her bestseller’s upcoming TV adaptation. Spanning 70-plus years, The Four Spent the Day Together is Kraus’s self-reflective, densely packed portrait of contemporary American life. [Louis Cammell]

By Farhaana Arefin rrrrr

The Hajar Book of Rage is the first in the elements anthology series, with fire as this book’s element. Farhaana Arefin’s Editor’s Note sets the agenda for what is to follow, explaining with insight and righteous indignation the reasons for this collection. Much more than a simple introduction, it’s one of the best pieces of writing included. There is style and substance in Rasheed Rollins’ opening poem Untitled, a literary primal scream, which is followed by Aria Danaparamita’s Two Stones, which makes the connection between fire and rage beautifully. The first piece of prose is Yasmin Alrabiei’s The Preliminary Flame Before A Kiss, looking at famous kisses – artful, political, and cultural – which shook the world, while Laetitia Keok’s An Exercise in Neutrality asks readers to take their own exam paper, forcing them to become part of the story. This is not passive reading.

Rage is often a result of perceived impotence to be able to affect change, but this book offers purpose and focus: a call to arms. There are stories told which will rightly enrage (Mymona Bibi’s Application For Social Housing In Tower Hamlets and Mandy Shunnarah’s The Damage Has Been Done are particularly powerful), often depicting acts of violence and violation. This is a place where historical injustice and present-day horrors sit side by side, and where the personal meets the universal. With other elements to follow, The Hajar Book of Rage sets the bar high.

[Alistair Braidwood]

Men in the Sun: And Other Palestinian Stories

By Ghassan Kanafani rrrrr

In little more than 100 pages, this slim volume reaches into the depths of your chest and then squeezes. Featuring a selection of short stories of varying lengths written by novelist, journalist and political activist, Ghassan Kanafani, it includes a biographical introduction by Karen E. Riley. Born in Palestine in 1936, Kanafani was a spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and founding editor of its weekly magazine, Al-Hadaf, before being killed by a car bomb in Beirut in 1972.

Replete with odd and achingly real interactions which follow you on your walk to work, into the shower, and as you fall asleep at night, these little stories are to be carefully chewed over and returned to. Some pieces of Kanafani’s writing are more compelling than others; the galvanising call to return to one’s homeland in Letters to Gaza is especially poignant given the ongoing genocidal assault on present-day Gaza. And Men in the Sun (the book’s namesake) is a heartrendingly familiar narrative with moments of stunning clarity. Originally published in 1962, this short story is both the author’s first and most famous piece of fiction. In it, three Palestinian men journey across the unforgiving Iraqi desert to seek a new life in Kuwait, migrating not to be liberated but for material betterment. In all, this is a small but powerful book which is as devastatingly relevant today as when it was written. [Parisa Hashempour]

Scribe, 9 Oct

Hajar Press, 30 Oct

Verso, 7 Oct

La Lucha

The Hajar Book of Rage

Listings

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

Glasgow Music

Mon 29 Sep

ELLIE DIXON (PHOEBE HALL)

KING TUT'S Indie from Cambridge.

FLO

SWG3 R'n'B from London.

Tue 30 Sep

AMULET (FREDA

D’SOUZA + LOURAY ) THE GLAD CAFE Alt folk from Glasgow.

LIANG LAWRENCE (ANNIKA KILKENNY ) KING TUT'S Indie folk from the UK.

ATREYU SWG3 Post-hardcore from California.

Wed 1 Oct

CORELLA

THE GARAGE Indie pop from the UK.

HEART ATTACK MAN (IOTA) KING TUT'S Punk rock from Ohio.

YE VAGABONDS ST LUKE'S Alt folk from Dublin.

FOXTOWN (MY RUSHMORE + MARCUS CARCUS + SLIP AWAY ) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Indie from Scotland.

REFUSED (QUICKSAND + SHOOTING DAGGERS) SWG3 Punk from Sweden.

JOJO SIWA SWG3 Pop from the US. CAGES FOR PREACHERS

NICE 'N' SLEAZY Grunge/metal from Nottingham.

BRITISH BIRDS (ADAM HOPPER) THE GLAD CAFE Garage pop from Chorley.

Thu 2 Oct

DEAF HAVANA THE GARAGE Alt rock from Norfolk. BUSTED VS MCFLY THE OVO HYDRO Pop from the UK. THE MANATEES KING TUT'S Rock from the UK.

KEN STRINGFELLOW (LAVINIA BLACKWALL) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Pop from Seattle.

CARA ROSE (MICHIEL) THE RUM SHACK Indie from Glasgow. ELLUR SWG3 Indie from the UK. THE PIGEON DETECTIVES

SWG3 Indie rock from the UK.

COLD MEAT INDUSTRY (BRIGHTER DEATH NOW + RAISON D’ETRE + DESIDERII MARGINIS) STEREO Dark wave.

THE KIDNEY FLOWERS (THE BIG SHAKE + FIENDZ YT)

NICE 'N' SLEAZY Garage rock from Glasgow. PAPER SPARROWS (NIAMH CORKEY ) THE GLAD CAFE Folk.

Fri 3 Oct

BUSTED VS MCFLY THE OVO HYDRO Pop from the UK. FEEDER

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW Rock from Newport. THE WYNNTOWN MARSHALLS THE HUG AND PINT Americana from Glasgow.

PROJECT SMOK ST LUKE'S Neo-trad from Scotland.

MARK BATTLES ROOM 2 Rap from the US.

BILLY NOMATES SWG3 Indie rock from the UK. THE DUKE SPIRIT STEREO Indie rock from London.

DIRTY NICE

NICE 'N' SLEAZY Glitch-pop from Bournemouth.

THE SICK MAN OF EUROPE

THE FLYING DUCK Rock from London.

RILEY CATHERALL (KENNETH NOAH BLAIR)

THE GLAD CAFE Alt country from Australia.

Sat 4 Oct

THE DUST CODA (BAD TOUCH)

CATHOUSE Rock from London.

WELLY

KING TUT'S Indie pop from the UK.

ETHEL CAIN

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW Indie folk from the US.

BILLY WOODS ST LUKE'S Rap from New York. ALPHA MAID (BLACK ZONE MYTH CHANT + AILIE ORMSTON + BENICIO DEL TRAINWRECK) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Avant-garde pop from London.

MICKEY 9S QMU Dance rock from Glasgow. THE CRYSTAL TEARDROP (PAPER MACHINE MUSIC) ROOM 2 Garage rock from Stokeon-Trent. THE EUPHONICS (RIVIERA + THE PROVANS) NICE 'N' SLEAZY Alt rock from Glasgow. BRONWYNNE BRENT (ADRIANA SPINA) THE GLAD CAFE Americana.

JASMINE WOOD (DIP FRISO + JAMES MARRS) THE GLAD CAFE Experimental/ambient. Sun 5 Oct

ROBERT VINCENT THE GLAD CAFE Americana from Liverpool. THE CORDS (HOMEWORK) MONO Indie from Scotland. KANE BROWN (DASHA AND DYLAN SCHNEIDER) THE OVO HYDRO Country from Tennessee. DAKHABRAKHA ORAN MOR Folk from Ukraine.

CHLOE QISHA KING TUT'S Alt pop from the UK.

LAUREN SPENCER SMITH

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW Pop from Canada. ERIN RAE THE HUG AND PINT Folk pop from Nashville. ALISTER SPENCE + TONY BUCK (RAYMOND MACDONALD) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Experimental. GOLDLINK SWG3 Hip-hop from the US. NATHAN BELL (SCOTT ASHWORTH) THE GLAD CAFE Americana.

Mon 6 Oct

ALL THEM WITCHES

THE GARAGE Rock from Nashville.

GANAVYA ORAN MOR Jazz from California.

NXDIA

KING TUT'S

Alt pop from Manchester.

LAUREN SPENCER SMITH

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW

Pop from Canada. TOMMY CASH

SWG3 Pop from Estonia.

Tue 7 Oct

KATY PERRY

THE OVO HYDRO Pop from the US.

CORBIN

KING TUT'S Rap from the US.

49 WINCHESTER

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW Alt country from the US.

TASHI DORJI (HEATHER LEIGH) THE GLAD CAFE Experimental from the US.

Wed 8 Oct

THE WEDDING PRESENT THE GARAGE Indie rock from Leeds. THE KOOKS (THE K'S) THE OVO HYDRO Indie rock from Brighton. THE BELLRAYS KING TUT'S Rock from California.

CMAT

BARROWLANDS Pop from Ireland.

KELLY MORAN

ST LUKE'S Classical from New York. WINE LIPS

STEREO Psych rock from Toronto.

MILAN W. (TRISTANNE) THE GLAD CAFE

Dream pop from Brussels.

Thu 9 Oct

BLOOD INCANTATION

THE GARAGE

Death metal from Denver.

ROSE GRAY

KING TUT'S Indie from London. THE MIDNIGHT

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW Synthwave from the US.

CMAT

BARROWLANDS Pop from Ireland.

COSMIC CROONER THE HUG AND PINT Experimental from Amsterdam.

THE FARGO RAILROAD

CO. THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Rock from Sheffield.

JESUS JONES (EMF + BIS)

QMU Alt rock from the UK.

DUTTY MOONSHINE

BIG BAND

STEREO Electronica from Bristol.

SON OF THE RIGHT HAND

NICE 'N' SLEAZY Hip-hop from Glasgow.

STICK IN THE WHEEL (BELL LUNGS) THE GLAD CAFE Folk from London.

Fri 10 Oct

SKYLIGHTS

THE GARAGE Indie rock from York. DEACON BLUE THE OVO HYDRO Pop rock from Scotland. MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS

ORAN MOR Post-hardcore from Japan.

SEAN MCCONNELL KING TUT'S Country folk from the US.

CODY PENNINGTON COUNTRY SHOW O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW Country. CMAT

BARROWLANDS Pop from Ireland. MALCOLM MIDDLETON THE HUG AND PINT Indie rock from Scotland.

HEIDI TALBOT

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART Folk from Edinburgh.

MEMOTONE (DIP FRISO) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Indie from Newport.

SLEEPER QMU Rock from London. THE HERBALISER

DRYGATE BREWING CO. Hip-hop from London.

BRICK LANE JAZZ FESTIVAL THE RUM SHACK Jazz lineup.

ZAC LAWRENCE SWG3 Post-punk from Yorkshire. ALLO DARLING STEREO Indie pop from London. REDZED (ACID ROW) NICE 'N' SLEAZY Alt rap from Hustopeci.

