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August 2019 Issue 167

EMBRACE THE CHAOS

REFLECTING THE WORLD TODAY AT EDINBURGH'S FESTIVALS WITH FRINGE OF COLOUR, JOSIE LONG, SOPHIE DUKER, TRAVIS ALABANZA, MATT WINNING, DERAY MCKESSON, SOFIE HAGEN, KATE TEMPEST, SHARON VAN ETTEN, CORIN SWORN AND... FRINGE DOG

P. 64 Blinded by the Light

P.87 DJ Scotia

Credit: Mason Fairey

P.58 The Beths

Photo: Connor McLeod

Photo: Mahaneela

P.19 Sophie Duker

August 2019

Issue 167, August 2019 © Radge Media Ltd. Get in touch: E: hello@theskinny.co.uk T: 0131 467 4630 P: The Skinny, 1.9 1st Floor Tower, Techcube, Summerhall, 1 Summerhall Pl, Edinburgh, EH9 1PL The Skinny is Scotland's largest independent entertainment & listings magazine, and offers a wide range of advertising packages and affordable ways to promote your business. Get in touch to find out more.

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Contents

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

Rosamund West Adam Benmakhlouf Heather McDaid Nadia Younes Polly Glynn Nadia Younes Jamie Dunn Peter Simpson Katie Goh Tallah Brash Eliza Gearty Paul Mitchell

Production Production Manager Designer

Rachael Hood Fiona Hunter

Sales Sales Manager Sales Executives

Sandy Park George Sully David Hammond Joanne Jamieson

Online Digital Editor Online Journalist Web Developer Intern

Peter Simpson Jamie Dunn Stuart Spencer Dylan Tuck

Bookkeeping & Accounts Publisher General Manager

Aaron Tuveri Sophie Kyle Laurie Presswood

THE SKINNY

Contents Chat & Opinion: Welcome to the maga06 zine, our biggest of the year

Heads Up: August’s cultural calendar 08 EDINBURGH FESTIVALS

10 Fringe of Colour’s pioneer Jessica

Brough introduces the scheme working to make the Fringe as accessible as possible for young people of colour

12 Matt Winning, Jon Long and Isla Cowan talk climate emergency

46 James Richards on Migratory Motor Complex in Collective gallery

49 Indigenous Contemporary Scene A special supplement celebrating a programme spanning the Fringe, Book Festival and International Festival presenting Indigenous voices from Canada in theatre, music and the written word

57 Local Heroes’ picks of the Craft Scotland 2019 Summer Show

58 We meet The Beths’ Elizabeth Stokes ahead of their Indian Summer show

61 Benjamin John Power, aka Blanck

Mass talks about the violent nature of consumerism

15 In the concluding part of our series, find-

62 Mark Jenkin tells us about Bait and his

16 E xploring the theme of American justice

63 Sophie Hyde on hard-drinking flatmates

18 Josie Long on motherhood and new

64 We meet the creators of Springsteen

19 Sophie Duker on wokeness and her

65 The EIFF student critics share the vitri-

of our Theatre Fringe 21 A round-upMeghan Tyler introduces

68 New York Times photographer Josh

ing a Fairer Fringe for performers in theatre

show Tender

creative babies

highlights. new play Crocodile Fever

22 Performance artist and poet Travis Alabanza presents Burgerz

singular approach to filmmaking

drama Animals

musical Blinded by the Light

olic fruits of their critical labour

Haner shares a few of his images documenting the effects of climate change around the world

LIFESTYLE

25 Our pick of 2019’s theatrical debutants

70 Intersections: A guide to hooking up at

26 Local(ish) acts ask each other local(ish)

72 Travel: One writer meditates on the na-

29 Fringe dog introduces top five star

75 Food and Drink: Food at the Fringe and a

aka Fringe firsts. Chris Thorpe introduces his ‘psychology of nationality’ play, Status

questions about their Fringe experiences

awards The Terriers. Juliette Burton on mental health, self care and the Fringe

eRay Mckesson speaks to The Skinny 30 D about his book, On the Other Side of Freedom e offer some insight into our two spon31 W sor events at Edinburgh International Book Festival – Sofie Hagen on Happy Fat and It's Not About the Burqa editor Mariam Khan on foregrounding the individual narratives of Muslim women

33 We talk to poets Raymond Antrobus

and Roseanne Watt ahead of their Book Festival events

34 Kaite Welsh discusses writing Victorian medical mystery fiction

37 Kate Tempest on bringing The Book of Traps and Lessons to EIF 38 We speak to Sharon Van Etten about her latest album Remind Me Tomorrow

41 R achel Sermanni discusses pregnancy, desire and transformative decisions

the Fringe. And, how Instagram influencers are turning environmentalism into a neoliberal lifestyle ture of tourism after a visit to Auschwitz

Socratic dialogue on vegan beer

REVIEW

79 Music: A look at the SAY longlist, Outwith Festival and Pianodrome at the Pitt. Plus our picks of the month’s album releases and Do Not Miss live highlights

84 Clubs: Local promoters introduce their Edinburgh Festivals events; we meet DJ Scotia; and the usual highlights for your late night August

89 Art: Reviews of the world’s first survey of collage art(?), Patrick Staff at DCA and a rundown of the August exhibitions highlights inc. Art editor Adam Benmakhlouf

90 F ilm & TV: Theatrical reviews including

Tarantino’s latest, Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood and Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir; watch at home with Killing Eve 2 and Big Little Lies

92 Books: Poetry news and book reviews

including Idiot Wind by Peter Kaldheim and Lot by Bryan Washington

42 Cate Le Bon reflects on solitude, furni-

93 Comedy: In Case You Missed It – Alan

45 Corin Sworn introduces Habits of

95 L istings! What’s on in August

ture-making and playing Jupiter Rising Assembly at EAF

Partridge with Stephen Buchanan

102 T op 5s! Our resident experts’ top picks for the Edinburgh Festivals

August 2019

Contents

Editorial I

f it’s August then it must be our biggest magazine of the year! Once again we bring you a mega 104-pager of cultural goodness, the making of which has driven many a Skinny staff member well past the edge of reason. It will presumably continue to cause havoc throughout the distribution network due to its unaccustomed size and weight. Please enjoy the dense fruits of our labours! As is inevitable, much of this month’s focus falls on the Edinburgh Festivals. We open with an introduction to Fringe of Colour, a multi-faceted scheme aiming to facilitate greater cultural access for people of colour, penned by its pioneer Jessica Brough. What began with a spreadsheet spotlighting shows has now developed into a database, a social media platform and a free ticket scheme. Brough talks to performers Rachael Young and Kemah Bob about their work, participation in the ticket scheme and taking up space in a majority-white environment. In Comedy, our Fringe selections reflect the thematic diversity of a programme which sees performers wrestling with the pressing issues of the day alongside, of course, some men in T-shirts noticing things. We haven’t spoken to any of the latter, but we have spoken to a raft of the former. We meet a few of the comedians building shows around questions of our climate emergency, talk to Josie Long about her new show Tender (her first post-motherhood), and meet Sophie Duker, the founder of monthly London comedy night Wacky Racists, to hear about her debut hour Venus. Juliette Burton offers a supporting hand to performers with some words on mental health during the Fringe, and we set five local comedians the task of asking each other a series of questions to build a picture of the Fringe from an insider perspective. Finally, it wouldn’t be August without us trying to make The Terrier Awards a thing – Fringe dog is here to offer a helping paw for those struggling to work out why. In Theatre, we conclude our series on building a fairer Fringe with a look at the work being done to improve things for performers. We hear from poet and performance artist Travis Alabanza, no stranger to these pages, about their play Burgerz, making its Edinburgh debut in the Traverse. We also look at a few of the plays reflecting on the American justice system, meet Meghan Tyler to talk Crocodile Fever, and Chris Thorpe to discuss his play Status. We round up our highlights from across the programme, and also focus in on a few of the fresh-faced debutants who will arrive this month. Books meets Book Festival guest selector DeRay Mckesson to discuss the power of language, activism in the USA and his book On the Other Side of Freedom. As is traditional, we are sponsoring two events in the Book Festival programme – Danish comedian Sofie Hagen discussing her book Happy Fat, and an evening of Muslim women claiming the right for individual narratives with It’s Not About

Chat

the Burqa, a live presentation of the anthology of 17 different writers. We meet the editor Mariam Khan and contributor Amna Saleem to find out more. We also have words with poets Raymond Antrobus and Roseanna Watts, and meet novelist Kaite Welsh to hear about setting work in the Victorian era. Edinburgh Art Festival has once again woven its way through the city with a programme ranging from Platform’s emergent artist focus in ECA’s fire station space to new commissions from high profile artists like Nathan Coley and Alfredo Jaar. Keep an eye open as you walk the streets and paths – you might come across a new artist neon or a large scale macrame hanging from the trees, or indeed a specially commissioned sound piece by our very own Art editor Adam Benmakhlouf who is sadly too modest to use his position to devote all of this month’s art coverage to himself and his practice. Let it be known that I offered. Instead, we meet Corin Sworn to hear about her ECA project Habits of Assembly, and James Richards to discuss Migratory Motor Complex, arriving in Collective for its third iteration of site specific presentation. Local Heroes have scrutinised the Craft Scotland Summer Show line-up to offer a rundown of some of the nation’s most interesting contemporary designer makers. An exhibition in Summerhall and outdoors in the Borders location of Traquair House will present some of the astonishing imagery of New York Times photographer Josh Haner who has been travelling the world documenting the environmental and human cost of climate change since 2015 – he kindly offers some background on the project. In Music, we’ve spoken to a wide array of local and international stars. We have words with Kate Tempest and Sharon Van Etten, both appearing at Edinburgh International Festival; we meet The Beths’ Elizabeth Stokes ahead of their Indian Summer performance; Rachel Sermanni talks touring post-motherhood ahead of her show in Summerhall; Blanck Mass aka Benjamin John Power cheerfully discusses the violent nature of consumerism; and Cate Le Bon talks solitude and furniture making as she prepares for Jupiter Rising. Film has Mark Jenkin on Bait, Sophie Hyde on Animals and words with creators of Springsteen musical Blinded by the Light, Gurinder Chadha and Sarfraz Manzoor. We also present a selection of highlights from the student critics scheme at EIFF – they’ve all emerged as pleasingly critical voices under the diligent mentorship of our very own Jamie Dunn. Finally, in the centre of the magazine you will find a special supplement exploring the programme of Indigenous Contemporary Scene, a festivals-spanning project foregrounding Indigenous voices from Canada, or Kanata to use their prefered name. It offers an enlightening read, which you will also be able to pick up separately in venues around Edinburgh. Keep an eye out. [Rosamund West]

COVER ARTIST Ida Henrich Ida Henrich is an illustrator and designer based in Glasgow. After graduating from the Glasgow School of Art in 2017, she started working as Art Editor for The Ampersand Project (previously Fearlessly), a mental-health magazine and project. During this time she's continued to work on freelance projects with a number of commercial publishers and small businesses. Find her on Instagram at @idahenrich

Shot of the Month Emeli Sande, TRNSMT Festival, Glasgow, 14 Jul by Allan Lewis

Online Only theskinny.co.uk/festivals Our comedy and theatre teams are ready to roll; check in daily throughout August for our latest reviews from across the Edinburgh Fringe. theskinny.co.uk/music Craig Finn of The Hold Steady chats about the band’s new record Thrashing Thru The Passion, covering Frightened Rabbit and his solo work. theskinny.co.uk/film We report back from the inaugural IceDocs festival – it’s a documentary festival in, yes, you guessed it, Iceland.

Find more at theskinny.co.uk

THE SKINNY

July 2019

ï»¿

Chat

It's August! It's the Fringe! But other things are happening too! Here they are!

After a successful run of shows at the end of last year, Bryony Kimmings brings her acclaimed feminist musical to the Fringe. Exploring the deeply personal matter of postnatal depression, Kimmings – with the help of some witty musical composition courtesy of Tom Parkinson – provides a powerful piece of theatre that's both sinister and cheerful.

The Hands of X collection offers those in attendance an insight into the difficult decision process behind choosing a prosthetic hand. Designed by Graham Pullin, Andrew Cook, Corinne Hutton and Eddie Small, it encourages participants to create a hand that feels their own from a variety of materials, and draws attention to the significant relationship between both amputees and designers.

Mono Beer Festival

Chat

Free Pride CCA, Glasgow, 3 Aug, 12pm Marking the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Free Pride returns for another day of anti-commercialised LGBTQ+ related activities. Hosting a series of talks, workshops, music and more, the event prides (pun intended) itself on being a radical, inclusive and free affair that offers a safe space for attendees to learn, express themselves and rebel against the lack of inclusivity in mainstream LGBTQ+ society.

After their hugely nostalgic performance at Glastonbury last month, The Cure are to deliver the goods again, performing at their first show in Scotland in 27 (!!) years. While they’re not the most consistent band when it comes to touring (where’ve you been fellas?), Robert Smith et al are certainly consistent when it comes to entertaining the masses. Mogwai and The Twitight Sad are in support.

Festival season is upon us, and nothing’s better than a free show! As part of the Unbound with Edinburgh Gin series, Scottish DJ and musician Vic Galloway presents a night full of live music and readings. Joseph Malik, Callum Easter and Heir of the Cursed provide the sweet melodies, while Saskia Vogel and Dean Atta give guest readings.

Vic Galloway

Luisa Omielan: Politics for Bitches (Extended Cut) Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh, 23-25 Aug, 9pm

Free Pride

The Cure Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, 16 Aug, 4pm

Photo: Drew Farrell

The sun may come and go over this Scottish summertime, but that doesn't mean the beer has to stop flowing. Vegan cafe bar Mono have partnered up with the folks at Williams Bros. to provide the ‘best and freshest’ beer in Glasgow for a day full of hops, tastings and delicious BBQ’ed goodness. And, if the sun does decide to show itself, there’s a jolly good beer garden too.

Vic Galloway Brings the Ruckus! The Spiegeltent – Charlotte Square Gardens, Edinburgh, 13 Aug, 9pm

The Cure

HYYTS King Tut's, Glasgow, 29 Aug, 8.30pm

Beyond Borders International Festival

Photo: David Packard

Mono Beer Festival Mono, Glasgow, 11 Aug, 12.30pm

Native Girl Syndrome

Photo: Marc J. Chalifoux

Little Dragon

Photo: Martyna Maz

From the mind of Lara Kramer comes a fascinating new work that holds a magnifying glass over the cultural displacement Indigenous people feel when placed into contrasting, alien societies. Inspired by the tale of her own migrant grandmother, Kramer’s play sees the duo of Karina Iraola and Angie Cheng embark on a journey of societal reflection, shining an unpleasantly realistic light on the hardships of adjusting to urban life.

Pop with an alternative twist, an undeniable Scottish identity and a disco fever, Glaswegian duo HYYTS are making their name as one of the best up-and-coming acts in the UK. Having recently signed with Warner Music, and threatening to take the world by storm with an arsenal of groove-glossed tracks, it’s fair to say seeing HYYTS in a small venue before they go big time is now a fleeting opportunity.

Photo: Karla Gowlett

Beyond Borders International Festival Traquiar House, Innerleithen, 24-25 Aug

Luisa Omielan

Photo: Max Crawford

Native Girl Syndrome Summerhall, Edinburgh, 2-11 Aug (not 5 & 6), 4.20pm

As if Glasgow's music scene wasn't vibrant enough already, Playground Festival has entered the game. Marking its debut on to the Scottish festival calendar in style, blending together a diverse array of genres over three days, it plays host to an intriguing line-up including the likes of Hot Chip, Ms Lauryn Hill and Groove Armada – the latter’s only Scottish show in 2019.

You may recognise the title of Luisa Omielan's Fringe show from her BBC One TV show of the same name; this time around, Politics for Bitches is live onstage and on steroids. With the goal of doing all the things she couldn’t do on-air due to restrictions, this extended cut won’t beat around the bush when it comes to pulling apart politics with an air of sidesplitting realism.

Bryony Kimmings: I'm a Phoenix, Bitch!

2019 marks the ten-year anniversary of Traquair House’s prestigious intellectual festival, Beyond Borders. An array of thinkers, writers, politicians and speakers head to the Borders for a weekend of enlightening debates and discussions, while the Walled Garden hosts musical performances, art exhibits and a plethora of well-being activities.

HYTTS

THE SKINNY

Photo: Andy Vella

Playground Festival Rouken Glen Park, Glasgow, 2-4 Aug

Hands of X

Photo: The Other Richard

Compiled by: Dylan Tuck and Nadia Younes

Bryony Kimmings: I'm a Phoenix, Bitch! Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, 31 Jul-25 Aug (not 12), 5.30pm

Photo: Michael McGurk

Heads Up

Hands of X: Design Meets Disability V&A Dundee, until 1 Sep

Shoot Your Shot Summerhall, Edinburgh, 2 Aug, 11pm

Fern Brady: Power and Chaos Monkey Barrel Comedy Club, Edinburgh, 1-25 Aug (not 12), 6pm

John-Luke Roberts

Photo: Matt Crocket

Sharon Van Etten Leith Theatre, Edinburgh, 21 Aug, 7pm Sharon Van Etten earned praise for her shift to a more electronic feel on her latest record Remind Me Tomorrow, telling the story of her life since 2014’s Are We There. While proving her talent for conveying human life through a slightly different medium this time, one thing that remains happily unchanged is her ability to capture a room in a live setting.