CERYS HAFANA (ZOE

BESTEL) THE GLAD CAFE Classical from Wales.

Sat 11 Oct

CARDINAL BLACK THE GARAGE Rock from Cardiff. DEACON BLUE THE OVO HYDRO Pop rock from Scotland. HELICON KING TUT'S Neo-psych from Glasgow. UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH THE HUG AND PINT Rock from Oxford. THE JIM JONES ALL STARS

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART Blues.

NATIONAL PARK (JETSTREAM PONY ) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Indie from Scotland. JASON MRAZ QMU Indie from Virginia. REBEL FRUITION SWG3 Rock. UNOMA OKUDO STEREO Singer-songwriter. DEATH DISCO THE FLYING DUCK Punk from Glasgow. HYELIM KIM MEETS GIO THE GLAD CAFE Trad from Korea.

Sun 12 Oct

PARADISE LOST THE GARAGE Goth metal from Halifax. LOS PACAMINOS (PAUL YOUNG) ORAN MOR Tex-Mex from the UK. DEAD POSEY KING TUT'S Rock from LA. MIMI WEBB

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW Pop from Canterbury. BLEED FROM WITHIN BARROWLANDS Metal from Glasgow. MÀIRI MORRISON + ALASDAIR ROBERTS THE HUG AND PINT Folk from Scotland. FAIRPORT CONVENTION

ST LUKE'S Folk rock from London. NOVA TWINS SWG3 Rock from the UK. CHLOE FOY SWG3 Folk from the UK.

Mon 13 Oct

FINN WOLFHARD KING TUT'S Alt rock from Canada.

JADE O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW Pop from the UK.

BLEED FROM WITHIN BARROWLANDS Metal from Glasgow.

MEAGRE MARTIN THE HUG AND PINT Indie pop from Berlin.

CATE LE BON

ST LUKE'S Indie folk from Wales.

ELLIOT GREER

SWG3 Indie from Scotland.

DAMIEN O’KANE AND RON BLOCK BAND STEREO Bluegrass.

CAYBEE CALABASH (NOIZE HZ + STOCKPORT SWIMMING TEAM) NICE 'N' SLEAZY Psychedelic from Derby. ME LOST ME (OTIS JORDAN) THE GLAD CAFE Folk pop from Newcastle.

Tue 14 Oct

PANIC SHACK THE GARAGE Indie from Cardiff. SOFIA CAMARA ORAN MOR Pop from the US.

ADMT (LIV HARLAND + ANSLEY ) KING TUT'S Singer-songwriter from Doncaster. NEW FOUND GLORY O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW Rock from Florida. CHUCK STRANGERS THE HUG AND PINT Rap from New York.

OGBERT THE NERD (MY RUSHMORE + SCARSDALE) NICE 'N' SLEAZY Emo punk from New Jersey.

RYDER THE EAGLE (ROY MOLLOY ) THE GLAD CAFE Pop from France.

Wed 15 Oct

Y&T THE GARAGE Rock from Oakland.

KILLSWITCH ENGAGE O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW Metal from the US.

NATURE TV THE HUG AND PINT Indie from Brighton.

JERRY JOSEPH THE RUM SHACK Americana from LA.

CURTISY

SWG3 Hip-hop from Ireland. WE ARE SCIENTISTS

SWG3 Indie rock from the US. DREW MCDOWALL EXIT Ambient.

SPAFFORD CAMPBELL THE GLAD CAFE Post-folk.

Thu 16 Oct

THE HAPPY FITS THE GARAGE Indie rock from New Jersey. SPEAR OF DESTINY ORAN MOR Rock from the UK. BURY TOMORROW BARROWLANDS Metal from Southampton. HORSEBATH THE HUG AND PINT Roots from Canada. OH WONDER ST LUKE'S Alt pop from London. SL SWG3 Drill from London. LEAP STEREO Alt rock from London.

WARRINGTON RUNCORN NEW TOWN DEVELOPMENT PLAN

NICE 'N' SLEAZY Electronica from Runcorn. Fri 17 Oct

LUSA KING TUT'S Electro from Scotland. MEN I TRUST BARROWLANDS Indie from Quebec. GAZ BROOKFIELD THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Folk rock from Swindon. REUBEN JAMES THE RUM SHACK Jazz from Birmingham. THE REAL PEOPLE ROOM 2 Rock from Liverpool.

REEF

SWG3 Brit pop from the UK.

LIZZIE ESAU SWG3 Indie rock from the UK.

MCKINLEY DIXON STEREO Jazz and hip-hop from Virginia.

THE COWBOY MOUTH (THE GOLDEN TREE) THE GLAD CAFE Rock from Scotland.

Regular Glasgow club nights

The Rum Shack

SATURDAYS (LAST OF EVERY OTHER MONTH)

VOCAL OR VERSION, 21:00

Vintage Jamaican music on original vinyl by resident DJs and guests. Sub Club

FRIDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH) RETURN TO MONO SLAM’s monthly Subbie residency sees them joined by some of the biggest names in international techno.

Regular Edinburgh club nights

Cabaret

Voltaire

FRIDAYS

FLY CLUB, 23:00

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

SATURDAYS

PLEASURE, 23:00

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

Sneaky Pete’s

MONDAYS

RIDE N BOUNCE, 23:00

R‘n’B, pop, rap and hip-hop bangers every Monday.

TUESDAYS

RARE, 23:00

House, UKG and occasional techno from special guest DJs and rising locals.

THURSDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)

VOLENS CHORUS, 23:00

Resident DJs with an eclectic, global outlook.

FRIDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH)

HOT MESS, 23:00 A night for queer people and their friends.

Sat 18 Oct

POP MUTATIONS (C

DUNCAN + GERARD

LOVE + COMBER + STEPHEN PASTEL) MONO Local lineup.

DIRTY SLIPPERS (POLAROID + JUTEBOX + QUAINT) THE GARAGE Indie rock from Hungary.

PHIL CAMPBELL ORAN MOR Rock from Wales. THE PAINTING

KING TUT'S Alt rock from Glasgow.

LARKIN POE O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW Roots from Georgia. THE BOOMTOWN RATS BARROWLANDS Rock from Dublin.

ROBERT FORSTER ST LUKE'S Singer-songwriter from Australia.

POP MUTATIONS (CARLA J EASTON + SHEARS + ELISABETH ELEKTRA) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Pop lineup.

DAVID FORD

THE RUM SHACK Indie rock from the UK.

∑TELLA ROOM 2 Pop from Greece.

ADZII BOII SWG3

Hip-hop from Scotland.

POP MUTATIONS X TINY CHANGES

STEREO Eclectic lineup.

NORTHERN UNREST ALL DAYER

NICE 'N' SLEAZY Hardcore from the UK.

SATURDAYS

SUBCULTURE, 23:00

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

LÅPSLEY

ORAN MOR Alt indie from York. THE INSPECTOR CLUZO KING TUT'S Rock from France. THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS BARROWLANDS Rock from London.

STEVE GUNN THE HUG AND PINT Indie from New York.

Mon 27 Oct

MOUTH CULTURE (BEAUTY SCHOOL) THE GARAGE Alt rock from the UK. DDT O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW Rock from Russia.

SYDNEY ROSE

ST LUKE'S Indie from the US.

BEN ELLIS

SATURDAYS (LAST OF THE MONTH)

SOUL JAM, 23:00

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

SUNDAYS POSTAL, 23:00 Bass, breaks, grime and more from a selection of Cowgate all stars.

The Liquid Room

SATURDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)

REWIND, 22:30

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

The Hive

MONDAYS POPTASTIC, 22:00 Pop, requests and throwbacks to get your week off to an energetic start.

TUESDAYS TRASH TUESDAY, 22:00

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

WEDNESDAYS COOKIE WEDNESDAY, 22:00 90s and 00s cheesy pop and modern chart anthems.

POP MUTATIONS X TINY CHANGES (ALTERED IMAGES + GATES OF LIGHT + PRETTY UGLY (DJS)) THE GLAD CAFE Eclectic lineup. Sun 19 Oct

VIEUX FARKA TOURÉ THE GARAGE Reggae from Mali. MY BABY KING TUT'S Blues funk from Amsterdam.

SPACEY JANE BARROWLANDS Indie rock from Australia. SCOTT LAVENE THE HUG AND PINT Indie from Essex.

SOMEBODY'S CHILD ST LUKE'S Rock from Ireland.

LUNG LEG (UNMARRY ME) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Pop punk from Scotland. BEACH BUNNY SWG3 Pop rock from Chicago. CANNIBAL OX

NICE 'N' SLEAZY Abstract hip-hop from New York. FAITH ELIOTT (INSTRUCTION MANUAL + SULKA) THE GLAD CAFE Singer-songwriter from Scotland.

Mon 20 Oct

MILD ORANGE KING TUT'S Indie from New Zealand. SMOTE THE HUG AND PINT Psych from the UK.

THURSDAYS HI-SOCIETY THURSDAY, 22:00 Student anthems and bangerz.

FRIDAYS FLIP FRIDAY, 22:00 Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and noveltystuffed. Perrrfect.

SATURDAYS BUBBLEGUM, 22:00

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

SUNDAYS SECRET SUNDAY, 22:00

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

Subway Cowgate

MONDAYS TRACKS, 21:00 Blow the cobwebs off the week with a weekly Monday night party with some of Scotland’s biggest and best drag queens.

TUESDAYS TAMAGOTCHI, 22:00

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

WEDNESDAYS TWISTA, 22:00

Banger after banger all night long.

THURSDAYS

FLIRTY, 22:00

Pop, cheese and chart.

FRIDAYS

FIT FRIDAYS, 22:00

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

SATURDAYS

SLICE SATURDAY, 22:00

The drinks are easy and the pop is heavy.

SUNDAYS

SUNDAY SERVICE, 22:00

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

TUESDAYS MOVEMENT, 20:00

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

SATURDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)

SAMEDIA SHEBEEN, 23:00

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

SATURDAYS (LAST OF THE MONTH)

PULSE, 23:00

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

JESSICA WINTER

NEWDAD SWG3 Indie rock from Ireland. THE DREGGS STEREO Indie folk from Australia. NO JOY (DALLAS LOVE FIELD) THE GLAD CAFE Shoegaze from Montreal.

Tue 21 Oct

BEOGA ORAN MOR Folk from Ireland.

JESSIE MURPH BARROWLANDS Hip-hop from Nashville.

PYNCH

THE HUG AND PINT Indie rock from London.

MARY GAUTHIER (JAIMEE HARRIS) ST LUKE'S Folk from Scotland.

THOSE DAMN CROWS SWG3 Rock from Wales.

JAZZ AT THE GLAD: HARBEN KAY THE GLAD CAFE Jazz from Scotland.

Wed 22 Oct

SAM MOSS (QUINIE) THE GLAD CAFE Indie folk from Virginia. WISP THE GARAGE Shoegaze from San Francisco.

CHRISTINE BOVILL

ORAN MOR Singer-songwriter. WENDY JAMES KING TUT'S Rock from London.

GREGORY ALAN ISAKOV O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW Indie folk from Colorado.

THE HUG AND PINT Singer-songwriter from the UK.

MIND ENTERPRISES ST LUKE'S Electro from Turin.

BIFFY CLYRO SWG3 Rock from Scotland. HOT WATER MUSIC SWG3 Punk from the US.

Thu 23 Oct

THE LOVELY EGGS ORAN MOR Punk rock from Lancaster.

THOMAS TRUAX THE HUG AND PINT Experimental from the US.

TITANIC THE RUM SHACK Art pop from South America.

JOYCE MANOR SWG3 Pop-punk from California. THE DEEP BLUE SWG3 Indie folk from Manchester.

LIV DAWN STEREO Folk pop from Loch Lomond.

MIKEY THOMAS (LAURNESS + HOLLY ROLLINS) NICE 'N' SLEAZY Electronica from Glasgow.

DAVID GRUBB

THE GLAD CAFE Instrumental from Scotland.

Fri 24 Oct

ERIC STECKEL THE GARAGE Blues from the US.

SONIQUE QMU House from London. HOUSE OF WOMEN SWG3 Alt rock from London.

KIZZ DANIEL SWG3 Pop from Nigeria.

GOLDFORD STEREO Soul from LA.

HAIRCUT OVERDOSE NICE 'N' SLEAZY Indie rock from Glasgow.

DAISY RICKMAN THE GLAD CAFE Psych folk from Cornwall.

Sat 25 Oct

GLENN HUGHES

THE GARAGE Hard rock from the UK.

EL REY THE GARAGE Folk rock from Northern Ireland.

NATHAN EVANS & THE SAINT PHNX BAND THE OVO HYDRO Indie from Scotland.

KID KAPICHI

KING TUT'S Punk rock from Hastings. THE ROYSTON CLUB

BARROWLANDS Indie from Wales.

NEGATIVE BLAST

THE HUG AND PINT Punk from San Diego.

JAMIE LAWSON

DRYGATE BREWING CO. Rock from the UK.

PAUL GEMMELL & THE BLACK MAGIC BLUES BAND ROOM 2 Blues.

ALMA STEREO Folk.

NATIONAL PLAYBOYS

NICE 'N' SLEAZY Post-punk from Edinburgh.

DUCK & COVER 2025

THE FLYING DUCK Pop.

STANDARD ISSUE & OLLIE HAWKER (MATTHEW ARRIGNON) THE GLAD CAFE Experimental. Sun 26 Oct

SAMIA

THE GARAGE Indie pop from the US.

TOM ODELL

THE OVO HYDRO Indie from the UK.

HAILAKER KING TUT'S Indie folk from Bristol.

ALPHA MALE TEA PARTY

THE HUG AND PINT Prog rock from Liverpool.

NEWTON FAULKNER

SWG3 Indie from the UK.

CAAMP

SWG3 Folk from Ohio.

JAMIE MCINTYRE

SWG3

Singer-songwriter from Galway.

U.S. GIRLS

STEREO Experimental pop from Toronto.

ANGELS WEEP & SILKSPINE

NICE 'N' SLEAZY Hardcore from Scotland.

EMILY SCOTT

ROBINSON

THE GLAD CAFE Country from North Carolina.

SWG3 Singer-songwriter from Wales.

ROSE BETTS

STEREO Singer-songwriter from the UK.

Tue 28 Oct

DISTURBED (MEGADEATH) THE OVO HYDRO Heavy metal from Chicago.

PATTERSON HOOD

ORAN MOR Singer-songwriter from Portland.

MARC SCIBILIA

ORAN MOR Folk from Tennessee.

LITANY KING TUT'S Indie from the UK.

GOGOL BORDELLO SWG3 Punk from New York.

REMEMBER MONDAY SWG3 Pop country.

GHOSTWOMAN STEREO Garage rock from Canada.

CUA THE GLAD CAFE Trad from Ireland.

Wed 29 Oct

MARUJA (ZDENKA) THE GARAGE Rock from Manchester. EMMA POLLOCK ORAN MOR Indie from Scotland.

UNWOUND ORAN MOR Post-hardcore from Washington.

SAM RYDER KING TUT'S Singer-songwriter from the UK.

PICTISH TRAIL THE HUG AND PINT Indie from Eigg. MOTHERTONGUES: MINOTAUR THE RUM SHACK Folk. THE WYTCHES NICE 'N' SLEAZY Rock from Brighton. Thu 30 Oct

IMMERSION MONO Experimental. BENSON BOONE THE OVO HYDRO Rock from the US. RÓISÍN MCCARNEY KING TUT'S Alt pop from Glasgow. FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW Goth rock from Stevenage. TOM SPEIGHT THE HUG AND PINT Indie from the UK. 454 ROOM 2 Rap from the US. SWIRLIES SWG3 Shoegaze from the US. BEN BERTRAND (SHELL COMPANY + ALEXIS P.S (DJ)) THE GLAD CAFE Experimental from Belgium. Fri 31 Oct HAIM THE OVO HYDRO Indie pop from the US. JAH WOBBLE. ORAN MOR Reggae from the UK. AZAMIAH KING TUT'S Nu-jazz from Glasgow.

SYMMETRIK O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW EDM from the UK. DESPERATE JOURNALIST THE HUG AND PINT Post-punk from London. HANABIE. QMU Metalcore from Tokyo.

STAGBOY (DOVV + ROBIN ASHCROFT) SWG3 Alt pop.

PHANTASMGASM

SPOOKY SPECIAL (MAZ & THE PHANTASMS + CHEAP

DIRTY HORSE + PINK POUND) THE GLAD CAFE Glam rock. Sat 1 Nov

MARTI PELLOW THE OVO HYDRO Rock from Scotland.

DICTATOR KING TUT'S Indie pop from West Lothian. THE DUALERS O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW Ska from London.

SKERRYVORE BARROWLANDS Rock from Scotland.

COILGUNS THE HUG AND PINT Noise rock from Switzerland.

SERGEANT ST LUKE'S Indie rock from Scotland. LES SAVY FAV

DRYGATE BREWING CO. Indie rock from New York.

PAUL AND THE HOLY SAINT SEE ROOM 2 Rock from Glasgow.

Sun 2 Nov LORD OF THE LOST THE GARAGE Dark rock from Hamburg.

BRETT YOUNG THE OVO HYDRO Country pop from California.

WILL LINLEY KING TUT'S Indie from Cape Town.

TURNSTILE O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW Punk from Maryland.

KING KING BARROWLANDS Blues rock from the UK.

EVER THE HUG AND PINT Alt rock from Lincolnshire.

MONO ST LUKE'S Instrumental from Japan.

GEORGE HOUSTON THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS Indie from Ireland.

AUTECHRE SWG3 Electro from the UK. THE AMAZONS SWG3 Indie rock from the UK.

Mon 3 Nov

BUSTED VS MCFLY THE OVO HYDRO Pop from the UK.

Edinburgh Music

Mon 29 Sep

PETER HAMMILL THE QUEEN'S HALL Rock from the UK.

Tue 30 Sep

CHRYSTABELL: THE SPIRIT LAMP THE VOODOO ROOMS Experimental from the US.

Wed 1 Oct

LORRAINE NASH + DAN SEALEY THE VOODOO ROOMS Folk from Ireland and the UK.

LULU USHER HALL Pop from Scotland.

ISOBEL KNIGHT (ANDIE) THE WEE RED BAR Folk rock.

DELIRIUM (ROGER BACON + SLOWDANCE) SNEAKY PETE'S Alt rock from Scotland.

Thu 2 Oct THE BONESHAKERS THE VOODOO ROOMS Blues and funk. DEAD RUBBER DOLLS BANNERMANS Hard rock from Bristol. TOM HICKOX THE CAVES Singer-songwriter from the UK.

DODGY THE LIQUID ROOM Rock from Hounslow. BEVERLY GLENNCOPELAND (ELIZABETH COPELAND) THE QUEEN'S HALL Pop from Canada. JAMES MCVEY SNEAKY PETE'S Singer-songwriter from Dorset.

Fri 3 Oct

MAD DOG MCREA THE VOODOO ROOMS Folk rock from Devon. KEN STRINGFELLOW THE VOODOO ROOMS Indie rock from the US. THE 69 EYES & SOUTH OF SALEM LA BELLE ANGELE Goth rock.

LUCID LIARS SNEAKY PETE'S Alt rock from Inverness. NO WINDOWS THE MASH HOUSE Indie folk from Edinburgh.

Sat 4 Oct A NIGHT FOR MAP (MEDICAL AID FOR PALESTINIANS) THE QUEEN'S HALL Folk and roots from Scotland. SHEARS SNEAKY PETE'S Dance pop from Edinburgh.

Sun 5 Oct FULL FAT (ACE AND ALL THE ANIMALS) THE VOODOO ROOMS Indie from Scotland. BETH BLADE & THE BEAUTIFUL DISASTER (NOT NOW NORMAN) BANNERMANS Hard rock from Wales. DODIE THE CAVES Indie pop from the UK. Mon 6 Oct THE SHELL THE VOODOO ROOMS Indie from Edinburgh. BYRONIC SEX & EXILE (13 TOMBS + JAN DOYLE BAND) SNEAKY PETE'S Goth rock from Leeds. Tue 7 Oct

UNOMA OKUDO THE CAVES Soul jazz from the UK. BALANCING ACT SNEAKY PETE'S Alt rock from Manchester. Wed 8 Oct THE UNDERCOVER HIPPY THE VOODOO ROOMS Soul from Bristol. IDLEWILD THE LIQUID ROOM Alt rock from Scotland. THE LOST CONFORMISTS (MORVEN MCARDLE) SNEAKY PETE'S Rock from Edinburgh.

Thu 9 Oct

DEWOLFF THE VOODOO ROOMS Soul from the US. INHALER EDINBURGH CORN EXCHANGE Rock from Ireland.

MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS

LA BELLE ANGELE Alt rock from Japan.

LEGSS SNEAKY PETE'S Post-punk from London.

WINE LIPS (GLOIN)

THE MASH HOUSE Psych rock from Toronto.

Fri 10 Oct

GAMA BOMB (RAISED BY OWLS) BANNERMANS Thrash metal from Northern Ireland.

ASH THE LIQUID ROOM Rock from Northern Ireland.

JASON MRAZ THE QUEEN'S HALL Indie from Virginia.

DUTTY MOONSHINE BIG BAND

LA BELLE ANGELE Electronica.

STICK IN THE WHEEL

SNEAKY PETE'S Folk from London.

Sat 11 Oct

WET WET WET USHER HALL Rock from Scotland.

JEFFREY LEWIS & THE VOLTAGE LA BELLE ANGELE Indie folk.

THE HOT DAMN THE MASH HOUSE Rock from the UK.

BARBER Q THE MASH HOUSE Alt rock from Aberdeen.

CALUM BAIRD (JESS SILK)

SNEAKY PETE'S Folk from the Black Country.

SWINDLE (KURTZ) THE WEE RED BAR Punk.

Sun 12 Oct

JACK J HUTCHINSON (ALABAMA CROW) BANNERMANS Blues from the UK.

KATIE GREGSONMACLEOD LA BELLE ANGELE Singer-songwriter from Scotland.

DAVID SINCLAIR FOUR SNEAKY PETE'S Blues rock from London.

Mon 13 Oct

LOS PACAMINOS (PAUL YOUNG) THE VOODOO ROOMS Tex-Mex from the UK.

SETH LAKEMAN THE CAVES Folk from the UK.

RYDER THE EAGLE (PUPPY TEETH + ROY MOLLOY )

SNEAKY PETE'S Folk pop from Mexico City.

Tue 14 Oct

NATURE TV THE VOODOO ROOMS Indie from Brighton.

THE BLOW MONKEYS & THE CHRISTIANS THE QUEEN'S HALL Pop from the UK.

EADES SNEAKY PETE'S Indie from Leeds.

Wed 15 Oct

AMPLIFI: THEON CROSS + AZAMIAH + GAIA THE QUEEN'S HALL Jazz from the UK.

ALLY VENABLE BAND (BLUE MILK) LA BELLE ANGELE Blues.

CONGRATULATIONS

(TRAMSURFER)

SNEAKY PETE'S Garage rock from Brighton.

Thu 16 Oct

DELVON LAMARR

ORGAN TRIO (DJ SNOWBOY ) THE VOODOO ROOMS Soul jazz from the US.

SPAFFORD CAMPBELL

THE VOODOO ROOMS Folk from the UK.

HUGO HAMLET

THE CAVES Indie pop from the UK.

HARBEN KAY

QUARTET

THE QUEEN'S HALL Jazz from Scotland.

GNOSS LA BELLE ANGELE Folk from Scotland.

Fri 17 Oct

FEROCIOUS DOG

LA BELLE ANGELE Punk rock.

DIRTY SLIPPERS

THE MASH HOUSE Indie rock.

AURORA ENGINE

SNEAKY PETE'S Folktronica from Edinburgh.

WARRINGTONRUNCORN NEW TOWN

DEVELOPMENT PLAN

THE MASH HOUSE Electronica from Lancaster.

LOVE MUSIC HATE

RACISM THE WEE RED BAR Indie.

Sat 18 Oct

TANGERINECAT

THE VOODOO ROOMS Experimental jazz from Ukraine.

STEVE VINCENT (THE HOLLOWMEN) BANNERMANS Rock from the UK.

VIEUX FARKA TOURÉ

THE LIQUID ROOM Reggae from Mali.

NEW MODEL ARMY

EDINBURGH CORN EXCHANGE Rock from Bradford.

ZIGGY ALBERTS

THE QUEEN'S HALL Rock from Australia.

THE REAL PEOPLE

SNEAKY PETE'S Britpop from Liverpool.

Sun 19 Oct

DAVID FORD

THE VOODOO ROOMS Singer-songwriter from the UK.

MARY GAUTHIER THE QUEEN'S HALL Folk and roots from the US.

CURTIS ELLLER'S AMERICAN CIRCUS (SCANNER) THE MASH HOUSE Folk.

Mon 20 Oct

STEVE N SEAGULLS LA BELLE ANGELE Rock.

Tue 21 Oct

CANNIBAL OX

SNEAKY PETE'S Hip-hop from New York.

Wed 22 Oct

THRAX PUNKS THE VOODOO ROOMS Psych folk from Greece. LOVELY EGGS LA BELLE ANGELE Rock.

THE UTOPIA STRONG SNEAKY PETE'S Electronica from Glastonbury.

Thu 23 Oct

SUZANNE VEGA USHER HALL Folk from the US.

THE STRANGLERS (BUZZCOCKS) EDINBURGH CORN EXCHANGE Rock from the UK. DEAD AIR

SNEAKY PETE'S Alt rock from London.

Fri 24 Oct

OSTR THE BONGO CLUB Rap from Poland.

THOMAS TRUAX THE VOODOO ROOMS Singer-songwriter from the UK. 999 (TWISTED NERVE + SHOCK & AWE) BANNERMANS Punk rock from London.

IDIOTEQUE THE MASH HOUSE Trip-hop.

ELLYN OLIVER THE MASH HOUSE Folk jazz. EASTSIDE (MADANI + CHEF THE RAPPER + PRINCYBOII + NAT CARTIER)

SNEAKY PETE'S Hip-hop from Aberdeen. WHITE LOCUST (ABOLISH GOLF) THE WEE RED BAR Indie.

Sat 25 Oct

BREABACH THE QUEEN'S HALL Folk from Scotland.

SONIQUE LA BELLE ANGELE House from London.

BETTER LOVERS (GREYHAVEN) THE MASH HOUSE Metalcore MIXED SIGNALS

SNEAKY PETE'S Indie rock from Ayr.

SHINLIFTER (EXATIONS + OCH VEY ) THE WEE RED BAR Indie punk.

Sun 26 Oct

ROBYN HITCHCOCK THE VOODOO ROOMS Rock from the UK. WHO WE ARE SNEAKY PETE'S Pop from Brighton.

Mon 27 Oct

COUNTING CROWS (JAMES MADDOCK) EDINBURGH CORN EXCHANGE Rock from the US.

SCOTTISH ENSEMBLE: SHIFTING PATTERNS THE QUEEN'S HALL Classical from Scotland.

Tue 28 Oct

LADY MAISERY THE VOODOO ROOMS Folk from the UK.

HANNAH ALDRIDGE BAND THE VOODOO ROOMS Americana from Alabama. MILO KORBENSKI

SNEAKY PETE'S Indie from Brighton.

Wed 29 Oct

HEATHEN APOSTLES THE VOODOO ROOMS Gothic Americana. EZHEL THE LIQUID ROOM Rap from Turkey.

ALIEN CHICKS (COMFORT GIRL + SO BORING)

SNEAKY PETE'S Post-punk from London.

Thu 30 Oct

JAH WOBBLE & THE INVADERS OF THE HEART THE VOODOO ROOMS Reggae. THE WYTCHES SNEAKY PETE'S Rock from Brighton.

Fri 31 Oct

TRUE STRAYS THE VOODOO ROOMS Rock from Bristol. FORBIDDEN ZONE THE WEE RED BAR Indie.

Sat 1 Nov

THE CHORDS (THE CIRCLES) THE VOODOO ROOMS Mod from the UK. PRIVATE FUNCTION THE VOODOO ROOMS Rock from Melbourne.

Sun 2 Nov

WOMBO THE VOODOO ROOMS Indie rock from Kentucky. Mon 3 Nov

BETH NIELSEN CHAPMAN + JUDIE TZUKE THE QUEEN'S HALL Folk and roots.

Dundee Music

Thu 2 Oct

BAD MANNERS

CHURCH

Ska from the UK.

Fri 3 Oct

BAD MANNERS

CHURCH Ska from the UK.

Thu 16 Oct

FEROCIOUS DOG

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE! Folk punk from the UK.

Tue 21 Oct

BIFFY CLYRO

FAT SAM'S Rock from Scotland.

Fri 31 Oct

THE BUG CLUB

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE! Indie rock from Wales.

Sat 1 Nov

EMERALD SUNDAY CHURCH

Indie rock from Kirriemuir.

Glasgow Clubs

Wed 1 Oct

ACROSSTHEBOARD PRESENTS: DIFFRENT SUB CLUB House and garage.

Thu 2 Oct

VICE VERSA PRESENTS DJ SWISHERMAN THE BERKELEY SUITE Techno and garage. SEROTONE + MOTUS PRESENTS: RESIDENT TAKEOVER LA CHEETAH CLUB

Deep house and dub techno. BOUNCE IN MOTION

NICE 'N' SLEAZY Groove house.

Fri 3 Oct

POLKA DOT DISCO CLUB INVITES SPFDJ SUB CLUB Techno and electro. MISSING PERSON CLUB THE BERKELEY SUITE Techno. FEMME45 + SAMEDIA SHEBEEN THE RUM SHACK Baile funk and Afro house. TLC23 PRESENTS EXIT House and techno.

BLUETOOTH BANGERS NICE 'N' SLEAZY House and disco. REDSTONE PRESS & TIMESCAPE: PARIAH + EM + STAV + PSEUDOPOLIS THE FLYING DUCK Techno and bass. BOUNCE 101: THE LAUNCH PARTY (LEAHGTE + SALAM KITTY + BELLAROSA) STEREO

Hip-hop and baile funk.

Sat 4 Oct

OPTIMO (ESPACIO) THE BERKELEY SUITE Acid and techno.

EXIT CLUB (BRANDON LEE VEAR + DAICHI

WADA + S3RPIEN) EXIT Techno.

ACT NATURAL

NICE 'N' SLEAZY Italo disco. NOISE COMPLAINT! 002

THE FLYING DUCK Trance and techno.

23 DEGREES: SKEPTIC & OSMOSIS JONES (JENN GUNN) STEREO Garage and breaks.

Thu 9 Oct

RARE CLUB X PULLUP

RECORDINGS: DUNGEON MEAT

SUB CLUB House and minimal. BREAK-AWAY [BRKWY_03] (HIROBBIE + LOOSE E + SEAH + JO -HANN B2B CALZO FM) STEREO Bass and breaks.