Set on the beautiful sculptural landscape of Jupiter Artland, Jupiter Rising boasts a festival like no other. Now, with an extended format that sees two and a half days of acts, shows and experiences – ranging from art exhibitions and experimental dance performances to late night DJ sets and film screenings – the festival serves up a unique festival alternative for the bank holiday weekend.

Photo: Paul Storr

Weird Weekend CCA, Glasgow, 30 Aug-1 Sep

Indian Summer Various venues, Glasgow, 29 Aug-1 Sep Once held at Victoria Park and welcoming the likes of Hot Chip and Yeah Yeah Yeahs in the mid-2000s, Indian Summer is ready to make its return (or at least its title is). Now rebranded and ditching the unreliable weather for indoor settings at SWG3 and BAaD over a couple of days, Indian Summer has The Beths and Courtney Barnett as headliners to see out summer’s climax.

August 2019

Sarra Wild

Photo: Tiu Makkonen Photo: Trackie McLeod

Sharon Van Etten

Photo: Ryan Pfluger

Since winning the Best Newcomer award in 2015 for her Westlife-inspired Fringe show Bubblewrap, Sofie Hagen has become a hot property in the world of comedy. Ahead of the release of her new book Happy Fat, this one-off show, supported by yours truly, sees Hagen addressing the sticky subject of body image and discussing why society’s ‘obsession with shrinking’ is cause for concern.

Courtney Barnett

Neneh Cherry

Jupiter Rising Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh, 23-25 Aug

Sofie Hagen The New York Times Main Theatre – Charlotte Square Gardens, Edinburgh, 17 Aug, 3.15pm

Sophie Hagen

Yeah, that’s right, Neneh Cherry is coming to Edinburgh to shake up Leith Theatre! As part of Edinburgh International Festival – which annually puts good use to the spectacular old venue – the Swedish singer, rapper and activist heads into town for what promises to be one hell of a fun night, with a back catalogue of over 30 years brimming with certified danceworthy jams.

A Guy Called Gerald BAaD, Glasgow, 31 Aug, 7pm One of the most prominent figures in acid house and jungle, and a leading pioneer of electronic music, A Guy Called Gerald, aka Gerald Simpson, needs little introduction. With a fourhour set in the pipeline that’s surely going to be a mahoosive dance fest, Simpson’s live performances are the stuff of dance music legend, and well worthy of a Saturday night boogie for any dedicated fan.

With one of the most intriguing premises for a film festival possible, Matchbox Cineclub are screening a selection of the most bonkers, bizarre and largely unseen cinema from around the world, with almost none of what’s on ever screened in the UK before. If that isn’t a selling point then we don’t know what is, as this is as hipster a cinematic experience you could ever wish for.

Freak Orlando

A Guy Called Gerald

Chat

Photo: Fergus McDonald

Nick Cave, Unarmed, 2016

John-Luke Roberts’ late night show entertained many in 2018 with a generous dollop of whimsical, absurdist cabaret, and now returns for 2019. Roberts, clearly one for the weird and wacky, adapts a series of supposedly ‘unadaptable’ texts across a fabulously silly hour-long performance.

Photo: Natasha Pszenicki

No, not that Nick Cave. Until sees American artist Nick Cave embark on his first solo European exhibition, bringing his work to Scotland following its display in Sydney's Carriageworks, and tweaking it specifically to fit Tramway. Until, as in ‘innocent until proven guilty’ – or vice versa here – alludes to gun violence and race hate at play in America, with a plethora of found objects serving as an artistic entrance to a sad, sorry world.

Shoot Your Shot

Neneh Cherry Leith Theatre, Edinburgh, 10 Aug, 7pm

John-Luke Roberts: Terrible Wonderful Adaptations Assembly George Square Studios, Edinburgh, 9, 16 & 23 Aug, 11.30pm

Photo: James Prinz

Nick Cave: Until Tramway, Glasgow, 3 Aug-24 Nov

Fern Brady

Photo: Clare Shilland

Burgerz

If you’re after an hour of unrelenting laughs about the big topics of today then Fern Brady’s got you covered. One of the UK’s biggest comedic talents is set to light up the Fringe again as she takes on sexuality, feminism, nationality, Brexit and a whole lot more. With a unique air of wit, and an unmistakable ‘tellit-how-it-is’ manner, Brady is sure to leave many in absolute stitches.

What’s a festival without an opening party? And there's really no party like a Shoot Your Shot party. The much-loved LGBTQ+ club night will be headlined by up-and-coming Northern Ireland hotshot Cormac, renowned for his relentless sets across Europe, featuring plenty of techno-meets-house bangers to really set the Fringe into motion. Grab your dancing shoes and head on down!

Photo: Matt Crockett

The concept that lies beneath Burgerz stems from an act of violence and hatred. Travis Alabanza returns with a politically-charged performance, formed from an incident where a burger was flung at him on Waterloo Bridge and transforms commonplace harassment into a remarkably harrowing piece of theatre examining trans identity, queer art and humanity.

Photo: Holly Revell

Burgerz Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 1-25 Aug (not 5, 12 & 19), times vary

Creating Space

Nightclubbing

ringe of Colour (FoC) is back for its second year, and it has evolved since beginning in 2018 as a public database of shows by performers of colour. Now, it exists as a database, a social media platform, a free ticket scheme, and a means to connect people of colour in Edinburgh during the festival who are here to work, perform, watch shows or just continue living their lives. Because at the heart of FoC is the need to connect with and find one another. I spoke to a couple of performers coming to the Fringe this year about creating and taking up spaces and tackling isolation in a majority-white environment. Their shows are three out of the 19 taking part in FoC’s ticket scheme, an initiative that allows young people

of colour to access shows by artists of colour for free. Jessica Brough: Tell me about your show Nightclubbing, Rachael. Rachael Young: Nightclubbing was made about District – you know about that, right? JB: Yeah, a few Black women went on a night out to the London nightclub, District, and were refused entry by the bouncers. RY: It’s not like these things don’t happen all the time, but the media interest around District stayed with me. I remember, not long after it, doing something for Black history season. We were performing for mostly-white

Photo: Marcus Hessenberg

audiences and it was like we could only celebrate ourselves one point in the year, or are only given spaces for one month. Even in those times of the year, people are still policing our bodies and policing where we can go. JB: Totally, even when you just want to dance somewhere. RY: You just want to let loose and you can’t even do that. Also, as a dark-skinned Black woman I had to ask: what the hell do you have to do? How the hell can you be? When is it that you start to be seen as desirable? When do people decide that? It made me start thinking about who is there in the public eye who’s a dark-skinned Black woman that has managed to make her life transcend all of that? And that made me think of Grace Jones, who is so interesting to me because she has a darkskinned complexity and she’s a bit androgynous, she performs masculinity and femininity in her work. She is unapologetic. She hasn’t bleached or lightened her skin. As someone who is queer, I felt a connection to her. The whole thing about Nightclubbing is about taking up as much space as possible, which is a very different experience to how I live my life in the world. JB: For those women who were refused entry to the nightclub, is the solution that they should try to find a way to take up space in these nightclubs, or should we be creating our own spaces where we don’t even have to think about actively doing that work? RY: I would say define your own spaces because, in Nightclubbing, I’ve created my own space, and everyone gets let into my space. No one wants to be constantly knocking on a door saying ‘let me in, let me in.’ JB: Creating space for young people of colour to go to shows like yours is something I’ve definitely found challenging with the FoC

Interview: Jessica Brough

work, specifically with the ticket scheme. I’ve had to constantly explain why it’s young people of colour and shows by people of colour that we’re focusing on, because obviously getting any young people into the theatre is great, but it’s not a given that certain people will feel like they are invited. The thing we want to do is say that this is here for you and you are allowed and this is an actual, explicit invitation for you to join. RY: So many things are exclusive. It’s so expensive that the people who need to see that show won’t be able to see it, or there’s that idea of how you have to be in those spaces. When I made OUT, the last show we made before we started touring, it was the best show because the audience were predominately Black and queer and they were so vocal. It really changes the show. JB: I’ve felt that at the Fringe, when I’ve gone to see shows with Black friends. I was sitting near the back with five other Black friends last year in a show about American slavery, mental health and trauma. There were moments of comic relief where they were telling jokes and it was so funny, but the white audience just didn’t respond to that, while we were at the back whooping and cheering. That experience might not have been the same if I’d gone with white friends who might not have got the jokes, or if I’d gone by myself, or if I had been one of those white audience members. That’s why the ticket scheme is centred around groups going to shows. I’m trying to create an online group where people can see shows together. There is a great joy in seeing something that celebrates an aspect of you with people who get it. Hopefully it’ll help people process the experiences as well. With someone to talk about it after, or poke in the side and give that knowing look to during the show.

OUT

Feature

THEATRE

THE SKINNY

Photo: Marcus Hessenberg

Fringe of Colour is working to make the Fringe as accessible as possible for young people of colour. The scheme’s pioneer, Jessica Brough, speaks to performers Rachael Young and Kemah Bob about how the scheme impacts artists of colour as well as audiences

“ I see FOC It Up as a place where people of colour get to see themselves reflected, whether it be on stage and you get to see yourself reflected in the audience, or in the audience and you get to see yourself reflected on stage” Kemah Bob

JB: Does it make a difference knowing that there are going to be people of colour in the audience? KB: I see FOC It Up as a place where people of colour get to see themselves reflected, whether it be on stage and you get to see yourself reflected in the audience, or in the audience and you get to see yourself reflected on stage. I really like the idea of providing a different experience for comedians in that room, and for audience members who aren’t people of colour to hear something that they may not normally and that may challenge them. I know for myself I deliver things differently – all comics do – depending on what room you’re in. JB: I saw Hot Brown Honey the second year I came and that just lit me up, I hadn’t seen anything like that before. It made me want to be involved in something that is so temporary in Edinburgh, but can have such an impact for the rest of the year. KB: Them and Cocoa Butter Club have shaped my understanding of what’s possible and what you can say and how you get to decide that – and that you can have an audience. You don’t have to be afraid that you’ll scare off your income. JB: That part of being afraid of not having an audience is what I’m trying to achieve with the ticketing scheme and the spreadsheet – to take some burden off performers. We’re going to find you at least six people to come to the show!

KB: So, FoC started as a spreadsheet and then shifted into a ticket scheme? JB: Yes, it’s very much inspired by the Black Ticket Project, which was set up in London and worked with local youth groups to make it easier for young Black kids to go theatre productions. The community aspect really interested me, and it being about going and experiencing a show with other people and whooping, laughing and crying together – it really changes your experience of a performance. I knew so many people who live in Edinburgh and have never been to the Fringe because it has this reputation of whiteness... KB: ‘What would I see? Who would I go with?’

JB: Where do you see FOC It Up going? KB: I see FOC It Up being a global network of comedy clubs in different cities. The next thing I’d like to see is FOC It Up on TV, producing our own content and sharing it on our platforms. We want to empower people to ask for more and to expect more and be supportive. Comedy is one of those things where you have to have the confidence to do it. This was something I was thinking about when I was getting into it: why am I entitled to

work like this and speak my mind and voice my opinions? Well, if there’s anyone who should be getting paid to voice their opinions it’s fucking me! That’s what FOC It Up is all about and getting people involved. We should be out there speaking our minds and getting paid. You need confidence and a story to tell to do comedy, and there are so many people of colour who have stories to tell. Inspired by The Black Ticket Project founded by Tobi Kyeremateng, this scheme has been set up in collaboration with the Fringe Society, who handle our bookings, and seven Fringe venues (Assembly, Gilded Balloon, Pleasance, Scottish Storytelling Centre, Summerhall, Traverse and Underbelly), who have funded these tickets. If you are a young person of colour, you can get access to over 500 tickets through our website on the ‘How to book’ page. You can also stay connected via Twitter at @FringeofColour and using the #FringeofColour hashtag. Nightclubbing (31 Jul-11 Aug) & OUT (13-25 Aug, not 19), Summerhall (Old Lab), 3.45pm, £8-12 FOC It Up: The Femmes of Colour Comedy Club, Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose (Doonstairs), Fridays & Sundays, 11.15pm, £8-10

JB: Exactly. ‘Will I feel comfortable? Who will I go with? Can I afford it?’ Equally, you’ve got performers who are bringing shows up, and the people they want to see their shows can’t. Those are two problems that are interconnected and ones I thought could be partially solved with a ticketing scheme and promotion. KB: I think it’s so brilliant and so necessary. I was fortunate in that my first year at the Fringe, I was able to use the FoC spreadsheet and cut through the noise. There’s also that thing of when you do something for communities of colour and when you create something that serves them, it is appreciated. Even things that wouldn’t have occurred to us that we needed, it is appreciated it. It shifts how we’re able to approach the Fringe and understand it. JB: That’s the thing – I’ve had conversations with performers considering not coming to the Fringe because of the bullshit that comes with being here as a person of colour. It really angers me when I see people who don’t experience the barriers and just glide through these spaces. It’s unfair and unequal. If I can do anything to level that playing field and take off some of that burden, if someone was considering not coming because of the whiteness of Edinburgh, I’ll feel good. KB: At the end of all this it’s about support, and that’s what your scheme is about.

Kemah Bob

August 2019

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Photo: Method Film

JB: Kemah, what was your inspiration for FOC It Up: The Femmes of Colour Comedy Club? Kemah Bob: The Cocoa Butter Club! It’s a cabaret that centres performers of colour. To see the host, Sadie Sinner, speak her truth up there and say to the audience: ‘This is a space that centres Black bodies and I created it because, when I was growing up, I didn’t see bodies like ours doing what we do.’ It was that simplicity of creating a space that centres us. We’re tired of being the only Brown or Black person on the line-up, we’re tired of being tokenised, we’re tired of the racism within our industry. Cocoa Butter Club’s host called it a creative clapback and I loved that.

JB: When we talk about activism, I don’t think we talk enough about how loneliness plays a part in it. If I didn’t do things like FoC or get involved in the schemes other people are doing and find the other queer people of colour around, I’d be so lonely and my experience of just living would be very different. I think loneliness drives a lot of the work that is done in these spaces. KB: It’s wanting people to feel seen and understood. It’s getting people in a room where someone on stage says that they were the only Asian girl in their town and someone in the audience recognises that and says ‘Yeah, I know that feeling.’ It’s being able to have those moments where we’re together – knowing someone has felt what you’ve felt is so powerful.

Climate Chaos We speak to Matt Winning, Jon Long and Isla Cowan about the pressing challenge that is our climate emergency

att Winning has been worrying about climate change “since before it was cool.” This year the Scottish comedian and environmental economist will bring his fifth solo show to the Fringe – focusing for the third year running on the urgency of climate change amidst a resurgence in protests, strikes, political action and, well, general panic. “At the end of last year I wasn’t expecting to be doing a show like this again,” he tells me. “It felt like there wasn’t a huge amount of new stuff to talk about after Climate Strange so I was thinking about how I might do it differently. And then from about November it was just constantly in the news again. Suddenly it felt like it wouldn’t be that difficult to have a very topical show.” If, as escalating school strikes and the likes of Extinction Rebellion lead us to believe, the current mood is one of urgency and finality, Winning has read it well with It’s the End of the World as We Know It. “People think climate change is the end of the world whereas actually it’s just that the world we currently know is going to radically change,” he explains. “Either we can live in a world where the state of the environment is radically altered and it’s slightly more dystopian, with sea level rises and warmer temperatures and poles melting, or we live in a completely different world where we produce and consume everything differently. “It’s going to have to be one of these two; one is going to occur regardless of what we do,” he continues. “We have to start making choices, not because I’m going to force you to but because you’re going to be forced to due to science and the way existence works. That’s the message I’m trying to get across.” And if choices about our own behaviour and consumption are key to facing down the challenge head on, participants at this year’s Fringe may be able to make slightly better ones than before. Spurred on by a commitment to reduce the festival’s carbon footprint and champion initiatives that limit its impact on the environment – part of the Fringe Blueprint which sets out the festival’s ambitions in the lead

up to its 75th anniversary in 2022 – the Fringe has introduced a raft of measures to tackle paper, food and material waste as well as sustainable travel. In the past two years, print runs of the Fringe programme have been dramatically reduced and print advertising has been moved to digital formats. Initiatives such as the #QuickFlyer campaign have encouraged acts to pitch their shows digitally, reducing flyer waste. A swap shop and food bank have also been introduced, encouraging participants to recycle and repurpose unwanted props, materials and leftover food. Fringe participants are also able to claim a discount on the city’s bike hire scheme, in an attempt to encourage green transport use. “This last year I’ve been thinking about that a lot,” says Jon Long, who will make his Fringe debut with an hour of musical comedy about the environment entitled Planet-Killing Machine. “I was thinking about the show and the subject and looking around at Edinburgh realising I’d be handing out lots of flyers – and the sheer amount of air miles to sustain the Fringe as a tourist event is probably the biggest thing.” Like Winning, Long’s day job – in the educational function of a London recycling centre – gives him a unique insight into the eye of the storm. Does he think comedy could play an important role in solving the problem? “Nobody wants to be talked down to so a preachy route doesn’t always work,” Long explains. “Comedy is perfect because we can joke and laugh about why I’m terrible and you’re terrible and we’re all in it together, but it’s societal and it’s structural – so let’s talk instead about what we can do. Some people are quite responsive to that method as opposed to