Fri 10 Oct

HANG TOUGH: RE:NI + ROY DON + KELSO THE BERKELEY SUITE Techno and bass. THROUGH THE ROOF: ROBBIE DOHERTY SWG3 Techno.

BLUNT FORCE SAUNA

NICE 'N' SLEAZY Disco and funk.

POSH END PRESENTS: HEAD FRONT PANEL + FEAR-E + BASH MAN THE FLYING DUCK Techno and electro.

SPLINTR FESTIVAL X ADÉRÁYÒ PRESENT: BREAKLINE

STEREO Club, bass and electro.

Sat 11 Oct

A LOVE FROM OUTER SPACE WITH SEAN

JOHNSTON THE BERKELEY SUITE Club.

BELTERS ONLY SWG3 House.

A.D.S.R (ADAM X + DAN MONOX) EXIT Techno. OUT OF BOUNDS PRESENTS: SHIP

SKET + N I T E F I S H + ACHIRĀ + SORETSIA

STEREO Experimental and noise.

Sun 12 Oct

HANNAH LAING: DOOF GLASGOW WEEKENDER

SUB CLUB Trance and house.

Wed 15 Oct

DEEPER LOVE: UNDERCURRENT + MADDOCK LA CHEETAH CLUB Disco and Afro house.

Thu 16 Oct

FLY: LUUK VAN DIJK SUB CLUB House.

SHYTETRAX STEREO Breaks, bass and electro.

Fri 17 Oct

I LOVE ACID THE BERKELEY SUITE Acid. EZUP WITH JORG KUNING (LIVE) AND DOMENIC CAPPELLO LA CHEETAH CLUB Techno and house.

TSHA PRESENTS

JACKFRUIT SWG3 House.

CARMAN BAIA BTB

JACUZZI BABY

NICE 'N' SLEAZY Electro, house and disco.

LIBRA ESTERLINA X STEREO: UPSAMMY

STEREO Techno and dub.

Sat 18 Oct

SHOOT YOUR SHOT: JOSH CAFFÉ THE BERKELEY SUITE Techno. MALL GRAB

SWG3 House.

HERD: THOMAS & JAMES SWG3 House and electro.

CO:PLEASURE EXIT Bass and electro.

HOT FAT NICE 'N' SLEAZY Hip-hop, bass and techno.

POP MUTATIONS X TINY CHANGES: NIGHTWAVE + BEMZ + BAILE/BAILE STEREO Electro, techno, house and bass.

Thu 23 Oct

FLY: MAIN PHASE SUB CLUB Dance.

MELODIA STEREO Minimal and deep house.

Fri 24 Oct

BREATHE: EVAN BAGGS SUB CLUB House and electro.

TALKLESS DANCE MORE: WILL HOFBAUER LA CHEETAH CLUB House.

SWIFTOGEDDON SWG3 Pop.

GULLYGULLY X STEREO : KUSH JONES STEREO House, footwork, juke.

Sat 25 Oct

SUNNY RAVE SWG3 Club.

SEBASTIAN SWARM NICE 'N' SLEAZY House, techno and electronica.

DIVERGENCE STEREO Bass and breaks.

Thu 30 Oct KIN TU03:

HALLOWEEN SPECIAL THE BERKELEY SUITE Techno and house.

ACCELERATE PRESENTS: EQUINOX LA CHEETAH CLUB House and electro.

Fri 31 Oct

ANIMAL FARM

HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: FREDDY K SUB CLUB Techno. FLY HOUSE HEADS SWG3 House. EXIT CLUB (ANCIENT METHODS + TRSSX) EXIT Techno and industrial. JAIVA HALLOWEEN THROWDOWN THE FLYING DUCK Disco and Afro house. RED MUSEUM X STEREO HALLOWEEN (ONLEASH + ASYNC FIGURE + LEAHGTE + TEKHOLE) STEREO Club and techno.

Sat 1 Nov

EROSION: SULLY + TIM REAPER + FEENA THE FLYING DUCK Drum 'n' bass.

Edinburgh Clubs

Tue 30 Sep

MIDNIGHT BASS PRESENTS ECHO BROWN CABARET VOLTAIRE Drum 'n' bass.

Wed 1 Oct

DRAGONFRUIT: ECFS LAUNCH PARTY THE BONGO CLUB House. APPLE THE MASH HOUSE Pop. MORRISON STREET SNEAKY PETE'S House.

Thu 2 Oct

BPM - GREAZE CABARET VOLTAIRE House and hip-hop. AGORA: PARIAH SNEAKY PETE'S Techno.

Fri 3 Oct

KELBURN PRESENTS.... SHAKA LOVES YOU + BIG RED & DJ B-BURG PEOPLE'S LEISURE CLUB Hip-hop and disco. BRAT RAVE LA BELLE ANGELE Pop. C - RIGHT THROUGH THE MASH HOUSE House and techno. WONKSY THE MASH HOUSE House and techno.

Sat 4 Oct

EPIKA SOFT: MALISSA PEOPLE'S LEISURE CLUB House and electro. ALT RAVE LA BELLE ANGELE Rave.

SAMEDIA SHEBEEN THE MASH HOUSE Afro house.

VOLTAGE THE MASH HOUSE House and techno. EHFM: MIIRA, JORDANPORDAN, SORETSIA SNEAKY PETE'S Club.

Sun 5 Oct

INCA SOUNDSYSTEM THE MASH HOUSE Jungle. FREE TIME X MUSAR: ROMAN FLÜGEL (DAY PARTY ) SNEAKY PETE'S Techno.

Regular Glasgow comedy nights

The Stand

Glasgow FIRST MONDAY OF THE MONTH MONDAY NIGHT IMPROV, 20:30 Host Billy Kirkwood & guests act entirely on your suggestions.

TUESDAYS RED RAW, 20:30 Legendary new material night with up to 8 acts.

FRIDAYS THE FRIDAY SHOW, 20:30

The big weekend show with four comedians.

SATURDAYS THE SATURDAY SHOW, 20:30

The big weekend show with four comedians. Glee Club

FRIDAYS FRIDAY NIGHT COMEDY, 19:00

The perfect way to end the working week, with four superb stand-up comedians.

SATURDAYS SATURDAY NIGHT COMEDY, 19:00

An evening of awardwinning comedy, with four superb stand-up comedians that will keep you laughing until Monday.

Regular Edinburgh comedy nights

The Stand

Edinburgh

MONDAYS RED RAW, 20:30

Legendary new material night with up to 8 acts.

TUESDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH) STU & GARRY’S IMPROV SHOW, 20:30

The Stand’s very own Stu & Garry’s make comedy cold from suggestions.

THURSDAYS THE BEST OF SCOTTISH COMEDY, 20:30 Simply the best comics on the contemporary Scottish circuit.

FRIDAYS THE FRIDAY SHOW, 21:00

The big weekend show with four comedians.

SATURDAYS THE SATURDAY SHOW (THE EARLY SHOW), 17:00

A slightly earlier performance of the big weekend show with four comedians.

SATURDAYS THE SATURDAY SHOW, 20:30

The big weekend show with four comedians.

Monkey Barrel Comedy Club

SECOND AND THIRD TUESDAY OF EVERY MONTH

THE EDINBURGH REVUE, 19:00

The University of Edinburgh’s Comedy Society, who put on sketch and stand-up comedy shows every two weeks.

WEDNESDAYS TOP BANANA, 19:00

Catch the stars of tomorrow today in Monkey Barrel’s new act night every Wednesday.

THURSDAYS SNEAK PEAK, 19:00 + 21:00

Four acts every Thursday take to the stage to try out new material.

FRIDAYS MONKEY BARREL COMEDY’S BIG FRIDAY SHOW, 19:00/21:00 Monkey Barrel’s flagship night of premier stand-up comedy.

FRIDAYS DATING CRAPP, 22:00 Tinder, Bumble, Grindr, Farmers Only...Come and laugh as some of Scotland’s best improvisers join forces to perform based off two audience members dating profiles.

SATURDAYS MONKEY BARREL COMEDY’S BIG SATURDAY SHOW, 17:00/19:00/21:00 Monkey Barrel’s flagship night of premier stand-up comedy.

SUNDAYS MONKEY BARREL COMEDY’S BIG SUNDAY SHOW, 19:00/21:00 Monkey Barrel’s flagship night of premier stand-up comedy.

Wed 8 Oct

REDEMPTION

SNEAKY PETE'S House.

Thu 9 Oct

RED ROOM SOUND: DUSTY DAN & SMIFF

SNEAKY PETE'S Techno.

Fri 10 Oct

DISORDER 3RD

BIRTHDAY WITH DJ

FLIGHT (EQ50) & SKILLIS (HEADSET)

THE BONGO CLUB

Drum 'n' bass and jungle.

BELTERS ONLY

THE LIQUID ROOM House.

SWIFTOGEDDON LA BELLE ANGELE Pop.

SATSUMA SOUND

THE MASH HOUSE House and techno.

MANTLE: SHARNIE, JAN LOUP, FEENA

SNEAKY PETE'S Bass.

Sat 11 Oct

UNTITLED PRESENTS : 6 SENSE

CABARET VOLTAIRE Techno.

INKOHERENT

THE MASH HOUSE House and techno.

MOXIE MEETS: GALLEGOS

SNEAKY PETE'S House.

Wed 15 Oct

APPLE THE MASH HOUSE Pop.

KIERNAN LAVEAUX

SNEAKY PETE'S House.

Thu 16 Oct

CRAZY BEATS DIWALI

SPECIAL

LA BELLE ANGELE Bollywood.

Fri 17 Oct

DRIFT.DANCE

PEOPLE'S LEISURE CLUB Techno and bass.

SILO

THE WEE RED BAR Breakcore and techno.

K-POP PARTY

LA BELLE ANGELE K-pop.

LIQUID FUNCTION

THE MASH HOUSE Grime.

DISCOTIA: AUNTIE FLO

SNEAKY PETE'S Disco.

Sat 18 Oct

AVIATE: FIRST EDITION

CABARET VOLTAIRE House.

FISH56OCTAGON THE LIQUID ROOM Techno and house.

SLOPEN EVENTS: BLNK THE MASH HOUSE Hardstyle.

CLUB MEDITERRANEO

SNEAKY PETE'S Balearic.

Wed 22 Oct

ANDROMEDA SNEAKY PETE'S House.

Thu 23 Oct

POTPOURRI

SNEAKY PETE'S Club.

Fri 24 Oct

BADGER: WALL OF BASS HALLOWEEN

SPECIAL!

THE BONGO CLUB Bass and garage.

15 YEARS OF ONE

DIRECTION PARTY

LA BELLE ANGELE

Pop.

L8NIGHT EVENTS

Sat 25 Oct

ATHENS OF THE NORTH DISCO CLUB: THE MIGHTY ZAF PEOPLE'S LEISURE CLUB House and disco.

ASCENSION THE WEE RED BAR Industrial. PULSE THE MASH HOUSE Techno.

Wed 29 Oct

APPLE THE MASH HOUSE Pop.

ARCHIE HOLMES SNEAKY PETE'S House.

Thu 30 Oct

HALLOWEEN PRIDE THE WEE RED BAR Alternative. BPM THE MASH HOUSE Hip-hop and disco. IMPORT

SNEAKY PETE'S Club.

Fri 31 Oct

HOPELESS ROMANTICS THE WEE RED BAR Post-punk.

Sat 1 Nov

DBT. HALLOWEEN SPECIAL CABARET VOLTAIRE House and minimal techno. EPIKA HALLOWEEN: SELENE THE BONGO CLUB Techno and electro.

Dundee Clubs

Fri 3 Oct

JUTE, JAM & JUNGLISM: CRUCIAL INTELLIGENCE B2B JUNGALICE CHAMBERS EAST Hardcore and jungle.

Sat 18 Oct

JUTE CITY JAM FEAT. AUNTIE FLO FAT SAM'S Funk and soul.

Fri 24 Oct

DJ JC & DARRYL CONNELL BIRTHDAY BASH KING'S Techno and hardcore.

Glasgow

Comedy

The Glee Club

BAGA CHIPZ: CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK MON 6 OCT

After the success of the Material Girl and Much Betta! tours, Baga Chipz is back, bigger, louder and much betta than ever.

LAWRENCE CHANEY: MEMOIRS OF MY SH*GPIPES

THU 16 OCT

These pipes have a lot of stories to tell in Lawrence Chaney’s triumphant return to the stage. THIS PARANORMAL LIFE

TUE 28 OCT

A multi award-winning comedy podcast, in which comedians Kit Grier Mulvenna and Rory Powers investigate a different paranormal case to try and find the truth inside the mystery.

The Old Hairdressers

HAROLD NIGHT

TUE 7 OCT

HAMISH NIGHT

TUE 7 OCT

Two Glasgow Improv Theatre house teams performing The Harold. Featuring tubducky and Smoking Cat!

BOUNCE HOUSE: SOLVES EVERYTHING

TUE 14 OCT

Solving all of the petty squabbles they come across with improv comedy.

SPREAD: UNDER THE COVERS

TUE 14 OCT

Improvised comedy inspired by print media.

PERFECT IMPROV

(CHRISTOPHER

MACARTHUR BOYD

MONOLOGIST)

TUE 21 OCT

Glasgow Improv Theatre's flagship improv show with a special guest monologist and an all-star improv cast.

COUCH SURFS THE WEB

TUE 28 OCT

A night of improv comedy where Couch looks up bad reviews of places the audience have been to.

GIT IMPROV CAGE

MATCH

TUE 28 OCT

Two improv teams battle to be crowned champions of the Glasgow Improv Theatre this month. Audience decide who wins.

Edinburgh

Comedy

Monkey Barrel Comedy Club

GRIEFCAT: DIRTY

LAUNDRY

TUE 30 SEP

Rising musical comedy duo Griefcat are coming to Edinburgh.

EVA BINDEMAN: MUNCH (WIP)

TUE 30 SEP

Leicester Mercury's Comedian of the Year is hungry for something. Comfort? Connection? Cake?

KAE KURD: WHAT'S O'KURD

THU 2 OCT

Stand up sensation and social media star Kae Kurd returns with his highly anticipated brand new tour.

THOMAS GREEN: BRAINSTORM

SAT 4 OCT

Thomas Green storms back onto the stage to electrify audiences with a brand new hour, following his sell-out debut tour.

CARL DONNELLY: ANOTHER ROUND

THU 9 OCT

Carl Donnelly explains how he’s settling into being a married middle-aged father with recurring stomach ulcers, a bald patch, and a search history that now includes 'anti-leakage boxer shorts'.

OLGA KOCH: COMES FROM MONEY

FRI 10 OCT

From the maker of Succession and White Lotus, Money™ brings you yet another little white b*tch you will love to hate: Olga Koch.

SHANE DANIEL

BYRNE: WHO'S A BIG BOY?

FRI 10 OCT

The award-winning standup has become a leading act in Ireland at breakneck speed. And he's finally heading across the UK with his brand new solo hour.

STUART MITCHELL: TESTING, TESTING

SUN 12 OCT

Join the longest running panellist from BBC Scotland’s Breaking The News and star of BBC Radio 4 as he runs through new material.

MC HAMMERSMITH AND FRIENDS

SUN 12 OCT

MC Hammersmith is multiaward winning freestyle rap comedian. He presents an evening of improvised comedy raps based on your suggestions.

BRITISH COMEDIAN OF THE YEAR: SCOTLAND HEAT

THU 16 OCT

British Comedian of the Year is back in Edinburgh for 2025!

MARK MCCARNEY: NO

BETTER MAN

FRI 17 OCT

Hailing from the rural heart of Northern Ireland, Mark McCarney brings his unmistakable wit, charm, and a dash of countryside chaos to the stage.

BEN POPE: THE CUT

SUN 19 OCT

Last year, Ben got circumcised. On purpose, as recommended by medical professionals. This show is a 55min inventory of his ensuing masculine panic.

MILO EDWARDS: HOW REVOLTING! SORRY TO OFFEND

TUE 21 OCT

In 2023 Milo got a temporary tattoo on his arse. This is a story about the consequences.

ESTHER MANITO: SLAGBOMB

THU 23 OCT

After a sold-out, ravereviewed tour last year, Esther Manito is back — this time embracing the sheer joy of having absolutely no dignity.

STEVIE MARTIN: CLOUT

FRI 24 OCT

Stevie Martin (Taskmaster) has been doing online comedy for a while (45 million views worldwide) but is returning to live comedy with her latest show.

MATT RICHARDSON: BRASH

SAT 25 OCT

Matt has moved to the countryside, settled down, and is trying his hardest to not make rude jokes. It’s not going as well as he’d hoped.

ALEC FLYNN: LIVE

MON 27 OCT

Based in LA, Alec Flynn is a comedian, actor, and digital creator.

THE SCREEN ROT

PODCAST: LIVE

WED 29 OCT

Jacob Hawley and Jake Farrell present Screen Rot, the podcast where they discuss the weirdest and worst content that has been rotting their screens and their minds.

The Queen's Hall

KERRY GODLIMAN: BANDWIDTH

WED 22 OCT

A new hour from the Taskmaster star.

JEN BRISTER: REACTIVE

FRI 24 OCT

A new hour from Jen Brister (Live at the Apollo, New World Order).

Glasgow Theatre

Citizens Theatre

SMALL ACTS OF LOVE

TUE 9 SEP - SAT 4 OCT

Acts of solidarity and humanity take place between two distanced communities following the Lockerbie bombing.

CLOSE

THU 9 OCT - SAT 11 OCT

As Citizen's Theatre reopens its doors, the Young Co. take audiences on a journey back through the legendary Close Theatre.

THE GLASS

MENAGERIE

TUE 21 OCT - SAT 25 OCT

Tennessee Williams’ iconic investigation of post-war class dynamics is brought to blistering life.

MAKING YOUR MARK

THU 23 OCT - SAT 25 OCT

A group of people find their lives and challenges intersecting in the local cafe in this community-made production.

ÒRAN

WED 29 OCT - SAT 1 NOV

Spoken word, lyrical storytelling and an electronic live score come together in this thrilling retelling of the myth of Orpheus.

Oran Mor

DYSTOPIA: THE ROCK

OPERA

FRI 17 OCT

Following a succesful Fringe run, this all-out musical takes satire to a whole new level.

A PLAY, A PIE AND A PINT: CHEAPO

MON 29 SEP - SAT 4 OCT

Two teenagers play chess in a KFC in this intense drama about childhood and growing up too soon.

A PLAY, A PIE AND A PINT: MAYBE TOMORROW

MON 6 OCT - SAT 11 OCT

A hilarious new musical in which a faded starlet reckons with disappointed desires.

A PLAY, A PIE AND A PINT: FLICK & PIE GO FISHING

MON 13 OCT - SAT 18

OCT

A new comedy that takes a delicate, humorous and honest look at love, and asks whether it is ever really

A PLAY, A PIE & A PINT: RIGH IASGAIR: THE FISHER KING

MON 20 OCT - SAT 25

OCT

A brand new folk thriller based on the myths of the Isle of Lewis.

A PLAY, A PIE AND A PINT: HAUNS AFF MA HAUNTED BIN!

MON 27 OCT - SAT 1 NOV Halloween special! A bonkers comedy about one very, very messy murder.

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

TUE 28 OCT - FRI 31

OCT

An enchanting, brutal vampire myth and comingof-age love story adapted from the bestselling novel and award-winning film.

The King's

Theatre

TINA: THE TINA

TURNER MUSICAL

TUE 23 SEP - SAT 4 OCT

Tina Turner's blistering life story is told through the songs that made her who she is. THE PANTHEON CLUB PRESENTS SHREK THE MUSICAL

TUE 7 OCT - SAT 11 OCT

The Tony Award-winning musical adaptation of the subversive fairy tale film.

RIVERDANCE 30: THE NEW GENERATION MON 13 OCT - FRI 17 OCT

Legs are flying everywhere in this new staging of the dance classic, with a brand new generation of performers.

SUNNY AFTERNOON

TUE 28 OCT - SAT 1 NOV

Step back into the 60s with the story and sound of one of Britain's most iconic bands, The Kinks.

Theatre Royal

SCOTTISH OPERA: LA BOHÈME

SAT 11 OCT - SAT 25 OCT

Director Renaud Doucet and designer André Barbe set Puccini's La bohème within the context of Paris's fleamarkets.

SCOTTISH OPERA: L'HEURE ESPAGNOLE & THE BEAR SAT 18 OCT - WED 22 OCT

Director Jacopo Spirei and Scottish designer Kenneth MacLeod interpret Ravel’s and Walton’s mini masterpieces.