people saying to them ‘you’ve killed the planet, you monster’.” Of course, the Fringe is comprised of thousands of performers, spectators, staff and venues, all of whom have some level of personal responsibility for ensuring their own contributions are sustainable. One venue taking this responsibility seriously is The Greenhouse, new this year and the Fringe’s very first zero-waste venue. Built entirely of found and recycled materials, it will host 8 shows a day in its Holyrood Road location – all of which will use recycled props, sets and costumes, and commit to a zero-waste marketing strategy. Isla Cowan is one of the acts performing in The Greenhouse with her ecofeminist play Daphne, or Hellfire, a modern reimagining of Ovid’s myth of Daphne and Apollo. While her work has focused on environmental themes before, a lack of opportunities to perform in eco-friendly venues mean she’s often been frustrated by the hypocrisy between the work’s meaning and its means: “I was really excited about the opportunity to make a piece of theatre that was environmentally conscious in both content and form – where the means of production would be as eco-friendly as the subject of the play,” she tells me. As well as its overtly green policies and initiatives, The Greenhouse also puts an emphasis on accessibility through affordable ticket prices – something Cowan says is crucial if the arts are to play a key role in tackling climate change and related social issues. “The theatre is a social space where people come together for a shared experience, making it apt for exploring social and global issues,” she tells me. “I think there’s something about this time and place specificity, about watching live theatre as it unfolds in

the moment, that gives it an unparalleled urgency and impact when tackling issues like climate change in a way that scrolling through news articles on your phone will never do.” For acts like Winning, Long and Cowan, exploring such issues through their work provides a unique opportunity to consider their own place within them. “I’ve been thinking more about the intergenerational inequalities of climate change,” reflects Winning. “I’m at the very upper end of ‘millennial’ – it feels like there’s a generation younger than me taking all this action and a lot of the blame is on people slightly older than me. I’m somewhere in the middle and I’m taking stock of where I fit into the picture.” Whether enough can be done in time is an existential question for the world at large as much as it is for the Edinburgh Fringe. But if the past year has seen a tipping point in the climate conversation, it’s one that has been reflected within the ecosystem of the festival itself. Jon Long recalls trying to secure PR for his upcoming show and being told that it would be a difficult sell and that journalists wouldn’t find the issue of climate change “sexy enough.” “The papers now are full of it, every single journalist is getting editors saying they need more content covering it,” he points out. “They kept just saying ‘No, no, I don’t think so’. But I think that this time next year they’ll be going around saying ‘Has anyone got something on the environment?’” Matt Winning: It’s the End of the World as we Know It, Pleasance Courtyard (Below), until 25 (not 14), 4.25pm, £7-£10 Jon Long: Planet-Killing Machine, Underbelly Bristo Sq (Clover), until 26, 9.30pm, £9-£11 Daphne, or Hellfire, Pleasance Pop-Up: Dynamic Earth (The Greenhouse), until 26 (not 6, 13, 20), 5.15pm, £5

Matt Winning

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Photo: Jessica McDermott

Interview: Eve Livingston

August 2019

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A BOLD, AMBITIOUS, OUTSTANDING SEASON OF NEW THEATRE

A Womb of One’s Own

Bible John

Above, 15.50

A Grave Situation

Beyond, 15.15

The Accident Did Not Take Place Beside, 13.00

Mighty

Bunker One, 16.45

10Dome, 14.50

The Brunch Club Pop-Up: Levels, 20.15

The War of the Worlds Forth, 15.20

SWIM

Beside, 15.30

A Brief History of the Fragile Male Ego AceDome, 16.00

The Last of the Pelican Daughters

Beyond, 16.40

Wild Swimming

Beneath, 12.45

Fragility of Man Cellar, 16.45

Beach Body Ready Above, 13.10

Give Me One Moment in Time by Doug Crossley

JackDome, 14.50

Not Black and White

Above, 17.10

Blodeuwedd Untold

Baby Grand, 15.15

The Land of My Fathers and Mothers and Some Other People Bunker One, 14.15

Pleasance Futures nurtures ambition and encourages excellence. To find out more and support emerging artists visit pleasance.co.uk/futures

pleasance.co.uk • 0131 556 6550 •@PleasanceFuture

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COMEDY

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Spotlight on: Performers at the Fringe In the third part of our series on building a Fairer Fringe, we look at the realities of bringing a show to Edinburgh in August

Interview: Eliza Gearty Illustration: Katie Smith

hile on a trip to Australia last year, the actor, scenic artist and drama facilitator Helena Collins had an idea. “I was visiting Black Butt Nature Reserve and saw a koala puppet for sale,” says Collins, who trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and comes from a working-class background in London. “I’ve always loved puppets as a child and have worked with them so it felt like a no-brainer. I called the koala Jerry.” This was the beginning of Jerry & the Adventures of the HMS Stargazer: a heartwarming children’s puppet show created by Collins and director Jessica Barrett, which tells the story of Jerry, the tiny Australian koala lost in London who wants to find his way back home. The show, which debuts at The Space at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, has an ethical strand to it too: 90% of the props and the set are made of recycled materials. Collins and Barrett will also offer a workshop for children, giving participants the opportunity to create their own puppet from recycled materials to ‘continue the adventure’. For Collins, it’s a passion project with a purpose that aims to be educational as well as entertaining. “It shows children that you can create theatre; you don’t have to have lots of money. You can create it from literally nothing – a bit of cardboard and an idea,” she tells me. The reality of getting the show to the Fringe, though, has been difficult. Collins pursued Arts Council funding, but was rejected on the basis of Jerry… being an Edinburgh Fringe show, outside of England. Their Kickstarter campaign also failed, leaving Collins no other choice than to work four jobs. “In some ways, it’s more rewarding because of the hard graft [thats going into it],” she says. “but when you’re working four jobs, you’re working an average of fifty to sixty hours a week. It takes its toll, and you can’t stop, because you’re carrying the whole show yourself.” “They call it working-class for a reason... because I am always, and always have been, working” Eve Simpson, the co-writer of and performer in Twice Over, a new show profiled in our Fringe Firsts feature on p25, agrees. “I painfully relate to the words of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez: ‘They call it working-class for a reason... because you’re working non-stop,’” she writes, in a short piece about her experience entitled A Young Working Class Woman’s Debut: #FringeFirst.’”I

August 2019

am working-class according to this definition. Because I am always, and have always been, working.” Simpson believes her show is an important one to platform at the Fringe, but that the need to continue working overtime in order to support herself throughout the process has been at best trying, and at worst, intrinsically unfair. The ongoing struggle to keep one’s head above water for artists like Collins and Simpson runs the risk of deterring many exceptional theatre-makers from diverse backgrounds from the festival. Earlier this year, Jessica Brough wrote for Gal-Dem that she was ‘done with White Fringe... the Theresa May impersonations, Brexit dramas, all-white improv murder mystery casts’, and the general ‘overwhelmingly white, middle-class environment’. Back in 2012, the comic Stewart Lee wrote for the Guardian that ‘profit-obsessed promoters’ were tearing apart the ethos of a Fringe that, by enforcing high costs, ‘deters just the sort of independent minds we used to value’. The extortionate prices of venue hire, accommodation and promotion, combined with the mandatory unpaid workload, is hardly a new problem – but every year it continues, the more the quality and diversity of the Fringe’s programme is arguably affected. Fun For Some: Disrupting The ‘Rich Kid’s Playground’ “There is a risk of the festival becoming a ‘rich kid’s playground’”, says Matt Lim, the Artistic

Director of Punchline Theatre, who has taken six full shows to the festival in the last ten years. “It’s the same kind of financial and social elitism that discourages some really talented actors from applying to drama schools.” He says that the all-in cost for bringing a show to a festival is “around £10,000”; and that most new companies are paying out of their own pockets. It took Lim four years to pay back one show’s debts in installments. Rachael Young, who is taking two shows to the Fringe this year, Nightclubbing and Out, is the recipient of Summerhall’s new Eclipse Award, launched to support Black British Artists. The award includes a £10K cash bursary, marketing and press support and a ‘care package’ provided by Sick Of The Fringe. Young’s shows have been hotly tipped, and included on various ‘Highlights of the Fringe’ lists – but without the award, Young says she might not have made it to the festival. “I have been to the Fringe before, but only for a week,” she tells me. “Was it successful? We were nominated for a Total Theatre Award, so it was – but in terms of financially and mentally? It was a big strain.” Young always wanted to go to the Fringe for a longer run, but, until winning the award, viewed it as “financially impossible.” “Accommodation in Edinburgh at this time of year is absolutely ridiculous,” she says, when asked about how artists can be ‘priced out’ of the experience. “Some people wouldn’t be able to go because of that alone. It does

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mean that some people who are really talented, and could reap the benefits from that kind of exposure, can’t afford to go – the financial risk for some people is just too great if they don’t have any support.” What can be done? Awards such as The Eclipse are a wonderful step for greater support and representation. But Lim believes that the festival is “an economic bubble” bound “to burst” if more general restrictions aren’t applied to venue hires and accomodation prices – particularly when awards and grants are so scant and competitive. “Venue hire fees are extortionate and they should consider profit sharing and taking percentages, like we see in fringe venues up and down the rest of the country,” he says. “There has also got to be an enquiry into the prices of accomodation in the city during August.” Young agrees, stating that rental charges should be capped during the Festival season: “The Fringe needs to be a fairer place... [accomodation costs] make it really difficult.” Helena Collins doesn’t regret taking her show and Jerry the Koala to the festival this year, despite having to juggle jobs as a bartender, an office worker, a promoter and a drama facilitator to make it happen. “To take my own production – something exciting and different – to the Fringe: that in itself is a privilege,” she explains. “[Costs] wouldn’t deter me [from doing it again] because it’s a chance to be part of one of the world’s biggest festivals.”

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Life After Prison

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t the other end of mass incarceration, you have mass reintegration,” says Blake Habermann, the co-creator of Solitary, a show that examines the lasting psychological effects of solitary confinement. “In the US, 80% of people who have been released have been in solitary confinement. And you can be put in solitary confinement regardless of what crime you have committed.” He pauses. “We really have to deal with the reality of what these people face.” Both Solitary and Life Jacket Theater’s show America Is Hard To See study this reality; the variations and complexities of it, the struggle for rehabilitation and the ever-present weight of a criminal sentence. Solitary focuses on the effects and after effects of incarcerated solitary confinement, while America Is Hard To See settles its gaze upon a different sort of imposed isolation – one that continues after the prisoner’s release date. It’s a verbatim piece of documentary theatre drawn from interviews with the inhabitants of Miracle Village, a community of sex offenders in Florida who are prevented, by strict state laws, from re-entering normal society. Neither show offers any easy answers. “We’re theatre-makers, not journalists,” says Travis Russ, writer of America Is Hard to See. “We’re not interested in the truth; we’re interested in multiple truths.” Both plays aim to humanise the criminals at the heart of their stories – something Russ admits he initially struggled with. “[Our theatre company] is interested in people on the margins, and this idea floated to the surface... my first reaction was absolutely not, there’s no way we’re doing a show about that,” he tells me. “The moment that thought crossed my mind, was the moment I knew we had to do the show. As theatre-makers, we have a responsibility to talk about the things we can’t talk about in society. Theatre has a unique way to shed light on taboo topics.” ‘Beyond Words’: humanising ‘the criminal’ “We tried pretty explicitly not to make it about

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one of the testimonials we read,” says Habermann of the artistic process behind Solitary. “But the thing about them is that they’re all so similar.” Habermann read Charles Dickens’ account of visiting a London prison in 1836, A Visit to Newgate, as part of his research; he was shocked by how similar Dickens’ observations were to the testimonies of “a 17-yearold in solitary confinement in 2005. They say exactly the same things about what the experience is like. The medical documentation we read too – no matter the person, no matter the prison, after a certain amount of time, the same behaviours start to manifest.” This research led Habermann and co-creator Duane Cooper to realise they wanted to make Solitary about a universally applicable experience of confinement, rather than a single character’s journey. “We didn’t want to make it, you know, ‘the story of Bill’, or what Bill did,” claims Habermann. “[We were looking at] the routine of prison, the behaviours,” interjects Cooper, “and then we thought: can we show psychological deterioration through an object, as opposed to a person acting as if they were losing their mind?” The object they chose to use was a rope. At various points in the play, it represents the walls of the unnamed character’s cell, ‘a portal through which he’s entering something’ and the internal ‘state of his mind.’ Solitary features no dialogue or speech, and relies entirely on mime, physical theatre, and the use of this one essential prop. The result is a show that arguably humanises its protagonist in a specific way, entirely different to what dialogue or narrative would be able to achieve. Certain moments Habermann and Cooper refer to are heartbreakingly symbolic. “At a certain point, towards the end [of his time in solitary], he tears the rope down and ties it around him,” says Habermann. “In the third act, when he’s out in the world, he has the rope all wrapped around him. There’s a scene where he’s at a job interview, and while he’s gesturing, the rope is seeping out from under his jacket. It’s always with him.”

Interviews: Eliza Gearty

America Is Hard to See

Artistically, it was somewhat liberating, says Cooper, “not trying to come up with a clever turn of phrase to represent something; using a single object, using our bodies, to show what was happening rather than describing it – hopefully that makes it more impactful.” The symbolic nature of the show’s construction also allowed the piece to have more of a universal theme, “like a fable,” explains Habermann. By virtue of focusing more on the feelings and experience of solitary confinement, rather than the details of one man and his crime, Solitary’s criminal is much harder to judge. “We discussed at length, if he were to speak, what would he say?” says Habermann. “If we had dialogue, we would lose this fatalistic quality: we’d have to start thinking about who he is, what’s his name, where are we and what happened.” Music While America Is Hard to See does feature spoken narrative, a huge part of the show revolves around music. The 90 minute play includes eighteen ‘musical moments’ sung by the cast members. Music was intrinsically woven into the story from the beginning, says Russ. “It’s a key part of the narrative of this show. A lot of the men joined the choir of the pastor who invites them into her church – they sing and play instruments. We couldn’t not include it.” But Russ also suggests that music is a powerful tool for a show that raises such difficult and troubling questions. The traditional Methodist hymns that the men sing are “hundreds of years old,” Russ tells me, “And there’s something about hearing these hymns sung by people who committed these types of crimes, in a play about this topic... Initially, when I heard the real men in Florida sing, my instant reaction was, ‘you don’t have a right to sing these songs’. And then again, once that thought floated across my mind, I questioned: who has the right to ask for forgiveness? What are the limits of forgiveness? And I just thought – that’s the experience I want the audience to have. For them to recognise a hymn, that they have sung in

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Photo: T. Charles Erickson

Solitary

Photo: James Cuccio

The US is known for its high incarceration rate, locking up more people than anywhere else in the world. Two New York-based companies heading to the Fringe this summer linger on the question: what happens when they get out?

church perhaps, and wonder: who is allowed to ask for God’s grace and forgiveness?” Singing is a universal expression of joy and togetherness; by singing, the men demonstrate a humanity that contradicts the nature of the actions they committed. It’s a complicated and sensitive dynamic, but Russ says that’s exactly why the play is necessary: “this is a problem in society, and until we talk about it, the problem is never going to be solved. We don’t tell the audience how to feel, and we embrace the emotional confusion.” Moving forward Russ maintains that “the men in this play have caused a lot of damage and hurt a lot of real people.” Is rehabilitation possible? “The answer is I don’t know,” he replies. “As a theatre-maker, I’m interested in the struggle to move forward – the struggle to rehabilitate oneself. As human beings, we are very complicated. It’s a hard thing to deal with, but we have to open up the conversation to deal with this problem.” Solitary is entirely different in the sense that the individual’s crime is never specified. Habermann and Cooper, however, also believe that the question of rehabilitation is an important conversation to have, and that we must examine how ex-convicts are treated once they leave the system. “In the US, the idea of ‘do the crime, do the time’ is deeply conditioned into us,” says Habermann. “The other side of that is that when you get out, you are still a second-class citizen. You don’t have access to a lot of governmental services... you aren’t able to get a lot of jobs. The ripples of [prison], the echoes of that – they’re far worse than what we gain from punishing people [that way].” Russ agrees. “A lot of the time, we’re still treating people like criminals after they’ve done their time. If that’s true, why aren’t they still in jail?” Solitary, Assembly Rooms Powder Room, 1-24 Aug (not 12) America Is Hard To See, Underbelly, Colgate - Big Belly, 1-24 Aug (not 12)

THE SKINNY

August 2019

Hope is Important As Fringe darling Josie Long returns to the festival with her first full run in 5 years, we chat to her about being hopeful and how motherhood has unearthed boundless love

“I

’m coming to it afresh, I’ve got no expectations. I really, really want my show to be good. That’s all I want. If my show’s good and I have a shit time, but I know it’s good then that’s enough.” Perhaps a claim you’d expect to be made by a Fringe debutante, it is in fact Josie Long’s eighth Edinburgh hour. This year’s show sees Long reflect on life as a mother to a 15-month-old. “I just love being with my daughter. It’s the fact that you don’t know what they’ll be like, they’re showing you who they are – that’s the thrill.” She absolutely beams, “the first time she gave me a little cuddle and now she gives me little kisses. It’s just beautiful and I love it, and I just love getting to hang out with her and spending the day with her.”

“ I’m never gonna write a show that’s taking a wry swipe at the left cos eurgh, why would I do that? It’s not what I’m interested in and it’s not who I am” Josie Long

both really the same from any time and any place on Earth in so many ways and so there is this feeling that you get to be a little bit hippy and spiritual. [It’s] Earthy as fuck.” Although many will be familiar with Long’s relentless positivity, this life shift has brought about an outpouring of relentless, unconditional love. “My heart is so open and I feel so much love towards everything in the world and you feel so vulnerable.” A few days ago, she admits to crying at the telly because an accountant was nice. Baby animals are definitely within the crying realm too: “I found this lamb which had got separated from the rest of the flock, and it was just too much for me and my heart. We had to spend an afternoon making sure it got back to its shepherd. Basically, I feel like if you’ve got a little baby, you feel, for a little while, intensely, all the time, ‘How can anyone be cruel?’” With Ali Wong and Amy Schumer’s frank stand-up about pregnancy and birth, there’s potential for criticism about wholly positive experiences of birth. “The last thing I’d ever want is someone who themselves had a really difficult experience, to watch me and think that I was going ‘By the way guys, I did this because of me and I’m great.’ I have far more respect for women who have had more challenging births than me because they will have had to adapt to things they didn’t expect in the way that I never did,” she draws a breath, “and just birth is fucking BIG man, it’s elemental.” Having performed since the age of 14, Long has touched on a plethora of topics. Is there anything, however, that she feels uncoverable? “I don’t think I would do a show, for example, about my parents. It doesn’t feel fair on them because they don’t have a show

to talk about their view of it. But honestly, I would like to think that if I wanted to talk about it I would.” If anything, she suggests it’d be an aversion to different comedy styles. “I don’t think I’d be able to write a show that’s just one liners. Ever. And I don’t think I would write a show whose purpose would be to offend. I just would be bored by that. I just think it’s silly. I’m never gonna write a show that’s taking a wry swipe at the left cos eurgh, why would I do that? It’s not what I’m interested in and it’s not who I am.” For the past few shows, including 2014’s excellent Cara Josephine, Long’s venue of choice has been Edinburgh institution The Stand: “Yeah, the best venue in the whole place!” As many performers will agree, “It’s just a really amazing group of people that run it and the way they run it, it feels like it’s got real heart.” It also shines in comparison to some of the venues south of the border: “You don’t realise how good the room is until you do your show back in London and you’re like ‘Oh! The show’s shit! I thought this was a good show!’ It’s just great. It’s laid back but also they know exactly what they’re doing and they don’t fuck about.” That’s one saving grace for the current shitstorm that is the UK. Long maintains her hopefulness by remembering recent political wins, namely the surge in Labour Party popularity during 2017’s General Election: “We gained 20 points in the polls over six weeks and that was through young people, enthusiasm, optimism and a good offer.” If the same happens again, “there’s no limit to what might happen.” And even with all the doom and gloom, humanity copes. “People don’t just roll over and accept stuff, people fight it and they

Interview: Polly Glynn

work together and FUCKING UNDYING HUMAN SPIRIT MATE,” she exclaims triumphantly. Another slice of hope has been realised by her new motherhood. Not just at observing her daughter, but “understanding how much people soften and connect with their humanity around babies and young children. The one thing that separates us now from the horrifically prescient film Children of Men is that – thank fuck – people are still having babies. Honestly, I feel that if you have a child it invests you in the future of the planet and the future of humanity.” Long is enabling hope too. With friend and campaigner Neil Griffiths, she co-founded the charity Arts Emergency, an organisation which provides opportunities and support to young people from marginalised backgrounds with an interest in further education and the creative industries. “We want[ed] to create something that we wish we had.” In 2018, Arts Emergency offered nearly 300 opportunities to its young members and 96% of them applied to University. Looking forwards, the charity wants to expand into new locations with both mentors and mentees positioned around the country. “It’s not about getting money off people. It’s about asking for their time and expertise”. “We’ve slowly built it up from one college in Hackney to more and more of a national network, but it is our big goal to be everywhere”. Even though Long can prophesise what might be in store for her charity, she can’t foretell the Festival. “I can’t predict what this one will be like, but I’m offering myself up, humbly, to the Gods of the Fringe.” Josie Long: Tender, The Stand Comedy Club (Stand 1), until 25 Aug (not 12, 19), 8.20pm, £10-12

Photo: Giles Smith

Called Tender, Long’s Fringe offering examines the conflict of bringing someone precious and new into the world while everything else is on fire. It’s important to the comic that it’s a truthful and honest depiction of birth and motherhood. Why? Because each experience is unique and needs demystifying, “but at the same time the thing about childbirth is: no matter how it goes, every woman or man that comes out of it is a fucking hero.” Defining tenderness as not just gentleness and kindness, but living life in a floaty in-between state, becoming a mum has let Long explore new dimensions. “What’s exciting about pregnancy and birth is that they are

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Growing Pains Sophie Duker is already making waves in the comedy world with appearances on Mock the Week and Frankie Boyle’s New World Order, as well as running an infamous People of Colour comedy night. This August she embarks on her debut hour

ondon-born Sophie Duker has described herself as a ‘triple-threat’ minority: a Black, queer woman living in post-Brexit Britain. She’s also a triple-threat in terms of comedy chops, coming from an improv background and now making her way in the worlds of both stand-up and behind-the-scenes work on your favourite TV shows. Just now she’s working on previews for her debut Fringe show, Venus. “It’s a horrible process but necessary,” she explains. “I have to show this weird half-formed monster. I think doing previews is like having an ugly baby – people have generally been very nice, like they would if you had an ugly baby. I think I’m coming across as really anti-baby.” Like many comics, Duker started out treading the boards at university. “I did improv, which is the whitest, malest version of comedy. I loved it.” The joy of being on stage drew Duker to performing, but this proved difficult at the end of her degree. “When I left uni, I realised that it’s really hard to keep the band together, especially if the band is an improv troupe of quite high-achieving white men. I did stand-up kind of on a whim, and then kept doing it. I got into being by myself and being myself on stage – in improv you’re very rarely gonna be yourself, you’re gonna create something you can stand apart from. There’s a reluctance to be your authentic self.” That authentic self is now the heart and soul of Duker’s stand-up style. Silly, saucy, and deeply personal, her comedy touches on her life and every part of that triple-threat status. Much of the comedy we’ve seen in the last few decades has been skewed towards a certain demographic, so anyone outside the comedians’ norm became that person who talks about gender, or race, or disability. “I wanted to talk about the absurdity of being a token, and of being an outsider,” something that resonates with many comedians. “I wanted to make my experience relatable through comedy, to say ‘this is valid, but it’s also entertaining.’ I wanted to push that forward so it could be accepted.” “When I was doing improv, I felt like I was the only black girl in the world doing improv. There wasn’t any representation of people who looked like me, doing the sort of stuff that I was into, in my limited sphere. Now, it’s not as good as it could be, but there are so many comedians of colour, there are so many great women of colour doing comedy. I have contemporaries that I can look at and think ‘Oh cool, we’re going through some of the same stuff, but your material is completely different.’” Despite the widening field of comedians from diverse backgrounds, Duker still feels a weight of expectation on her shoulders to talk about certain topics. Last year’s mini show Diet Woke addressed this head-on. “I talk about the expectation that some people have for you to be woke, for you to be an ambassador for a community, and stereotypes that are projected on to me, as a black queer woman.” This isn’t entirely a bad thing, though: “When I think about myself ten years ago, the main positive difference is that I got hot and

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woke, and that’s great!” Duker laughs, “I got real fun at parties.” This year, Duker’s baby Venus will be her first full-length show at the Fringe. She tells me it’s an “unconventional journey of self-discovery,” and “gammon-friendly fun.” “It’s talking about race, sex and gender, and all the stuff that you might expect, but it also has stuff about pornography, sexy racists, daddy issues, Pokémon... I think if you’re in a minority group, people will always expect your work to have a political meaning. But it’s a fun, sexy show – I don’t think it’s a show that should alienate anyone.” Staying behind, however, is Duker’s first-born, the monthly comedy club night named Wacky Racists, which has been delighting London audiences since its birth in January 2018. “I produce it, I host it, it really is my baby. So it would be stressful, since I’ve already got my show [at the Fringe], my ugly baby. “The original tagline was ‘smash bigotry with funny’ – I think it’s what the alt-right think is the worst thing; it’s a snowglobe. It’s a place where we platform comedians of colour, but it’s also aiming for better representation across the board. “What I wanted Wacky to be is really silly and care-free, and a place to mess around with that stuff. The dark stuff, the light stuff, just do weird shit. We have stand-up, we play different kinds of games, we have a one-manwhite-man-house-band who plays problematic tunes. It’s like a party. There’s no manifesto of saying the unsayable, but because there’s so much love in the room, you get to do really great things.” Tapping into a rich seam of new comedic voices, Wacky Racists has featured stand-up from the likes of Dane Baptiste, London Hughes and Ahir Shah. Duker maintains that this is a night that is good for the audience, who can see something a bit different; good for comics, who get a space to try new material in a friendly atmosphere; and good for comedy in general.

“ When I think about myself 10 years ago, the main positive difference is that I got hot and woke, and that’s great!” Sophie Duker

“There’s so much creativity and so much dark humour. I find that people who are affected by oppression can be a good comedic mind – they’re used to dealing with bullshit on a daily basis. “We did a show this year and Nish Kumar was there, and he said ‘When I was starting out there wasn’t a place for comics of colour

Photo: Mahaneela

Interview: Jenni Ajderian

to do alternative stuff like this.’ People think there’s an Asian comedy scene and a Black comedy scene, and they’re not as well-regarded as the mainstream, which is largely white and middle-class. Every comedian of colour shows that you don’t have to be a certain kind of way, just because you’re Black or Asian.” Though the comedy night that smashed bigotry won’t be at the Fringe itself, other efforts are emerging to try to smash your internal bias. There are about a thousand comedy shows at the Fringe every year, and a tiny minority of them are by people of colour. According to Jessica Brough’s project Fringe of Colour, there are under 100 shows by comedians of colour this year. What are the chances, then, that you’ll stumble across one of these, and not follow the crowd to see some guy from

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Live at the Apollo? “Audiences are so thirsty for something different. People seem excited to go to them. I barely tell people who’s going to be on at Wacky, but people want to go because they believe in the night. “You’re not being targeted by Instagram ads for this show [by a comedian of colour], so you don’t realise your own internal bias. The more that people take risks on the kind of comedy that they see the better.” Duker sounds excited to bring her show to the Fringe, to support other artists, and to meet her audiences, gammon or not. “I really want people to see my baby. It’ll be beautiful! Please see my beautiful baby!” Sophie Duker: Venus, Pleasance Courtyard (Below), 31 Jul-25 Aug (not 14), 7pm, £6-£9

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Essential Edinburgh I

t’s here! When the Edinburgh Fringe and International Festival arrive, writing this column becomes a daunting task – there are just so many wonderful shows to choose from. We’ve done our best, though, to compile a comprehensive list of something for everyone: here goes...! The Traverse Festival 2019 has an absolutely fantastic programme this year featuring five world premieres, including Stef Smith’s Enough (1-25 Aug, not 5,12,19), and Meghan Tyler’s Crocodile Fever (2-25 Aug, not 5,12,19). Pulitzer Prize finalist Dael Orlandersmith brings her show Until The Flood (1-25 Aug, not 5,12,19), about the 2014 police shooting of black teenager Michael Brown and the ripple of after-effects it caused. Other Traverse must-sees include Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster (6-25 Aug, not 12,19), the Scottish premiere of the hugely acclaimed gig-theatre reimagining of Mary Shelley’s classic brought to life by London’s Battersea Arts Centre’s young collective; and Burgerz (1-25 Aug, not 5,12,19), Travis Alabanza’s show about reclaiming an act of violence – check out our interview with Travis over the page. For those interested in political theatre, Pizza Shop Heroes (Summerhall, 3-11 Aug), a show about four former child refugees working in a pizza parlour by refugee theatre company Phosphoros, and Cardboard Citizen’s Bystanders (Summerhall, 31 Jul-25 Aug, not

12,19), a collection of homeless histories and the company’s first show at the Fringe since 2017’s hugely successful Cathy, both look great. We’re psyched for Rachael Young’s Nightclubbing (Summerhall, 31 Jul - 11 Aug), an explosive dance and drama performance with themes of afro-futurism, colourism, time travel and the endless inspiration that is Grace Jones. It can be hard to get noticed at the Fringe when you’re new and starting out, which is why we included a Fringe Firsts feature selecting the best new work coming to the Fringe for the first time this year (read it on p25). Other shows that piqued our interest but didn’t quite make the cut for the article included Never None (but She) (The Space Triplex, 2-10 & 19-24 Aug), an original play merging music, movement and traditional story-telling by new, female and non binary-led company Afterglow. Fox (Pleasance Courtyard, 1-25 Aug) is a meditative and intelligent reflection on motherhood, homelessness and our complex relationship with asking for help in an increasingly isolating society. Family-friendly shows for everyone to enjoy include Islander (Summerhall, 31 Jul-25 Aug, not 6,13,20), a new, magical-sounding musical with a contemporary Scottish folk-inspired score; Kid X (Assembly Roxy, 20-25 Aug), a futuristic hip-hop play with songs; and I Piano (Pianodrome at the Pitt, 7-11 Aug), an interactive kids show featuring

Words: Eliza Gearty

Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster

music and shadow puppetry in an ampitheatre built entirely out of junked pianos. For now we see through a mirror, darkly (Greenside Nicholson Square, 13-24 Aug, not 18,19) and Learning from the Future (Dancebase, 20-24 Aug) are two dance shows that sound deliciously freaky (I won’t say more). You have plenty of opportunities to see some top quality drag performance this year, highlights including Leyla Josephine’s Daddy Drag at Summerhall (31 Jul-25 Aug not 1,12,19)

Photo: Joyce Nicholls

The biggest arts festival in the world is upon us. We round-up the must-see shows

and Alfie Ordinary’s Help! I Think I Might Be Fabulous! at the Gilded Balloon Rose Theatre (31 Jul-25 Aug). Cat Hepburn will be performing her one-woman show based on her wonderful poetry book, #GIRLHOOD, at the Rose Theatre too (31 Jul-25 Aug, not 12,19). That’s just a snapshot of the many, many productions arriving in the city this August. Take a deep breath, dive in and enjoy! theskinny.co.uk/festivals

An Angry Scream

Lucianne McEvoy in rehearsals for Crocodile Fever

t was during a stay with her dad in her hometown in Northern Ireland that the writer Meghan Tyler first got the idea for her play, Crocodile Fever. She was watching TV – “you know that particular sort of TV you watch with your parents?” – and Steve Backshall’s documentary, Down The River, came on. “This guy was travelling around [the Baliem river in Papua New Guinea], meeting different tribes and talking to people,” says Tyler. “He met [members of] the Asmat tribe – and they have a particular myth about

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crocodiles. They think that crocodiles are the reincarnation of evil human beings.” When the crocodiles threaten the community, the customary ritual is to hunt and cook them. The image of the reptile as a bad person whose victims are eventually avenged stuck with Tyler, but “at the same time,” she says, “I had dialogue in my head about sisters set in my hometown... and those two ideas somehow just came together.” The result was Crocodile Fever – a black comedy set in Northern Ireland in 1989, about

Photo: Lauren McLay

The Skinny chats to Meghan Tyler about her play Crocodile Fever, and gets an exclusive invite into the rehearsal room ahead of its world premiere two sisters, Alanna and Fianna, and their abusive father (the ‘crocodile’ of the title). The show, commissioned by the Traverse Theatre to appear as part of its Festival programme this year, is more broadly about “abuse, overcoming abuse, feminism, #MeToo, Northern Ireland, the Catholic Church and the British Army”. We were lucky enough to be invited into the production room during the third week of rehearsals, to have a chat with Tyler and catch a glimpse of the show ahead of its world premiere on 2 August. Tyler feels that the show’s era and setting is “the perfect metaphor” for the family dynamic at play in Crocodile Fever. Northern Ireland in 1989 was “a pressure cooker,” she says, and the atmosphere of the play itself “is quite oppressive”; it’s muggy, a storm is about to break, and the characters – from what we can guess from the poster design of the two wielding chainsaws – are on the brink of some serious, soul-unleashing rage. “There were three prongs of oppression in Northern Ireland in the late 80s,” she tells me. “The oppression by the Catholic Church; the oppression by the British Army; and the oppression by men in the family home.” These strands clearly intersect and overlap in Crocodile Fever. The wall of the rehearsal room is covered with pictures of 80s, largely pink decor, alongside photos of Belfast