HAMILTON WED 29 OCT - SAT 27

DEC

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

Tramway

JO HAUGE: SELF INSERT OUTSIDE FAN SPIRAL (ON ICE) WED 15 OCT - THU 16 OCT

Live action figure skating fan fiction. Part of Take Me Somewhere.

DAN DAW: EXXY WED 15 OCT

Queer disabled artist Dan Daw explores what it means to live in the world authentically. Part of Take Me Somewhere.

CRAIG MANSON: SELKIE: THE WET AND WILD SHOW! FRI 17 OCT - SAT 18 OCT

A queer, sexy reimagining of the selkie myth. Part of Take Me Somewhere. MEXA: THE LAST SUPPER

SAT 18 OCT

Drawing on Da Vinci's painting, this experimental, immersive performance explores what happens when a collective no longer exists. Part of Take Me Somewhere.

21COMMON: REGINA CAELI

TUE 21 OCT - WED 22

OCT

Spatial audio technology and AI dance dialogue explore the transitions of love and grief. Part of Take Me Somewhere.

CHERISH MENZO: FRANK WED 22 OCT

ANTJE SCHUPP: YOU LIVE YOU LEARN

SAT 25 OCT

Burnout takes centre stage in this complex examination of our contemporary relationship to work. Part of Take Me Somewhere.

PATRICK BLENKARN + MILTON LIM: ASSES.

MASSES

SUN 26 OCT

A custom-made video game exploring automation driven job loss. Part of Take Me Somewhere.

DANIEL KOK + LUKE

GEORGE: STILL LIVES SAT 25 OCT Performance installation capturing specific cultural contexts with rope work.

Tron Theatre

BLACK HOLE SIGN

FRI 19 SEP - SAT 4 OCT

When a hole appears in the roof of an A&E department, staff and patients scramble to manage in this absurd take on the crumbling welfare system.

THROUGH THE MUD

THU 16 OCT - SAT 18

OCT

Apphia Campbell's blistering play explores the parallel lives of Assata Shakur and a student in the midst of the Ferguson riots.

MASTODASCIA FRI 17 OCT

Adapted from the classic Scottish play Sailmaker by Alan Spence, this exploration of class is transposed to Naples.

ARLINGTON

WED 22 OCT - SAT 25

OCT

A strange conversation held through a wall begins to hold dark implications in this fable on surveillance and connection.

Edinburgh Theatre

Assembly Roxy

CIRQULATION: JOURNEY

FRI 24 OCT

Aerial, acrobatics, juggling and dance come together in this exploration of change and connection.

Festival Theatre

WAR HORSE

THU 2 OCT - SAT 11 OCT

War Horse's incredible puppetry and stage design tells the story of Albert and his beloved horse Joey, adapted from Michael Morpurgo's novel.

SCOTTISH BALLET: MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS

THU 16 OCT - SAT 18

OCT

A punk reimagining of the feud between Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I.

TO KILL A

MOCKINGBIRD

TUE 21 OCT - SAT 25

OCT

Award-winning writer Aaron Sorkin stages an acclaimed adaptation of the seminal American novel.

BLACK SABBATH: THE BALLET

THU 30 OCT - SAT 1 NOV

Birmingham Royal Ballet take on one of their city's most iconic bands in this genre-bending production.

Royal Lyceum

Theatre

Summerhall

STUNTMAN SAT 18 OCT

A tender, physical doublehander exploring masculinity and the spectacle of violence.

The Edinburgh Playhouse

TOP HAT

TUE 30 SEP - SAT 4 OCT

The delicious Irving Berlin musical filled with romance, screwball antics and tap dancing aplenty.

RIVERDANCE 30: THE NEW GENERATION

THU 9 OCT - SAT 11 OCT

Legs are flying everywhere in this new staging of the dance classic, with a brand new generation of performers.

SIX

TUE 21 OCT - SAT 25 OCT

A subversive, all-singing reimagining of the wives of Henry VIII.

MISS SAIGON TUE 28 OCT - SAT 1 NOV

Set against the turmoil of the Vietnam War, this classic romance features iconic music by Boublil and Schönberg.

The Studio COMMON TONGUE FRI 3 OCT A tongue-tripping show exploring intersections of language and identity on Scottish culture.

HALF MAN HALF BULL FRI 31 OCT - SAT 1 NOV

Acclaimed gig theatremakers Wright & Grainger bring their Fringe hit back, reimagining the story of the Minotaur.

Traverse

Theatre

NIGHT WAKING WED 1 OCT

Adapted from the novel by Sarah Moss, this play is an urgent, blackly comic look at motherhood, colonialism, and the things we leave behind.

A PLAY, A PIE & A PINT: CHEAPO TUE 7 OCT - FRI 10 OCT

Two teenagers play chess in a KFC in this intense drama about childhood and growing up too soon.

BLACK HOLE SIGN WED 8 OCT - SAT 18 OCT

When a hole appears in the roof of an A&E department, staff and patients scramble to manage in this absurd take on the crumbling welfare system.

A PLAY, A PIE & A PINT: MAYBE TOMORROW TUE 14 OCT - SAT 18 OCT

A hilarious new musical in which a faded starlet reckons with disappointed desires.

BATSHIT WED 22 OCT - SAT 25 OCT

A smash hit at the 2024 Fringe, this wild anf unflinching play is a mediation on female madness.

SO YOUNG THU 23 OCT - SAT 25 OCT

Three friends reconnect in this touching drama about the passage of time.

A PLAY, A PIE & A PINT: RIGH IASGAIR: THE FISHER KING TUE 28 OCT - SAT 1 NOV

THE MASH HOUSE House and techno.

RINSE: ARTHI

SNEAKY PETE'S Bass.

Two Glasgow Improv Theatre house teams performing The Harold. Feat. Saved By The Beep and With Bits!

Narratives of colonialism, monstrosity and resistance entangle in this carnivalesque reinterpretation of Frankenstein. Part of Take Me Somewhere.

THE SEAGULL

THU 9 OCT - SAT 1 NOV

A darkly comic reimagining of Chekhov's classic knotty play.

A brand new folk thriller based on the myths of the Isle of Lewis.

Dundee Theatre

Dundee Rep

THE FLOCK & MOVING

CLOUD

FRI 31 OCT - WED 12

NOV

Two of Scottish Dance Theatre's most physically daring and innovative works get the back-to-back treatment.

THE GLASS MENAGERIE

SAT 27 SEP - UNTIL 8 NOVTennessee Williams’ iconic investigation of post-war class dynamics is brought to blistering life.

ÒRAN

WED 22 OCT

Spoken word, lyrical storytelling and an electronic live score come together in this thrilling retelling of the myth of Orpheus.

THESE MECHANISMS

THU 23 OCT

In her 80th year, Christine ponders creating her first show in this heartfelt exploration of persistance and joy.

SHOCK HORROR: A GHOST STORY

FRI 24 OCT - SAT 25 OCT

Inspired by classic ghost stories and cinematic horror, this meld of performance and bigscreen action is a haunting investigation into our relationship with the past.

Glasgow Art

Common Guild

PENG ZUQIANG: AFTERNOON HEARSAY

SAT 11 OCT - SUN 7 DEC

The first solo exhibition by the artist in Scotland centres on a new threechannel film installation of the same name, co-commissioned by The Common Guild and the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai.

Compass Gallery FIGURES AND PORTRAITS

TUE 16 SEP - SAT 4 OCT

This exhibition, both in the gallery and online, features personal stories and narratives expressed by a selection of artists.

Glasgow Print

Studio

CLAIRE BARCLAY: KINSKINS FRI 8 AUG - SAT 4 OCT

Large-scale printed works that challenge how we perceive and experience printmaking, pushing the bounds of sensory experiences of art.

Glasgow School of Art

SAOIRSE HIGGINS AND JONATHAN FORD: SURVØY

SAT 20 SEP - SAT 1 NOV

An artist-led survey and almanac of the ecological conditions of Papa Westray, one of Orkney's most Northern islands.

GoMA THE MILKY WAY

SAT 13 SEP - FRI 9 JAN

Part of a touring exhibition looking at the culture of infant feeding in public spaces.

Kendall Koppe

DITTA BARON HOEBER + MARINA GRIZE + OLIVIA JIA: MARGOT SAMEL @ KENDALL KOPPE

FRI 17 OCT - SAT 15 NOV A collaboration between Kendall Koppe and Margot Samel Gallery in New York.

Patricia Fleming

TESSA LYNCH: ARENA

SAT 13 SEP - SAT 18 OCT

Graphic, materially experimental objects and installations that explore the uncanniness of contemporary urban life.

Platform

ALAN DIMMICK: DAYTRIPPING THU 2 OCT - THU 1 JAN

Exhibition by local photographer examining the importance of daytrips in and around Scotland.

Street Level

Photoworks THE SCENE FROM WITHIN

SAT 19 JUL - SUN 5 OCT

The work of four historic photographers who captured the inner-East End of Glasgow.

CRANHILL ARTS: GLASWEGIANS

SAT 19 JUL - SUN 5 OCT

Portraits from Cranhill Arts' Glaswegians project taken between 1989 to 1993 offer a vital record of Glasgow.

SWG3

BENEATH THE NOISE

THU 4 SEP - FRI 17 OCT

Work that explores the post-industrial textures of Glasgow.

The Briggait

MORAG SMITH: AND IN THEIR WAKE HAPPINESS

FRI 26 SEP - FRI 24 OCT

Bright, playful sculptures and installations inspired by sailing journeys across the Highlands and Islands.

The Modern Institute

HAYLEY TOMKINS: SURROUNDINGS

FRI 12 SEP - WED 29 OCT

Acrylic paintings mixed with organic matter and textiles interrogate ideas of circumstance and possibility.

JESSE WINE: TIME'S ARROW

FRI 12 SEP - SAT 25 OCT

Bronze and clay sculptures responding to concepts of physical and spiritual pressure.

OSAMA AL RAYYAN: CAMPING

FRI 12 SEP - SAT 25 OCT

Oil paintings on canvas and a new series of sculptures explore the fluidity of colour and form.

Tramway

LEAP THEN LOOK: PLAY INTERACT EXPLORE

SAT 27 SEP - MON 11 MAY

An exhibition of interactive artworks created by artists Lucy Cran and Bill Leslie.

Edinburgh Art

City Art Centre

OUT OF CHAOS: POSTWAR SCOTTISH ART

1945-2000

SAT 17 MAY - SUN 12 OCT

A survey of work looking at the diversity and ambition of work that came out of the tumult of the Second World War.