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Interview: Eliza Gearty blasted by gun-carrying British soldiers and IRA propaganda; in the scene we see rehearsed, Lisa Dwyer Hogg’s Fianna taunts Lucianne McEvoy’s highly-strung Alannah for wearing her hair like ‘a nun’. Normative ideals of femininity, political and religious dictations and the reign of the family patriarch are all interchangeable constraints here, all part of the same world. Alannah and Fianna may be “polar-opposites” at the start of the play – one a house-bound, devout Catholic, the other an IRA rebel – but their shared experience of oppression draws them together, creating “very similar internal motors” that express rage and trauma in “different ways.” Why should audiences see a play about 1980s Northern Ireland now? “It’s such a scream – and an angry one – at a world that is… well, so bloody shit,” laughs Tyler. “It’s a really dark comedy, and there are so many laughs in it. I love giving an audience a good night out at the theatre, but I also want an audience to leave absolutely pumped – like how you feel at the end of Thelma and Louise, when they drive off the cliff and you go: ‘Yes, girls!’. That feeling of being uplifted and feisty again – that’s my intention with this piece.” Crocodile Fever, Traverse Theatre (Traverse 1), 2-25 Aug (not 5, 12, 19), various times, £9-22 traverse.co.uk/whats-on/event/crocodile-fever

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Loud, bold and present W

ith a deluge of performers flooding every last performance space during the Fringe, it can be hard to work out what, exactly, is worth your time. The multicoloured flyers strewn across the pavements all claim to be the ticket to the next hottest thing but, more often than not, the fantasy — and hyperbolic pull quotes — fails to deliver. Even the most optimistic among us can’t help but feel a bit jaded by the hollow promises of festival advertising, making it all the more gratifying when we stumble across a show that actually delivers on the hype. Burgerz, by performance artist and poet Travis Alabanza, is one such show. Fresh off a stint showing in Berlin after debuting in London in 2018, it’s a vital piece of theatre interrogating the issue of rising transphobic abuse from Alabanza’s own experience. However, it also flips the script to turn the attention to the audience’s own potential complicity in this phenomenon. In this way, it creates an avenue to examine the role of cis complacency and lack of empathy towards trans individuals in allowing this violence — in both its physical and systemic forms — to continue unchecked. In preparation for Burgerz’s Edinburgh run at the Traverse Theatre, Alabanza speaks about the importance of creating a trans theatrical canon, the stage as a safe(r) space to explore identity and the power of theatre to intervene in public opinion. “For me, I didn’t want to create a show about my identity that stopped and started with me,” says Alabanza, speaking across the phone from Berlin. “We’ve got quite comfortable with theatre watching marginalised and oppressed people go on stage and say ‘here is my story here is my pain, now feel empathy’.” They didn’t want to make a show that isolated them in their trauma while allowing cis audiences to ignore the role they play in creating it. “Sometimes we put so much pressure on marginalised people to come up with all the answers to our questions and instead I just wanted to create a show that was like, ‘this issue of transphobia and trans attacks and trans hate crime is actually not about me, it’s about all of you’.” As the (overused) saying goes, ‘the personal is political’ and, as much as Burgerz is decidedly not a show that starts and ends with Alabanza, their decision to perform it is a personal one. “I think that a lot of trans people and marginalised people go on the stage and perform because we’re already doing a performance to stay safe.” It makes sense, then, that it’s when they’re under the theatre lights that Alabanza feels their most authentic. “When I go onstage I’m the most honest version of myself. I’m the self that I have to hide in public.” The kind of cultural work that Alabanza is engaged in directly addresses this toxic context of a discrimination that makes trans and gender-non-conforming individuals afraid to express themselves in the public space, forcing them into perpetual vigilance at the threat of attack or harassment. At such a time, Alabanza knows that theatre has a particularly important role to play in amplifying the trans experience. “In the UK we’ve had such a year of

trans violence. Recently the BBC announced an 83 percent increase in trans hate crime just from last year. “When we’re dealing with those statistics we need trans theatre to be loud, bold and present. It’s not a moment for us to be like, ‘maybe we’ve had enough of our identity work’. Maybe some identities have, but trans people are being beaten up; it’s urgent. I don’t know how to write letters as well or write amazing articles but what I do know is how to make performance, and that’s where this show kind of comes from.”

“ For me, when I go onstage, I’m the most honest version of myself. I’m the self that I have to hide in public” Travis Alabanza

Not only does Alabanza’s show deal with trans identity and the hatred that has been allowed to manifest against trans and non-binary people, it also deals with their intersecting Black identity. Rates of violence

and discrimination against trans people of colour (particularly women and non-binary femmes) in various parts of the world, like the US, are higher than against their white counterparts due to the ways that transphobia is compounded by racism and misogyny. As Alabanza explains, “I don’t really know how to make work about gender that isn’t also about my race.” In addition to addressing the multifaceted discrimination that trans people of colour face, the show also seeks to combat the persistent erasure that they are subjected to. Where so much of the LGBTQIA+ community has been complicit in wider society’s attempts to invisibilise people of colour – through the white-washing of the Stonewall narrative or the lack of recognition that queer culture goes beyond white queer culture – Burgerz undertakes important work in addressing this and affirming QTPOC identity throughout the decades. “We have to go back in order to go forward because so much of history has erased the fact that black and brown people have been trans and gender non-conforming for lots of years.” The ways that trans people of colour have been overlooked and excluded is also apparent within the theatre world which poses problems regarding the way that Burgerz has been classified by critics unaccustomed with what to do with a multifaceted show. “It’s like where is our canon of trans theatre, full stop. But also where is our canon of trans theatre that’s not white?” Continuing, they explain that, “When you’re on a nexus of making both black and trans theatre it’s really hard to find where your people are because you can feel

Interview: Megan Wallace

ignored by those lists that are like ‘Top 5 Black Shows To See’. [Journalists] are not really seeing a trans show by a black person as being black as well, and then you kind of get left out of the queer show [coverage] as well.” Burgerz will hopefully reach a more diverse audience than the sea of white faces which make up the Fringe’s typical audience due to collaboration with projects Fringe of Colour and the Black Ticket Project, who are teaming up to provide free tickets to young trans people of colour. However, Alabanza notes that while Burgerz might be particularly affirming for trans people of colour or other QTPOC, it is also an important show for the cis, white bystanders who too often think that racism and transphobia have nothing to do with them. “This show is not just for my community, it’s also talking to lots of the people who are silent. An all-white audience might be hard and they might not get all of the references but they’ll also get a lot of the show pointed at them.” In fact, getting this kind of audience through the door is also what will help further Burgerz’s message. “When do I ever get white, cisgender, upper-class people around me? They’re not around me in my everyday life. I grew up on a council estate that was predominantly Black and Brown and I don’t have many of those people in my day to day interactions,” they say. “Here I’ve got an hour where I’ve got a mix of people I wouldn’t normally speak to. I’ve got an hour to change their minds and I’ve got an hour to force some action on to them.” Burgerz, Traverse Theatre, 1-25 Aug (not 5,12,19), times vary, £5-£21 traverse.co.uk/whats-on/event/burgerz

Burgerz

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Photo: Holly Revell

Performance artist and poet Travis Alabanza speaks to the Skinny about the importance of creating a trans theatrical canon and the stage as a safe(r) space to explore identity

August 2019

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Fringe Firsts With so many shows to see at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, it can be easy for great new work to fall under the radar. That’s why we’re profiling six shows from new and emerging companies – all bringing their work to 2019’s festival for the very first time

Butterflies (High School Yards, Zoo Playground) 2-26 Aug Flat4 is a brand new, female and LGBTQ led theatre company, whose debut play Butterflies sold out at London’s Vaults Festival earlier this year. Focusing on ‘three girls, three bedrooms, and three phones’, Butterflies tells the story of Shannon, Frankie and Floss – a working-class teenager infatuated with her Call of Duty obsessed boyfriend; a closeted uni student using Tinder to explore her sexuality for the first time; and the latest YouTube sensation battling an ex threatening to share revenge porn. Told in three interwoven monologues, this piece sounds like a funny and clever portrayal of the interrelations between technology and modern female experience. tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/butterflies

poignant and vital because, as Lagahoo’s Artistic Director Emily Aboud states, “the horrific sadness of this piece is that it is a wholly Caribbean piece that cannot safely exist in the Caribbean.” Lagahoo’s hope is that Splintered will make a “small but vital step in creating space for Caribbean artists on UK stages”; and, as Lagahoo is made up of graduates of the fantastic New Diorama Graduate Company and the Soho Theatre Young Company, it’s bound to be good. tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/splintered

Splintered (Bedlam Theatre) 31 Jul-25 Aug (not 13 & 20 Aug) Lagahoo Productions creates work about and by Caribbean people, who are under-represented on British stages. Their first Edinburgh Fringe show, Splintered, is a defiant cabarettheatre piece about issues of homophobia and misogyny in the Caribbean, developed from interviews with queer women from Trinidad and Tobago, and featuring a cast of queer Caribbean actresses of colour. It’s all the more

Splintered

Photo: Myah Jeffers

FATTY FAT FAT (The Attic, Pleasance Courtyard) 31 Jul-26 Aug (not 13 Aug) London-based poet Katie Greenall has been making waves for a while as the Roundhouse’s Resident Artist, and now she’s written an autobiographical one-woman show, Fatty Fat Fat. It received rave reviews when it premiered at Vault Festival, hailed as a funny, sensitive and exciting exploration of fatness within feminism, and how it feels to live in a body that everyone has an opinion on. Expect to laugh, cry and eat crisps. tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/fatty-fat-fat Moonbird (Beside, Pleasance Courtyard) 31 Jul-26 Aug (not 12 & 20 Aug) After ten years of working with Deaf and hear-

Words: Eliza Gearty

ing young people, Handprint Theatre are bringing a cast of Deaf and hearing actors to the Fringe to share this story of family growth and acceptance. Suitable for Deaf and hearing families, the piece is adapted from Joyce Dunbar and Jane Ray’s popular children’s book Moonbird, which follows a family’s journey as they struggle to communicate, before realising that listening is not always about hearing. The show features British Sign Language, spoken English, physicality and puppetry, promising to be masterfully crafted as well as a beautiful story. tickets.edfringe. com/whats-on/moonbird Twice Over (Fern Studio, Greenside @ Nicholson Square) 2-10 Aug Twice Over examines the lives of two workingclass women under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May. Through the lens of these two characters, Edinburgh-based writers Jane Prinsley and Eve Simpson lend a voice to history’s forgotten working women and ask what progress has been made during the last 30 years of British politics. With Jane’s establishment of the Edinburgh Alternative Theatre Festival in March, and Eva’s recent production of her own musical adaption of Lorca’s poetry, they both seem to be formidable new talents. tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/twice-over

Chris Thorpe: Status is ‘Not a Brexit Show’ Chris Thorpe tells us how his Edinburgh Festival Fringe show is about ‘the psychology of nationality’ but ‘pretty Brexit-proof’

Last year Status won the Fringe First Award – has it changed much since then, in the wake of the delay to Brexit and the EU elections? It’s changed in its relationship with the audience I think. But also it’s not a ‘Brexit show’ in the sense that it doesn’t try to be topical about Brexit. So unlike most of life at the moment, it’s actually pretty Brexit-proof. I’ve already used that word in this answer more times than it appears in the show

Status has toured all around the UK and Europe – did it receive different receptions in England and Germany to its reception in Scotland? Because I’m English, but a lot of the identity I talk about having on the show is British, there’s a different slant on that in Scotland for

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sure. There’s a valid viewpoint that the British identity I’m talking about isn’t chosen (willingly at least) by a lot of Scottish people. But I’m not claiming anything other than my own perspective, so people get that. It resonates even though the identity I’m talking about isn’t shared by everyone in the room. Because it’s about the tension between having an identity, a history thrust upon you, and the privilege it gives some people and not others, and the fact that these constructed, arbitrary things are real and have real weight, and as long as I’m talking honestly about who and what I am, I’m hopefully allowing other people to see the show in the light of their own version of that.

much more complex stuff about who I am and which version of me is telling the story. And I don’t pretend I can’t see you – we’re all in the room together and I can look you in the eye (there’s no audience participation though). It looks traditional but maybe it bends reality and works on your head in a non-traditional way. There’s some beautiful video and sound design by Andrzej Goulding and Tanuja Amarasuriya which twists the ‘real world’ in some non-traditional directions for sure.

As which nationality do you identify? Does it matter how we identify? I don’t care about how people identify themselves. But I guess I’m more likely to identify myself as British, and even English now, and accept the terrible shit that that makes you part of. I feel deeply European too, and I always will. But if I don’t claim some kind of Britishness then I leave the direction of that to the Tommy Robinsons of this world, and fuck that. Status, Assembly George Square – The Blue Room, 17-24 Aug, 10.25am

Can you elaborate a bit on the form/genre of Status? It’s a story with songs on one level, which is about as traditional as it gets. But it plays with who I am. I’m telling a largely autobiographical story on some level, but also I’m being the other people in that story, without (hopefully) any acting. I don’t refer to myself in the first person because I’m telling a story about a version of myself and I’m uncomfortable with the fact that that version of myself is a bit of a fucking idiot. So overlaid on that quite traditional form, there’s hopefully some

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Status

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Photo: The Other Richard

What is Status and what makes it different to all the other shows on during the Fringe? Chris Thorpe: Status is a show about the psychology of nationality. It’s also a partlyimpossible, daft story about trying to escape your own nationality, with some songs in it. As for what makes it different: it’s got me in it! Which isn’t true of any of the other shows unless I’ve really fucked up my scheduling.

Interview: Chris Dobson

Local Knowledge Local(ish) acts ask each other local(ish) questions about their Fringe experiences, definitely not ripped off from a well-known radio programme which rhymes with ‘main attraction’ Interview: Amy Matthews, Stuart McPherson, Christopher KC, Gareth Mutch, and Daisy Earl

he Edinburgh Fringe can be like marmite to locals (although that smell’s just the yeast from the Brewery). Amy Matthews (AM), Stuart McPherson (SM), Christopher KC (CKC), Gareth Mutch (GM) and Daisy Earl (DE) ask each other how best to survive the Festival.

DE: What’s the worst show you’ve ever done? GM: Easy. I did a Fringe preview two years ago in Dunfermline for my show Mutch Ado About Nothing where all the audience thought I was doing a one man Shakespeare hour. That’s not what they got. Instead, it was an hour of dick jokes & personal tales of woe. Instant regret for everyone involved. So bad, it made it into last year’s show. GM: This year you won Best Newcomer at the Scottish Comedy Awards, so you’ve obviously had a successful 2018-19. What have been your highlights? AM: The last year has been so much fun! I genuinely didn’t expect the award so that was a pleasant surprise and made me a very happy bunny. Being on TV with BBC’s Comedy Underground was great. Supporting Alfie Brown for his Edinburgh tour date was lovely and I felt very lucky to open for him. Beyond ‘firsts’ and milestones though, I just feel like I’ve found my thing. I’ve spent so much time finding creative outlets throughout my life, it’s great to have settled on one that I love and can do for a job. GM: Comedy can be a tough slog of an industry and we all at some point face the idea of stopping. What or who has made you keep going? AM: As well as celebrating the success of comedy peers, I guess I’m very lucky to have a partner who does this weird and wonderful job as well. People often think comics going out with comics is a nightmare (Lou Sanders once asked me if my boyfriend was a comic – I said yes and she retched) but he is a great stabiliser. I had an awful gig once and I came home, he understood, he kissed me, accidentally burped in my mouth and it came through my nose. Supportive. Lovely. AM: What do you do outside of performing on a Fringe day? CKC: I like to walk around a lot during the festival because of the atmosphere. It makes me feel part of it. I like how frequently I bump

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into fellow comedians, like crossing corridors with work colleagues, except you don’t awkwardly put on a benign smile, look them in the eye and sheepishly say ‘Hi!’. It is surprisingly an enjoyable experience with small chat, finding out their recommendations for shows and seeing how theirs are going. AM: What 3 things get you through the Fringe? CKC: 1) Piemaker: It’s like Greggs, but better. My go-to place for a quick bite or after a great/ bad gig. Vegan friendly and open late during the festival. 2) Casio F-91W: An ugly, cheapo plastic watch, which is worn by most comedians for an invaluable feature: Stopwatch. Means you can be on stage and realise how long that one person in the front row hates your guts. Oh! And it tells the time. 3) Water: It is important to stay hydrated.

not being able to attend your housewarming barbecue. I know I text, but it’s nice to have it publicly noted. Big love for the phrase ‘eatery place’, by the way. My favourite is Ting Thai Caravan on Bristo Square. I was originally going to call my show ‘Mun Tod’ after the name for sweet potato fries on their menu. I love it. I always piss about for ages looking at the menu before ordering the same thing: green curry, fried rice and Mun Tod. Always delicious and good value for money. CKC: What is your favourite Fringe show you’ve ever seen? SM: I’ve been lucky enough to see tons of amazing shows through the years but I’d have to say James Acaster’s show Recognise at the Cabaret Bar (before they made it look like an IKEA) still stands out as the best. I never knew what to expect going in and was just blown away by how consistently funny and unique it was. I’d never seen anything like it. It was before I started stand-up and, whilst finding it inspiring, it also set an unattainably high standard that I find creatively stifling to this day.

AM: What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve spent money on during Fringe? CKC: A navy-blue single bed sheet. Not for the purposes you’re thinking, ya dirty! I naively didn’t realise I needed a projector screen for my show. I did the next best thing, thinking it would suffice, by buying the cheapest bed sheet I could find in some retail park and hung it up. Because the sheet was cheap and had such a low thread count, the projection shone straight through it and all the audience saw was a dimly lit bedsheet for the majority of the show. Absolute disaster.