Collective Gallery

SHEN XIN: HIGHLAND

EMBASSY

FRI 3 OCT - SUN 21 DEC

Three projects by artist and filmmaker that use storytelling to explore themes of migration and indigenous communities.

Dovecot Studios

IKEA: MAGICAL PATTERNS

FRI 18 JUL - SAT 17

JAN

An innovative exhibition exploring six decades of textile design by IKEA and the development of interior design.

VICTORIA CROWE: SHIFTING SURFACES

MON 28 JUL - SAT 11 OCT

Presented in partnership with The Scottish Gallery, this exhibition looks at the little known textile work of one of Scotland's most eminent contemporary artists.

Edinburgh Printmakers

AQSA ARIF: RAINDROPS OF RANI FRI 1 AUG - SUN 2 NOV

Drawing on Pakistani folklore and imagery from an advert filmed in the artist's childhood council flat, this multimedia exhibition explores themes of fractured identity, displacement, and cultural synthesis.

ROBERT POWELL: HALL OF HOURS

FRI 1 AUG - SUN 2 NOV

Inspired by medieval Books of Hours, this intersection of printmaking and animation explores the how we conceptualise temporalities.

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

MEGAN RUDDEN: LOVE IN THE ECOTONE

FRI 18 JUL - SUN 12 OCT

Cast and carved and scattered materials consider the relationship between different environments and transitional points.

Fruitmarket

MIKE NELSON: HUMPTY DUMPTY FRI 27 JUN - SUN 5 OCT

Known for his immersive exhibitions, Mike Nelson transforms Fruitmarket into a new installation capturing the shifting nature of cityscapes.

Mote 102

EMILY RANDALL + EMMA MACLEOD: UNDER THE FULL MOON OF LATE SUMMER

FRI 24 OCT - TUE 11 NOV

An exhibition of new work exploring the physical and metaphysical body in nature.

Ingleby Gallery

CHARLES AVERY: THE EIDOLORAMA

SAT 27 SEP - SAT 20 DEC

Abstract, world-building paintings in which simple pictorial forms which combine to form more complex and charismatic structures.

Out of the Blueprint

KAMAL MALHOTRA: ANGELS IN THE DARKROOM

MON 15 SEP - SAT 25 OCT

Interested in artificiality, experiences of the body, the Internet and gay sex, this artist-in-residence exhibition explores the energies that emerge in queer club spaces.

THE ART OF TAKING UP SPACE

TUE 30 SEP - FRI 3 OCT

To mark a decade of youth mental health support by local charity U-evolve, this exhibition features artwork created and curated by young people in art groups across the city.

LIMINAL EXHIBITION

THU 30 OCT - THU 6 NOV

New collaborative exhibition developed by young people, part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival.

Royal Botanic Gardens

Edinburgh

LINDER STERLING: DANGER CAME SMILING

FRI 23 MAY - SUN 19 OCT

The first retrospective of Linder Sterling's photomontages remixing imagery from popular culture.

FUNGI SESSIONS

SAT 2 AUG - SUN 11 JAN

The premiere of Edinburghborn composer Hannah Read’s albums The Fungi Sessions Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 as an audiovisual installation.

RSA: Royal Scottish Academy

GEORGE MACPHERSON: CÈOL NA TIR-DHÀIMH | THE MUSIC OF THE HOME

SAT 13 SEP - SUN 12

OCT

Selected works by acclaimed Royal Academician.

ANDY GOLDSWORTHY: FIFTY YEARS

SAT 26 JUL - SUN 2 NOV

A rare chance to see the work of this seminal outdoor artist in exhibition, through a single sitespecific installation.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art YOUR ART WORLD

SAT 10 MAY - SUN 2 NOV

Artworks by young people across Scotland created specifically for this exhibition, supported by a team of freelance artists.

RESISTANCE: HOW PROTEST SHAPED BRITAIN AND PHOTOGRAPHY SHAPED PROTEST

SAT 21 JUN - SUN 4 JAN

An unmissable exhibition conceived by acclaimed artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen.

Scottish Portrait Gallery

ALFRED BUCKHAM: DAREDEVIL

PHOTOGRAPHER

SAT 18 OCT - SUN 19

APR

Take to the skies in this extraordinary exhibition looking at the life and work of the pioneering 20thcentury aerial photographer.

Sett Studios

EDWARD CAWOOD: FIRMAMENT

WED 15 OCT - MON 20

OCT

A first solo exhibition displaying works from the artist's ongoing study of Prestongrange in East Lothian, the defunct site of one of Scotland's brick and tile works and oldest collieries.

Stills Gallery

MATTHEW ARTHUR

WILLIAMS: IN CONSIDERATION OF OUR TIMES

FRI 12 SEP - SAT 18

OCT

Black-and-white selfportraits and landscapes explore ideas of loss and absence.

Talbot Rice Gallery

THE CHILDREN ARE NOW

SAT 25 OCT - SAT 7 FEB

Examining the relationship between children and the structural global challenges we face, this group exhibition draws on imaginative practice to articulate patterns in history.

Dundee Art

V&A Dundee

GARDEN FUTURES: DESIGNING WITH NATURE

SAT 17 MAY - SAT 25 JAN

Bringing together artists and thinkers such as Derek Jarman and Jamaica Kincaid, this exhibition looks at the politics and aesthetics of the modern garden.

Starter for Eleven: Hen Hoose × Clare Grogan

Ahead of performances from Altered Images and Hen Hoose as part of Pop Mutations’ Tiny Changes fundraiser this month, the Hen Hoose collective put Clare Grogan’s memory and knowledge of Scottish music to the test

Words: Tallah Brash

Iconic Glasgow new wave/postpunk band Altered Images returned with mascara streakz in 2022. Their first album in 40 years, Clare Grogan describes it as “a monumental moment in my life.” On 18 October, Altered Images headline The Glad Cafe as part of Pop Mutations’ Tiny Changes multi-venue fundraiser. “I always say music is my therapy, so it just feels like a really good thing to do,” Grogan says. “I love the idea of a bunch of bands playing across Glasgow united in our support for such a special charity.” With Hen Hoose taking over The Old Hairdresser’s on the same night, The Skinny’s iconic Starter for Eleven quiz is back with Hen Hoose our quiz hosts and Grogan in the hot seat!

Q1 Emma Pollock: Which Bond film did Garbage perform the theme tune for?

Grogan: The World Is Not Enough. I adore Shirley! I remember not being able to take my eyes off her the first time I saw her perform with Goodbye Mr Mackenzie. The admiration has lived on – I love Garbage.

Answer: The World is Not Enough [1 point]

Q2 Inge Thomson: On 31 October 1981 Happy Birthday was kept off the top spot (ironically) by which song?

Grogan: I know I should know the answer to this but I never remember – obviously blocked it out. It was a crazy time; on one level, I took it all in my stride... and on another, it was a real mix of excitement and fear.

Answer: Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin – It’s My Party [0 points]

Q3 Frances McKee: How many times have the Vaselines played the Barrowlands and who did they support?

Grogan: I’m so sorry, Frances, but I don’t know the answer. I know Nirvana were huge fans and I remember listening to Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam over and over.

Answer: Twice, supporting The Jesus and Mary Chain and Mogwai [0 points]

Q4 Carla J Easton: Which iconic girl band released Young At Heart one year before it became a hit for The Bluebells?

Grogan: Bananarama! I still play shows with Bananarama – we opened for them at Edinburgh Castle a couple of years ago and of course I adore The Bluebells.

Answer: Bananarama [1 point]

Q5 Amandah Wilkinson: Which female-fronted Scottish band has sold the most records?

Grogan: Strawberry Switchblade? Somebody recently sent me a clip from a morning TV show that we were both

on the sofa for – it was really silly and we went full on Glasgow accent. I loved them, I loved their version of Jolene.

Answer: Eurythmics [0 points]

Q6 SHEARS: According to an interview in The Standard, if Annie Lennox could be any animal, what would she be?

Grogan: This is a tricky one, no clue what she said at the time… but she does have a song called Little Bird, so maybe a bird.

Answer: A wild bird [1 point]

Q7 MALKA: In 2022 you took a seat on the BBC 6Music roundtable. One of the songs was by our very own hen, SHEARS. What score did you give it out of 10?

Grogan: Oh dear, I have the memory of a sieve at the moment. I really have no clue… I do remember Simon Raymonde from The Cocteau Twins being the other panellist… I think he must have distracted me!

Answer: 8/10 [0 points]

Q8 Carla J Easton: In the last 70 years, which band from Scotland is the only girl band to have a Top 10 hit?

Grogan: Oh dear, so this is the Strawberry Switchblade question… Yikes! So question five was now obviously about the Eurythmics. Gosh what phenomenal success they have had, just great pop songs.

Answer: Strawberry Switchblade [1 point + 1 point for Q5 Eurythmics]

Q9 Inge Thomson: Altered Images recorded three John Peel Sessions, with two in 1981. Which other Scottish post-punk band recorded two sessions that year?

Grogan: I still talk about John on stage, we so wanted him to like us and he did... I remember around the

same time listening to sessions from Simple Minds, The Scars, The Fire Engines, Orange Juice, but no idea who also did two sessions in 1981!

Answer: The Fire Engines [½ point]

Q10 Carla J Easton: To perfect her football skills in Gregory’s Girl, which football club did Dee Hepburn train with?

Grogan: Yay, I know the answer to this, it was Partick Thistle FC. I could write a book about Gregory’s Girl and all the experiences I’ve had related to making the film... I’m a Celtic fan, I trained with them once and I even got to sing on the pitch before a European match a few years back.

Answer: Partick Thistle FC [1 point]

Q11 MALKA: What job did Sharleen Spiteri have before becoming a musician?

Grogan: She was a hairdresser and a rather fabulous one. I love Sharleen, we go back a long way. I have sung with her on stage a couple of times... [Texas] invited me to sing on their track Look What You’ve Done which we recorded in the middle of the pandemic... I was actually quite nervous at the time, but I love that I got to have that moment.

Answer: Hairdresser [1 point]

Total Score: 7.5/11 - not bad at all!

As part of Pop Mutations’ Tiny Changes fundraiser on 18 Oct, Altered Images play The Glad Cafe and Hen Hoose take over The Old Hairdresser’s

popmutations.com tinychanges.com alteredimages.band henhoose.com

Photo: David Scheinmann

Photo: Si y Stansfield

Hen Hoose

Clare Grogan

5.40pm

8 Nov 3.10pm

Nov 3.10pm