CKC: Have you any memorable flyerer interactions from the past? SM: My most memorable flyering moment was probably 2 years ago when I flyered an American woman so badly, and apologetically, that she decided to take all the flyers and start flyering for me on my behalf.

CKC: What is your go-to eatery place you frequent most at the Fringe? SM: Hello sweet Chris. May I first apologise for

SM You will have now done Festival runs as both a visitor, and as an Edinburgh local. How do they compare, and which do you prefer?

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Photo: Carlos Delgado [CC BY-SA 3.0]

DE: We both started on the Scottish comedy scene – do you find there’s a difference between Scottish and English audiences? GM: I’ve not really experienced that much of a difference. I’m maybe more comfortable in Scotland as that’s where my humour has come from and I gig here more often, so it’s what I know. I’ve been very lucky to go on tour with Tom Stade and Iain Stirling, so getting to play The Lowry in Salford and Edinburgh’s King’s Theatre with them has given me experience of playing in big rooms all across the country. I don’t think my jokes are place-specific. Everyone knows their parents and knows someone who doesn’t like scary films; audiences are pretty similar.

DE: I definitely prefer doing the festival as an Edinburgh local as it is much, much, MUCH cheaper! But I have to admit now that I don’t live in Edinburgh, I get even more excited about coming back. Edinburgh is an incredible city, especially during the Fringe, and bumping into Scottish acts really makes me feel like I’m back in my comedy home. SM: Do you have any safe havens in (or outside of) the city to escape the noise of the Fringe when it gets too much? DE: I have an incredible safe haven which I don’t want to show off about too much – it’s my Grandad Scotland’s house. He is the most adorable man in the world (that is objective fact!!) and watching cowboy films with him and eating Tunnocks teacakes is my ultimate happy place and the perfect antidote to Fringe nonsense. SM: What’s the longest amount of time you’ve spent getting through the 12 feet of pavement at the bus stop outside Lidl on Nicolson Street? DE: 2 hours 43 minutes. The Life Aquatic with Amy Matthews, Monkey Barrel (Monkey Barrel 5), until 25 Aug (not 13), 1.10pm, £3/ PWYW Stuart McPherson: Mr November, Monkey Barrel (Monkey Barrel 5), until 25 Aug (not 13), 1.55pm, £5/ PWYW Christopher KC: Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Rice, Gilded Balloon at Old Tolbooth Market (Bothy), until 25 Aug (not 12), 4.15pm, £6 Gareth Mutch: The Old Man in the Carvery, Gilded Balloon Rose Theatre (Attic), until 25 Aug (not 14), 8.30pm, £8-£10 Daisy Earl: Fairy Elephant, Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose (Nip), until 26 Aug (not 12), 4pm, £7.50-£9.50

THE SKINNY

August 2019

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Pedigree chums hallo and hooray !!! its time to announce the categories for the fourth annual terrier awards Words: Fringe Dog Illustration: Julija Straizyte best buried bone you know when you dig a hidey hole so good you cannot remember where it is ??? this award is for a comedian who has gone underground like that. an underrated underdog who courts no publicity, in a venue so well concealed we’re not sure where we’ve left them. we may never find the winning comedian, and they may never know they won award !!! best 5star review it give me great pleasure to recognise journalism for the first time in these awards !!! theres one billion trillion stars in the observable universe .yet only four~hundred 5star reviews were published at last years fringe !!! just as dogs respond to positive reinforcement ( usually biscuit !!!) this award is to encourage critics to observe reality better and write more accurate reviews. (note: critics may enter as many times as they write 5star reviews !!!) best forth rail bridge this award will go the show with the most unique narrative structure !!!

least dogmatic comedian it was the poet wb yeats who wrote: ‘the best lack all convictions and the worst are very naughty...’ we all know what he meant by that. he was saying that it isn’t easy to be easy going. if you’re the sort of person who isn’t a biscuitmiser, who shares biscuits liberally, i bet people tell you that you’re soft in the head –even when your biscuits are very crunchy !!! this award will go to someone who is gentle and kind in a headstrong era !!! best kennel this award goes to the most accessible venue —for dogs !!! best hairy basket some comedy shows only take a comedian and a microphone to be very brilliant. others involve all kinds of props and perishables strewn all about the place. this award will recognise that kind of show, one that leaves the most debris onstage –a 5star mess in pursuit of 5star comedy !!! (note: all mess must be made during the comedy show only. general litterin, street

flytippin’ and trips in the car to the dump do not qualify your show for hairy basket award. edimbrugh city council have been very clear about this.)

first ‘the wrestling’ by max and ivan in 2011 . this award is for you to share your favourite brilliant fringe shows from 2010-19 with me on twitter. do @ me !!!

best fringe show of the decade o boy its the last edimbrugh fringe of the decade, the decade we havent worked out the name of !!! some say its the teens but the decade started earlier than that !!! in 2010 there were already briliant fringe shows like ‘words, words, words’ by bo burnham or the

love from fringe dog twitter.com/fringedog the winners for the fourth annual terrier awards for comedy, theatre and journalism will be announced at theskinny.co.uk on friday 26th august in the mornin if we are awake.

Mental Health Self Care and the Fringe The Fringe can be a tough old slog for everyone in Edinburgh. Emma O’Brien speaks to comedian Juliette Burton and has a brainwave which might save the day

“ The mental wellbeing of ourselves and anyone we see, review or take a flyer from during the month should be a constant consideration” Having gone undercover as a flyerer in 2017, on annual leave from my day job as a

August 2019

Juliette Burton

Photo: Steve Ullathorne

nyone who’s ever attended a Fringe (even for just a couple of days) would likely acknowledge that while it’s an experience like nothing else on Earth, it’s also one that takes a toll, both physical and emotional, on everyone from the punters to the left luggage staff at Waverley.

mental health worker, I was especially struck by the relentless pressure on performers and began to worry this couldn’t be doing them much good. Comedians in particular seem to bear the brunt of this, as many of them are solo artists as opposed to theatre companies, and many have invested huge time and money in often gut-wrenchingly personal shows, flyering hostile audiences in torrential rain, and running the risk of playing to empty rooms. I’ve even heard the chilling tale of one reviewer who was the sole audience for an hour of improv-based mime which the performer gamely went ahead with – surely not the only time it’s happened. Juliette Burton, a veteran of the last six Fringes, notes that there’s a double bind for both established and new performers in that “the issues that make the Free Fringe stressful are removed if you’re in the Big Four (venues), but in those there’s a lot more pressure.” Not that the Free Fringe route is without its stressors – she describes the benefits of supportive venue staff and a network of other sympathetic performers that come with a paid venue. Fringe Central and Equity have also taken a real interest in artists’ wellbeing, but what’s critical here is making sure those who need a service know it’s there – I discovered quite by accident last year that the University GP practice can offer care to Fringe visitors;

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Interview: Emma O’Brien

several performers I encountered afterwards didn’t know this either. None of this is to say that the experience for fledgling comedians is neither valuable nor enjoyable. Merely it’s that the mental wellbeing of ourselves and anyone we see, review or take a flyer from during the month should be a constant consideration and all potential sources of support clearly signposted where those in need are likely to find them. During my flyering run, I often pondered hiring a rickshaw to pedal about dispensing tea, hugs, advice not to promote on the Royal Mile and reinforcement that simply bringing a show up at all is an awesome achievement. Burton agrees, and then surprises me with the delightful thought that during some of her most difficult times of recent years, while developing her shows, she’s been buffered and consoled by “knowing that at the end of it there’s going to be an audience there, and we’re all going to laugh about it, and they will all have felt as lost and lonely at some point, because that’s where the best comedy comes from.” Wise words. In conclusion: it’s a wonderful, boisterous carnival out there. Look after yourself, be kind to flyerers, don’t put buttons in buckets and laugh a lot, always. Juliette Burton: Defined, Gilded Balloon Teviot (Sportsmans), until 25 Aug (not 12), 5.30pm, £9-£11

A Better Tomorrow Ahead of his visit as a guest selector at 2019’s Edinburgh International Book Festival, DeRay Mckesson speaks to The Skinny about his book – On the Other Side of Freedom – the power of language, and his brilliant events at Charlotte Square Gardens

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continue onwards. “We get so few wins on our side – sometimes you fight a lifetime and feel like nothing has changed,” says Mckesson. “One of the things that I’m always mindful of – it isn’t in the book because I didn’t know it then – is that the police have killed more people since the protests, not less. And you think about all the energy we put in, all the protesters put in, and we never would have thought that more people would have been killed today than less. That’s a wild thing to be reckoned with. In the absence of hope, it can lead you to just give up, to say, ‘Why would I do this?’ “When I hear, ‘Well the system is broken’, and people say, ‘No, it’s designed to be like that’, my take-away is that it was designed. People made it up, and because people made it up, we can make something better, and that keeps me rooted. “I think that too often people think of hope as magic. People think of hope as a willy-nilly belief that everything’s going to work out. Hope is work; hope is recognition that tomorrow can be better than today. It’s not an

acknowledgement that tomorrow will be better, because we don’t know, but it is a recognition that it can be.” These are all ideas that he looks to bring to Edinburgh International Book Festival as one of their guest selectors. Alongside his own event, he will host Ibram X Kendi, founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center in Washington; Casey Gerald, whose memoir There Will Be No Miracles Here traces the fault lines in American racial and masculine identity; Fatima Bhutto and Regina Porter, whose The Runaways and The Travelers respectively offer sweeping portrayals of life in Pakistan and the USA; and Jeanne Marie Laskas on To Obama, exploring how correspondence received by President Obama can capture the feelings of a nation. But what was Mckesson looking to share with these events? “I’m interested in how we have conversations that people learn from. I’ve been to enough conversations over the last couple of years that are interesting, and I like the author, and I sort of like the book,” he

laughs, “but I walked away and I didn’t learn anything, you know? Every time I hear Ibram talk, I learn something. Every time I hear Casey talk about the world and the way he sees it, I learn something. They also understand the power of words to shape the way we think about the world that we live in. I want people to walk away from the events not only being like ‘that was interesting’, but feeling like they learned something. That to me would be the highest accomplishment.”

“ Hope is work; hope is recognition that tomorrow can be better than today” DeRay Mckesson

Mckesson is a tireless activist and, rather than delve further into what will be discussed at his own event, it feels fitting to end here with action: what would his advice be to truly fight for change? “Remember, anything that’s ever changed the world has started out in a living room or porch or hallway. The changes that actually matter at scale never start off big. People forget that. “We also have to remember to fight for what we know we deserve, not what we think we can get. I think that too often we walk into the room and we’re like, ‘we think they’ll concede on this, so that’s what we ask for’, as opposed to saying: ‘We deserve this.’ “The hard part about the left is that we’re always fighting for a world we’ve never seen but believe is possible, so we’ve never seen a world where every kid gets breakfast, lunch and dinner – you’ve not lived in that world, I’ve not lived in that world, but I know that world is possible. When I walk into rooms, I’m fighting for that, I’m not fighting for some watereddown world. “But don’t try to be me! Be you. I did it one way, and this is certainly not the only way to do it. I learn from people all the time. I’ve learned from people older, I’ve learned from people younger, and I’m proud to continue learning, to be in places where people push what I think about the world.” DeRay Mckesson’s events will be at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 10 & 11 Aug His book, On the Other Side of Freedom, is out now

Photo: Blair Caldwell

anguage is the first act.’ These words open DeRay Mckesson’s On the Other Side of Freedom, as he looks back on his experiences of activism and his continued work these last few years, while reflecting on the lessons he’s learned. At the time of speaking, it’s almost five years since the protests in Ferguson began, which saw Mckesson drop everything and move, taking to the streets for 400 days in protest of the fatal shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown Jr at the hands of police. In 2014, Twitter was where the story of Ferguson formed. It’s been said repeatedly that without the social media push, Missouri would have made it appear no one was there, and nothing was happening. It’s in this ability to take your own narrative and tell it without constraint that Mckesson finds power, when institutions, law enforcement, and influential people can try to shut down truth. “The power to define shapes the entire conversation,” explains Mckesson, “which is why it was important for me to write the book and put these things on paper myself. One thing I learned over the past five years is about how language really is the first act.” “For me, it was necessity,” he continues, on finding the words to navigate and unpack the world around him, where – by his own admission – they weren’t there to begin with. “People forget that we were in the streets for 400 days, they forget that we couldn’t stand still in August, September, October 2014 – that if we stood still for more than five seconds, we were arrested. People forget those things. I never forget them. They still feel really present every single day. And I found my voice in the middle of all of that. “I had to figure out how to tell the story of what was happening to us because it was happening so quickly. It was the strength of Twitter that helped me find the words in a way that made sense, and the book was a recognition that I just needed more space to tell these stories.” Twitter is an entirely different beast than it was in 2014. There was no Twitter video, Periscope and the like – they had to balance 140 character limit tweets with six second clips on Vine. “The constraints were much tighter,” he recalls. “We had to figure out how to use words to mobilise people, how to tell the story; now they can do video and live stream, things that we didn’t have. Twitter opened up this space; people who came from communities that had otherwise been ignored suddenly learned how to organise so quickly and then amplify that organising, and that was really powerful.” Fighting for change is unrelenting, but he is vocal that hope is the fuel needed to

Interview: Heather McDaid

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Reclaiming Narratives We meet It’s Not About the Burqa editor Mariam Khan and contributor Amna Saleem to hear about this anthology of 17 Muslim women’s 17 narratives, ahead of their event at Edinburgh International Book Festival

o other item of clothing seems to ignite the same reaction as the burqa. In Western media and politics, it’s become a symbol of paranoid othering, whether it’s Boris Johnson likening women wearing burqas to “letterboxes” or lazy, dangerous stereotyping that Muslim women in burqas and hijabs are either terrorists or silenced victims, most recently perpetuated in the BBC drama The Bodyguard. It was this dominating idea around Muslim women that inspired Mariam Khan to assemble It’s Not About the Burqa, an anthology that allows Muslim women to speak for themselves. “In the book’s introduction, I write about my frustration with several things, but it was really the narrative being told about Muslim women by anyone but us,” explains Khan. “Our bodies and our stories have been politicised, therefore we have no sense of ownership over our own narrative. The book came from an amalgamation of things: my frustration of not being able to identify with the narrative of Muslim women out there in the public sphere, and that not being nuanced – that was what I wanted to challenge and tackle.” Rather than a book about her own experiences, Khan was emphatic that It’s Not About the Burqa needed to be an anthology. “The narrative around Muslim women at the moment is singular, right? In the media, it seems like all Muslim women are one way, shape, form, and their practices and beliefs are all the same. That’s far from true. I was really fortunate to get the book deal; nothing like this book exists – there’s no book of Muslim women writing about Muslim female identity. So, what I didn’t want was to have a book by a singular Muslim woman and then that would again be turned into a singular Muslim narrative. These are 17 different essays by 17 different women

August 2019

“ To me, this book is jumping off the see-saw, telling everyone and their preconceived notions to fuck off and letting everyone in the book be who they are” Mariam Khan

“I think we would have failed if you could identify with every single essay,” agrees Saleem. “I’m sure that some people read my essay and didn’t really get it and then read someone else’s and thought, ‘wow, that’s my

life’. And that’s okay! Different people need to be seen in different ways.” The need for disagreement is particularly prevalent in Khan’s essay, Feminism Needs to Die. “The title of my essay throws people off,” she laughs. “But I do mean the literal death of Western White Feminism. My essay is slightly different in that it targets that group, one that has a lot of privilege and controls the conversations around Muslim female identity. White women drive the narrative around women in general and it’s important for us to question them and say this space is not just yours, it’s for all women.” Both Khan and Saleem have been delighted by the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the book. “It surprised me immensely,” says Saleem. “My inbox was full and every day there’d be a new email or a message from people saying, ‘Thank you for writing this.’ It’s

really a privilege to be their voice, not in an arrogant way, but people who don’t normally feel heard or seen to feel heard or seen by the book, especially with stuff about mental health that is still so stigmatised.” When asked how we can move beyond stereotyping and simplified narratives, Khan points to the book’s nuance and attitude as a solution. “There’s the pressure of dealing with backlash from your community and outer world criticism – it’s like being in the middle of a see-saw. To me, this book is jumping off the see-saw, telling everyone and their preconceived notions to fuck off and letting everyone in the book be who they are.” Mariam Khan, Amna Saleem and Nadine Aisha Jassat will be at the Edinburgh International Book Festival to discuss It’s Not About the Burqa, 17 Aug, 7.15pm

Happy Fat Comedian turned writer Sofie Hagen tells us about her new book, Happy Fat Interview: Beth Cochrane

ward-winning Danish comedian Sofie Hagen has written a very good book. It’s called Happy Fat. Her quote on the back cover reads: “I am a fat person and I love my body. I feel lucky to be able to say that; it has taken a lot of work and a lot of time. I want to tell you what I have learned and how I got here.” And this – with intelligence, wit and humour – is exactly what she does. Sofie gives us a glimpse into her hopes for the Book Festival as she takes a break from her Fringe show Bumswing this August. “It feels like the adult section of the [Edinburgh] festivals, like the most serious,” she tells us. “So, I am very excited and I think it’s going to be really nice, after having done my stand-up show every day, to just talk about something a bit more serious! “I think with fatness, the whole idea that fat equals bad is so ingrained in us that most of us don’t even question it,” she continues, highlighting some negative reactions she’s experienced with past audiences. “There’s always people that are furious, there’s always people that are going to be like ‘this is bullshit, this is outrageous’, and people get really emotional about it, because they might be so invested in thinness. Some of my biggest trolls work in fitness, so they’ve built their whole livelihood around ‘thin is better’. “Me saying ‘Hey, maybe it’s not like this’ – this could be the first time they’ve heard someone say that. And I want people to at least have that. I know it’s really difficult to push people over the edge of ‘fuck diets and you’re perfect the way you are’, but if I just push them a bit of the way then that’s the dream.” Sofie Hagen will be at the Edinburgh International Book Festival to discuss Happy Fat, 17 Aug, 3.15pm

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Sofie Hagen

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Photo: Matt Crocket

Photo: FACEphotography

which are 17 different narratives.” One of those belongs to Glaswegian comedy writer, Amna Saleem. “When Mariam got in touch, at first I wasn’t sure if I was going to do it,” Saleem explains. “I was already abused online from people who were white racists and very religious Muslims for saying the things I eventually wrote about. But then I spoke to a few people and the consensus was that I was really passionate about this and it’s what I should be doing. I felt anxiety around it because I didn’t know how honest I could be by holding a mirror up and saying, ‘I know we suffer from racism and Muslim women suffer from misogyny but we also have problems that we Mariam Khan need to sort out in our own community and I don’t feel like anyone’s talking about that.’” Nuance about these issues was key for all the writers involved. “I didn’t want the book to be about my Muslim identity, singularly, or my feminism, singularly,” says Khan. “What I wanted was to create a platform. You don’t have to agree or disagree with everyone in the book; it’s just creating a space that doesn’t currently exist where we can have conversations.”

Interview: Katie Goh

THE SKINNY

The Perseverance of Raymond Antrobus Before he heads to the Edinburgh International Book Festival this month, we speak to Raymond Antrobus about his debut poetry collection, The Perseverance

ince launching his first collection, The Perseverance, Raymond Antrobus has taken the UK by storm. Already a skilled poet, Antrobus has been writing poetry for near enough as long as he can remember and performing for much of that time too. In 2019, he won the Ted Hughes Prize and the Rathbones Folio Prize, solidifying his position as one the nation’s favourite breakthrough poets. Raymond will be appearing at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival alongside Joe Dunthorne, discussing The Perseverance; between his hectic schedule of teaching and performances, he managed to squeeze in a chat with The Skinny. When talking about the collection and the process of writing it, he notes, “It was a loose process. I was just writing poems, not thinking too much about a project… When Tom Chivers at Penned In The Margins reached out and asked if I had a book I’d like to write, I sent him about twenty of what I thought were my strongest poems. He liked them enough to ask me to write a book. I knew I wasn’t interested in writing a ‘collection’ of poems, but more a book that explores the themes I most care about. I spend most of my time teaching, so education, history, language and family are consistent themes in my poems but how to put them in a book with a cohesive journey was the challenge, and I got there in the end.” A humble answer from the poet behind such a well-received first collection; does the reception, and success in the 2019 awards round, change how he felt about it? “I was very

concrete with how I hoped the book would move in the world. I wanted it to reach deaf classrooms as well as hearing ones, I wanted to speak with and from the deaf and hearing world, as well as to past and present Britain. With one of the poems (Jamaican British) now on the GCSE syllabus, I think I’ve achieved that and more.” The collection effectively explores communication in many forms, including written language, a Spotify playlist, BSL and ASL illustrations, and subversions of familiar poetic work, to name but a few. As a d/Deaf poet, communication through multiple languages, spoken and signed, has shaped and heightened the craft behind the collection. The Perseverance is a thing of beauty almost because of its multiplicity of languages. However, we wonder about the other side of writing as a d/Deaf poet: what were the obstacles Raymond navigated in order to get to where he is now? “I haven’t overcome them,” he replies. “I have learned how to manage and navigate the hearing world. I do wish there was more deaf awareness. I do not separate the issue of disability from human rights and I’m dedicating my life to trying to get more deaf and other non-able bodies into rooms where they’re heard and understood so we can re-think the society and the spaces we’re living in.” This dedication finds itself not only in Raymond’s poetry, but in his teaching too – rather than viewing education and poetry as separate entities, he perceives the two to be interconnected. When speaking of his relation-

ship with poetry and teaching, and his Master of Arts from Goldsmiths, he says, “My MA isn’t really in spoken word, it’s in education and emotional literacy. My time at Goldsmith’s was all about how to apply everything I learned as a poet and performer in a learning environment. It helped me cement a philosophy and pedagogy that fuses the identity of teacher and poet, so they’re inseparable.” Before we wrap up, with The Perseverance having made its mark, the question many writers dread: what are you working on next? “I wrote a children’s book called Bears Can Ski,”

Interview: Beth Cochrane

he explains, “which I initially wrote as a poem for The Perseverance but I couldn’t get it to sing. I rewrote it as a poetic children’s story and it really worked! It’s about a small bear and his father coming to terms with deafness and it is beautifully illustrated by Polly Dunbar, who is deaf too. It’s being published in 2021 by Walker Books. I can’t wait to see it in the world!” And perhaps it’s clichéd to say, but we can’t wait to see it out there, too. Raymond Antrobus will be at the Edinburgh International Book Festival to discuss The Perseverance on 18 Aug, 8.30pm

Roseanne Watt

On Moder Dy Ahead of her appearance at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival, we have a quick catch up with poet Roseanne Watt Interview: Heather McDaid

Raymond Antrobus

August 2019

Photo: Caleb Femi

In your debut Moder Dy, you talk about words ‘just being words’ when you were younger, later learning they were considered ‘dialect words’. How does that play into your work as a poet? In the introduction, I write about having English and Shaetlan ‘bifurcate’ in my mind when I started to go to school. There’s a part of me that yearns to return to that state of being, where I fully believed there were no differences of identity or power-status between them. For me, writing Moder Dy was a process of becoming comfortable with my own linguistic inheritance, and the betweenness of it. The kind of nuances that poetry is best at investigating. How does Shetland as a location influence you? Shetland is a place fraught with tensions, caught somewhere between the old and new, between remembering and forgetting. There aren’t really any trees, which means you can quite clearly see those tensions playing out in

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the landscape; peat banks in the same periphery as the oil terminal’s flare stacks; abandoned villages in plain sight of new ones. When I’m home, I have this sense that the wilderness is only moments from moving in. It’s beautiful, and deeply frightening. It’s an unsettling kind of reverence. You’re part of the festival’s Throwing Voices project – can you tell us about it? Throwing Voices examines how local language, culture and tradition can resonate across linguistic divides. I was fortunate enough to be paired with the Guyanese writer Imam Baksh, and Glasgow-based Kenyan musician Heir of the Cursed. It’s been an absolutely fascinating process. I think any project which fosters a dialogue across perceived divides is an essential one, especially during times which feel as polarised as these. I’m really looking forward to sharing the final result in August. Roseanne Watt will be at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 11 Aug, 6.30pm; her Throwing Voices event takes place on 21 Aug, 3.45pm

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The Unquiet Heart Kaite Welsh discusses setting her writing in the Victorian era ahead of her appearance at Edinburgh International Book Festival Interview: Kirstyn Smith

aite Welsh self-deprecatingly muses how fun she was at parties: “Nobody wants to hang out with the girl talking about the history of anesthesia.” We respectfully disagree. Still, it was this childhood and teenagehood obsession with Victorian medicine that brought about the Sarah Gilchrist novels, The Wages of Sin and The Unquiet Heart, with a third on the way. “It was surprisingly easy to research because I started off with a good perspective, having read so much fiction about the Victorian era,” Welsh admits. “The specific details were hardest, and most rewarding. The average day of a medical student at Edinburgh [University] in the 1890s, as well as really specific stuff around poisons and murder weapons.” Welsh’s Dad is also instrumental in her crime writing career. He used to be a nurse, so is a handy medical fact checker. “Kind of alarming when I’m texting him at night: What are the symptoms of syphilis?” When Welsh was ten, he made her sign a contract promising him 50% of her royalties once her career kicked off. Luckily, she’s since been made aware it’s not legally binding. From the youngster fascinated with the potions and poisons that come with Victorian crime and medicine, Welsh has grown up to make a living exploring this time period – and the misogyny, gender roles and peak white male arrogance that comes with it. The Unquiet Heart was released earlier this year, the second part in the story of Sarah Gilchrist, a young woman trying to be taken seriously as a doctor in late-1800s Edinburgh. Welsh studied at Edinburgh University, taking a couple of classes in the old medicine buildings. It was here that two plaques stood out: the first a dedication to Sophia Jex-Blake, one of the Edinburgh Seven who led the campaign to get women into university education when they began studying medicine in 1869. The second was a memorial to Arthur Conan Doyle. The two brewed in her head until the idea formed fully: crime-fighting lady doctors. Of course. “[In the Victorian period] there was this mixture of arrogance and enthusiasm around the idea that they were at the pinnacle of technological achievement,” Welsh says. “The combination of the patriarchy, the empire and colonialism: the idea that this was the best it could possibly get is very seductive to me. There’s so many ways to puncture that, both in the narrative and from the readers’ perspective.” Recently, Welsh – also a journalist – published an article in The Guardian detailing the process surrounding writing about rape in fiction, particularly crime fiction. In it, she notes that women are consuming crime fiction at a rate that some might find concerning; in fact, Welsh believes one reason for this could be that women are reclaiming their own situations and experiences through the ephemerality of fiction. “There has been a lot of debate in the media – it bubbles up every couple of years or so... crime fiction is, by its nature, violent and a

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lot of those crimes happen to women, and is that responsible?” Welsh says. “I think it’s actually crucial, because we can’t just gloss over it and pretend we’re in some kind of feminist utopia. Other people come to crime fiction to experience that catharsis, you can get that fear out of your system and eventually close the book. It’s very literally a contained experience. “We do have far too much violence against women in our media, in our culture, but that actually means we have to not talk about it less, but talk about it better. Sarah’s backstory of sexual assault is actually, in the grand scheme of the book, not a major plot point. It’s just that people’s responses to it influence almost everything that’s happened to her since. It doesn’t mean she’s a victim, it doesn’t mean that she’s emotionally scarred or broken or damaged, it just means she’s a person with a certain set of experiences moving through life.” As it happens, The Unquiet Heart is actually Welsh’s fourth novel. Originally, she tried to write contemporary crime fiction, but was tripped up by modern day dialogue coming out too stilted: “It sounded like someone who’d never heard another person before.” Luckily, there’s a particular place for Victorian literature in today’s scene. “We’re having a fantastic resurgence, particularly around a very specific subgenre the last couple of years: Victorian medical crime fiction. It’s such a personal way of discussing our own issues. The 19th century in particular has always been whatever the particular age you’re in wants it to be,” Welsh explains. “We project a lot onto it. All historical fiction reflects contemporary anxieties, but the Victorian era is deliciously adaptable because there is so much going on. For a long time, it was held up as this bastion of sexual morality, now everyone’s obsessed with discovering the dirty secrets behind it. Victorian crime is the perfect nexus for that.” For her event as part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, History’s Mysteries Unwrapped, Welsh joins fellow crime writer Caroline Lea, whose novel The Glass Woman came out in February. Welsh wonders whether some of her time might be spent fangirling over Lea. “It’s one of my favourites this year,” she says. They’ll be discussing the role of feminism in Victorian fiction, the challenges that arise when researching your project, and the difficulties that come from trying to separate your specific interests and create something that’s as true to the period you’re portraying as possible, while still resonating with readers. “A lot of the themes we’ll be discussing, as well as being relevant to our own work, are about the genre itself,” says Welsh. “I really hope people will come away with the sense of the breadth of Victorian fiction: how much scope there is there; how much there is to read; and maybe thinking about the 19th century in a slightly different way. Because certainly my goal with the Sarah Gilchrist books is to show that it didn’t look as straight, male, cis and white as people think it did. It’s

“ We do have far too much violence against women in our media, in our culture, but that actually means we have to not talk about it less, but talk about it better” Kaite Welsh

interesting to tell those undiscovered stories.” As for post-Book Festival? Welsh is going caving. It’s all part of finding that elusive work-life balance, something Welsh admits she’s historically not been the best at. “It’s so easy, particularly in Edinburgh. Since it’s the first UNESCO City of Literature, there’s always something book-related to do any night of the week. It’s easy to get trapped in that bubble where all your social experiences are people’s book launches or reading groups or poetry slams. Those are amazing and I’m so lucky to get to do all that, but I have

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realised I need to do stuff that’s not wordbased,” Welsh notes. “You can’t read in a tunnel. I’m going caving at the end of August to wrap up the Festival by hanging out in an abandoned mine with a bunch of strangers. What could possibly go wrong?” At the very least when Welsh makes it back from exploring terrifying underground tunnels, we might get a book out of it. Sarah Gilchrist explores Edinburgh’s vaults and shows up the patriarchy at the same time? We’re in. Kaite Welsh will be at the Edinburgh International Book Festival with Caroline Lea, 19 Aug, 2pm

THE SKINNY

August 2019

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THE SKINNY

Everything Connected We speak to Kate Tempest about her third album, The Book of Traps and Lessons, which sees her viewing the Britain of today with a much wider lens than usual

ate Tempest is testament to the power of words. The spoken word poet and musician from London rose to prominence in 2014 with her Mercury Prize-nominated debut Everybody Down, which told the story of a troubled character named Becky. In 2017, she received a second nomination for its follow-up Let Them Eat Chaos, a tale of seven neighbours in urban London – all suffering their own hardships – who meet for the first time following a storm. Fast forward to late May of this year and we’re speaking to Tempest ahead of the release of her third album, The Book of Traps and Lessons, which sees her viewing the Britain of today with a much wider lens than usual. Thematically, it’s a companion piece to its predecessor. It also uses a similar narrative structure to examine the confined social system we live in and search for poetic justice. “It is an exploration of a character who suddenly becomes aware of developing patterns of behaviour in their life,” explains Tempest. “They’re trying to find a way out of these traps that they’re in, but this album takes a more in-depth approach [towards analysing] their state of mind.”

“ One of the things that I find restores my vitality and brings me back into my humanity is music, poetry and literature. These are the things that remind me that I exist” Kate Tempest

The traps (and subsequent lessons) which Tempest speaks of are universal, forming an album that every listener can identify with, either directly or indirectly. “There’s a discussion of addictions: alcohol, drugs, food, sex and an obsession with love,” she tells us. “The trap of violence and exploitation is seen too; firstly, as violence in a person’s own life, against themselves, but also that of the state against the individual. As the album continues, we come to understand that the traits this person is finding problematic in their own life are the same ones they are seeing to be prevalent in the social norms of the system that they live within.” As a born and bred Londoner, Tempest

August 2019

has witnessed the city change significantly over the years: politically, socially, economically and culturally. She acknowledges that her new album finally sees her conveying feelings which had previously remained lost in the confusion she feels towards home. “I think that it’s taken a long time to get this stuff out of me,” she admits, almost in disbelief. “I spent my entire adolescence and my 20s trying to articulate this fever that I felt about the place that I’m from. For me, [London is] an extremely special place: I spent all this time trying to make a record about it and I’m so glad I did. It’s been a changing place for years. It’s funny that I spent so long trying to describe this place that suddenly vanished. There are elements that are still there, but it’s very different now.” The album was written and produced to be enjoyed in a single sitting. “For me, it’s one piece – one performance – but we obviously had to extract tracks from it to lead people into it,” says Tempest, referring to recent single Firesmoke. “I can understand that people may come to hear it in loads of different ways, but I would hope that however they are led into it, they would be interested in hearing it as one piece.” The Book of Traps and Lessons was made with the assistance of Rick Rubin. Tempest and long-time collaborator Dan Carey were aided by the legendary producer, who guided the pair in making what they consider to be a personal address to the nation. It was recorded as a live take over three days at Rubin’s infamous Shangri-La studios in Malibu, California. While the recording was quick and enjoyable, Tempest tells us that by contrast, the writing process was lengthy and challenging. “We were trying to break convention; break all of the conventions that both of us, musically and lyrically, had kind of adopted over the years to feel secure in our creativity,” she acknowledges. “The boundaries that we were breaking were, for me, things like the narrative structure [of the first two albums]. I was also trying to get closer and closer to the core of what I was wishing to express, so it was quite difficult. But we just took our time and eventually, as we started getting a sense of the album as a whole, it came together in one shape.” All Humans Too Late provides the album’s background free centrepiece. Tempest poses the question ‘What can be done to stay human?’ within verses containing direct and thought-provoking lyrics. It delivers a barrage of messages within its three-minute duration. There’s a particular focus on divisions in society and the perceived requirement to ‘choose a side’ in reference to events like Brexit and war in general. More broadly, it’s a commentary on the historic power of government, business and technology. As she discusses the track, Tempest explains that she was driven to speak her mind clearly on the aforementioned social system which hinders many people living and working across the country. “One of the things that

inspired the song is the deregulated, free market capitalism that has been with us in the West since industrialisation. It was this that pedalled an ideology about progress which led to all of the confusion and ruthlessness that we still see today, but has been tidily written out of the narrative.” The Book of Traps and Lessons is a raw, honest breakdown of everything we need to be wary and understanding of in the present day. However, Tempest is keen to note that listeners shouldn’t lose track of what makes them happy as they manoeuvre around life’s obstacles. For Tempest herself, the root of such happiness is simple. “One of the things that I find restores my vitality and brings me back into my humanity is music, poetry and literature,” she reflects. “These are the things that remind me that I

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Interview: Stuart Holmes

exist, so I feel that as a maker of [such things] I have a kind of social role [towards others].” With this in mind, does she feel the album offers guidance? “It’s less of an instruction and more of a reflection of despair, but it becomes hopeful as it moves along. I don’t think the album itself is despairing, I just think that in order for it to be completely connective it has to be truthful. I hope that it doesn’t feel like the album is offering any hint of an easy solution though. These poems are not meant to be answers, they’re meant to be connections.” The Book of Traps and Lessons was released on 14 Jun via Fiction Kate Tempest plays Edinburgh International Festival, Leith Theatre, Edinburgh, 9 Aug katetempest.co.uk

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Seeking Light We speak to Sharon Van Etten about her latest album Remind Me Tomorrow, the importance of writing about attainable happiness and her aspirations to one day become a counsellor

ith August upon us, everything seems to be happening at once. The tourist season fully in swing, and Edinburgh’s streets enlivened with fresh faces from around the world; it’s one of the most exciting times of the year. Yet it’s also a month of odd uncertainty, with one foot stuck in summer and the other edging towards the golden leaves of autumn. This grey zone is a fitting backdrop for the chiaroscuro of Sharon Van Etten’s latest album, Remind Me Tomorrow. Released in January (another month of transition) it marks a shift in tone from the melancholy of 2014’s Are We There. There’s still the same shades of sorrow, but there’s also a defiant will to thrive and survive, despite the dark weight of the past. Picking up the phone with a gravelly “Hey, it’s Sharon,” Van Etten is drinking coffee out on the deck of her family beach house in the States. It’s clearly a rare moment of respite from an inordinately busy few years which have seen her further her musical career while balancing tour obligations, becoming a mother, acting in sci-fi television series The OA and even finding time to score Katherine Dieckmann’s 2016 drama Strange Weather. Amongst all this, she’s returned to her studies. “In between all the touring and mom-ing, I’m pursuing a degree,” she tells us. “I never got a degree out of high school so it will be a very long-term goal of mine. I’m only in my second year of school and I think I need about six years of school for it but I’m interested in counselling.” Given that so many of her songs, particularly those off earlier albums, sound like a form of emotional processing, these career aspirations make sense. She explains that her discovery of the catharsis that music-making can provide, and the opportunities she’s gained to connect with her fans over the years, has led to an interest in the ways that her words might be able to help people. “Over the years I’ve discovered how healing writing music has been for me and through pursuing a career in music I’ve seen first hand how it’s helped fans. “The music I make and what I write about, as well as my story, feels relatable to a lot of people,” she continues. “I’ve realised that I want to see more intimately how I can help people and learn about why people have a hard time communicating their emotions in a way where someone else’s words can give them solace. I’m still figuring out what side of psychology I want to come in on but I know I want it to be a one-on-one counselling situation so that I can develop a relationship with somebody.” While her career has allowed her to help and connect with individuals that follow her music from different parts of the world and walks of life, she’s ultimately looking towards forging more sustained relationships of care with those who need it. “That’s the torture of being on tour, when you meet a fan and you get to talk to them for a while, and I try to engage on social media and have back and forth conversations but I’m not qualified. I do worry about some fans that I meet and I think about them from time to time. It would be

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nice to be able to check in on some of them sometimes and have an education to help them grow.”

“ I’ve discovered how healing writing music has been for me and through pursuing a career in music I’ve seen first hand how it’s helped fans”

Yet there’s also been a more basic change to her music in recent years, particularly audible on Remind Me Tomorrow, populated less by her signature guitars and piano, but by more electronic synth sounds. As she explains, this was less a conscious decision but more of a natural part of a process that began with the Strange Weather score, particularly as she strived to work in a way that allowed her to experiment creatively while rejecting the kinds of toxic pressures that might take a toll on her mental health. “When I was writing the score for Strange Weather, there would be days where I would hit a roadblock creatively and I would just put the guitar down. For me I think it’s unhealthy when I’m ramming my head against the wall and I keep trying but I don’t think it’s going anywhere.” Off the cuff experimentation with a Jupiter 4 synthesiser lying around her practice

space would ultimately lead to the song of the same name, in turn laying the groundwork for other tracks on Remind Me Tomorrow. It’s this kind of approach, which leaves itself so open to inspiration and experimentation, which gives Van Etten’s music its emotional power. Nothing’s ever forced, with feelings being given the space they need to really take hold on the listener. For those drawn to Sharon Van Etten for the way that her raw, confessional lyrics give form to their own mental health struggles, Remind Me Tomorrow is a reminder that even if ‘happily ever after’ is the stuff of fairy tales ‘happier ever after’ might just be in reach. Remind Me Tomorrow is out now via Jagjaguwar Sharon Van Etten plays Edinburgh International Festival, Leith Theatre, 21 Aug sharonvanetten.com

Sharon Van Etten

Indeed, any career that Van Etten forges within psychology has already begun to lay its foundations in the music she writes, which takes a frank look at some of the inner thought processes that are often brushed under the carpet in vague discussions of mental health. While her lyrics might seem to tap into the specifics of mental health struggles in a way we might not see elsewhere, she’s increasingly focused on helping her words relate to as broad a base of people as possible. “A lot of the times what I write is to do with my own mental health [but] the way I try to write about it and convert it into mood is through terms anyone can relate to, so I think the things that I write about – whether I’m in the darkness or seeking light, whatever metaphor I use – I try to make sure it feels universal and also attainable. Sometimes when you’re at a low point you don’t feel like you can get out of it but most of the time we do, and sometimes when you’re in it it’s hard to see that. When you’re out of it, hindsight is priceless and you realise it really wasn’t as hard as you thought; to be happy. Things are as simple as they are.” In fact, this move towards relatability is one of the defining changes of Van Etten’s music as she has progressed as an artist, something that will define her process as she continues to grow. “I feel like ever since I realised how powerful lyrics can be beyond my relationship with writing, and how people connect with it in their own way, it’s made me realise that I need to take my own experience and write from a more universal and general point of view so that people can connect with it in their own way instead of looking at my songs and being like, ‘Oh sorry Sharon, I’m sorry that happened to you’. Instead of thinking about it happening to me they can connect with it personally. That’s still something I’m trying to improve on as I write.”

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Photo: Ryan Pfluger

Interview: Megan Wallace

THE SKINNY

August 2019

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THE SKINNY

Photo: Daria Adamitskaya

Desire Straits The acclaimed Scottish folk singer Rachel Sermanni discusses her forthcoming record, pregnancy, desire and transformative decisions

storm is brewing in What Can I Do, the first song to be let loose from Rachel Sermanni’s third studio-record So It Turns, recorded three years ago in Berlin. ‘I feel so helpless, I feel so blue / What can I do Lord, what can I do?’ Sermanni sings, accompanied by a progressively more foreboding instrumental that trudges forth with a grudging, almost mournful resolve. Written around the time Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, the song has only become more relevant in the years since, as we have all become increasingly accustomed to being bombarded by news of hateful chants and political anarchy on a daily basis. “It’s come out at a good time,” the Carrbridge-born songwriter begins, after sharing her experience of the despair many felt overcome by around the time she wrote the song, particularly as a result of the migrant crisis. “There’s definitely been an uprising of some sort, and now the song has a place and a purpose. A certain amount of proceeds from it will go to Extinction Rebellion Scotland, which feels like something nice and good.” Sermanni has been involved in several of Edinburgh’s Extinction Rebellion demonstrations in recent months, while taking steps to lower her own carbon footprint. “I don’t really feel like flying anymore. Which is challenging, obviously, for a touring musician, trying to work out how I can do it as little as possible.” Making a living on the road has become complicated for another, much happier reason. Rosa Sermanni-Holmes, born last year, can be heard in the background once or twice during our phone call with her mother, vying for attention, and Sermanni is delighted to oblige: “Hold on a tiny second while I comfort this creature.” After recording So It Turns, Sermanni

August 2019

Interview: Fraser MacIntyre

toured in Canada and Ireland before falling pregnant. “It’s been good to have these songs finished and waiting, so I’ve not been thinking about what next, I’ve just been thinking about getting this album out. I did write one song that didn’t have much relevance to anything except being in a blissful spot, called Lay My Heart.” The song – one of the 27-year-old folk singer’s most warm and sublimely steadying offerings to date – was released in November 2017.

“ I wasn’t much of a drinker, but I loved a whisky and a Steinbeck. I liked that kind of combination” Rachel Sermanni

“I’ve stayed still more than I have since I began touring,” Sermanni continues, speaking seven years after the release of her debut record Under Mountains. “That’s been enjoyable. There’ll be more of a tour coming… it is stressful as Rosa has her bedtime, and we haven’t quite found an on the road nanny she feels completely comfortable with yet. My partner, Adam Holmes, is also a musician, and he’ll be touring quite a bit around the end of this year also.” Sermanni pauses, then laughs loudly as Holmes’ voice joins Rosa’s in the background.

“Adam is letting you know that he is also releasing an album this year,” Sermanni says. “He would like to be on the front page if possible.” The two have no plans to join forces onstage anytime soon, though. “We had a tour together when I was pregnant with Rosa. Obviously, that was quite strange in itself, as I got pregnant after we’d been together for around three months, so it was a very intense period in our lives. I’m grateful for the experience, but we think it would probably be best to keep things separate, though that is how we got together in the first place, at a Celtic Connections gig.” Most of Sermanni’s new record was “inspired by my time in Samye Ling, a Buddhist Monastery down in the Borders. I was volunteering there after a year of touring behind my last album.” After speaking with Lama Yeshe, the abbot of the Monastery, Sermanni decided to stop drinking alcohol. “I wasn’t much of a drinker, but I loved a whisky and a Steinbeck. I liked that kind of combination. I’m not saying that drinking alcohol is a really bad thing, but it’s done me a lot of good [not drinking]. I’ve had much more potent – and not necessarily comfortable – experiences because I haven’t been drinking.” Desire was also on Sermanni’s mind. “Put Me In the River, If I, Tiger and Come To You were all inspired by this feeling I was trying to deal with while I was at Samye Ling. A feeling I was convinced was causing me ruin, which was generally desire – a feeling that causes most of us ruin. I was looking at that with a bit of frustration at the time, trying to explore the feeling and look at it from various angles, whether they were having desire for something or someone, or having desire not to have desire.” Sermanni will be travelling up and down

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the country in support of So It Turns, sometimes with a band, sometimes solo. Parting ways with the record, however, became a daunting challenge after Sermanni lost a great deal of money to a scammer. “The album had been recorded in Berlin, financed by myself, and when it eventually came to the campaign I was to be releasing and supporting it financially myself. I lost a lot of my money, after already employing a lot of people to help me with an album campaign that was in full swing. Very, very swiftly I put up a Kickstarter.” Having toyed with the idea in the past, Sermanni embraced it quickly, offering an array of pledge rewards, from handwritten lyrics to house concerts, which would also feature something of a songwriting workshop if desired. “I asked for the minimum that I thought I could achieve, as Kickstarter say that if you don’t get what you ask for, you don’t get anything at all,” she explains. “I needed some form of support and I needed it soon, so I asked for £4000. It ends in three days, and it’s currently at £13,000. I’m really, really happy. I can cover everything now, without delving into my own pocket, which doesn’t entirely exist.” The experience has been an incredibly affirmative one for Sermanni, who now has approximately 48 hand-drawn pictures to complete for her backers, all of which she has promised to put “much love into.” The record itself is lying in wait, ready to captivate. Full of calm, wit, heartbreak, bite and beauty, So It Turns features many of Sermanni’s most striking lines to date. So It Turns is self-released on 23 Aug Rachel Sermanni plays Summerhall, Edinburgh, 10 Aug; Blue Lamp, Aberdeen, 11 Sep; Eden Court, Inverness, 12 Sep; The Tollbooth, Stirling, 13 Sep; St Andrews in the Square, Glasgow, 2 Oct rachel-sermanni.com

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Bleeding the Radiators Following the release of her fifth album Reward, Welsh musician Cate Le Bon reflects on solitude, furniture-making and the necessity of catching up with yourself

he recent career of Cate Le Bon has been occupied by a series of escapes. The Welsh musician relocated across the North Atlantic, to Los Angeles; she accompanied fellow musician Tim Presley to Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort in southern France to make Hippo Lite, their second album together as post-punk partnership DRINKS. All the while, she plugged away at her own off-kilter form of indie rock, coursing further forward into uncharted sonic territories. But her most recent escape was to be away from music altogether. “I needed some time out to assess my relationship with music and check in on my motives,” she tells The Skinny as she tours the US, currently driving along Interstate 5 from San Francisco to Portland. “I needed to fully occupy myself with something, to truly take the onus off music and allow it to be my friend again.”

“ The door opens in increments, and so it’s not often you’re aware that you’re doing the things you’ve always dreamt of” Cate Le Bon

unexpected necessity of her departure to a small holding in the hills. “It allowed me to catch up with myself, but also allowed things to catch up with me. I found myself needing to bleed the radiators often,” she says. “There must have been a subconscious need for it. The album was written in that solitude and felt intrinsic to its existence.” Le Bon insists that Reward is of a piece with the rest of her work: “It’s a continuation, but I feel more connected to this album than any other I’ve made,” she says. “It was a more involved and intimate process than before, and in turn far more taxing – but also rewarding when the dust settled.” Many a critic has noted the personal nature of Reward. “Sometimes I wonder if that’s said because it was in the press release,” she says before copping to some element of truth. “But I feel like it is. I put more into it than anything else I’ve done – not that it always comes to the surface. I’m probably not the most reliable person to have an opinion on it though.” Perhaps she doesn’t need to express her opinion; Reward speaks for itself, often making displacement and loss keenly felt throughout its duration. Lead single Daylight Matters flaunts one of Le Bon’s most direct choruses to date: ‘I love you’, she repeats, like Robert Smith channelled through Neil Young’s reedy falsetto, before deploying the kicker: ‘but you’ve gone’. Where love’s labours lost resounds across the history of pop music, Le Bon’s earnestness is tinged with an irony that allows the same feeling of absence to be

directed to places, as well as people. Album opener Miami, a steady march to the parping of Bowie-esque horns, meditates on the strangeness of pursuing a future far from home. “For a long time, I found that things that have felt out of reach remain that way, even when you’re in the thick of them,” she says, reflecting on the improbability of her position and the often onerous task of living in the present. “The door opens in increments, and so it’s not often you’re aware that you’re doing the things you’ve always dreamt of. This – mixed with the fact that the [act of] ‘doing’ becomes more about visibility these days than the personal experience – wraps another film around it.” It seems Le Bon’s relationship to home, as far as her work is concerned, is existentially explored – “way too often” she says – much as any other artist who finds themselves constantly distanced from the motherland. But fortunately for her, the hamlet of Penboyr in rural Carmarthenshire, a town with a few smallholdings and a church, is still a solid base to ease a state of constant flux. “It’s where I grew up and where all my immediate family live,” she says. “It feels familiar and safe. The economy of time changes when I’m there.” It’s a reminder of where Le Bon first got her start in music. She released her debut EP Edrych Yn Llygaid Ceffyl Benthyg (which translates as: Looking Into the Eyes of a Borrowed Horse) in 2008, and even then, she was profoundly marked as much more than a singer-songwriter. To anyone paying attention, Le Bon became a key individual of a new wave

Interview: Dafydd Jenkins

of young Welsh musicians, primarily concerned with writing and singing in Welsh, playing gigs in numerous Cardiff haunts, as well as any country tavern that would have them outside of the vital festival season. But Le Bon resists the snare of nostalgia; she wasn’t part of an isolated scene, so much as a longer lineage of Welsh musical innovators. “There has always been an incredible and important Welsh language music scene happening, and it’s always been exciting to me, whether I’m a taking part as musician or fan,” she says. “I grew up going to Welsh language gigs and festivals. Seeing Super Furry Animals and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci when I was 14 was insanely special and led me to other Welsh-language bands like Datblygu – one of my all time favourites.” It’s no surprise that Le Bon is only content in facing forward, especially now it appears the writing and release of Reward has rekindled her urge to create without pressure or boundaries. What’s more, she’s even rediscovered her love for the road. “It all feels new to me. It feels good to be touring, and in doing so reclaiming it after the let-go. I’m excited to make a new album, I’m putting the wheels in motion for that – out of joy and not routine.” If the distance of self-imposed exile can do this much good, we can only imagine what she’s capable of when she sticks around. Reward is out now via Mexican Summer Cate Le Bon plays Jupiter Rising, Jupiter Artland, West Lothian, 24 Aug; Summerhall, Edinburgh, 25 Aug catelebon.com

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Photo: Ivana Kličković

Le Bon sequestered herself to Cumbria in the Lake District – sustained on a diet of David Bowie, Kate Bush and Pharoah Sanders – and joined a nearby furniture-making course. “I love how grounding it is, working with a tangible material. It’s the antidote to most ailments,” she tells us. Yet somehow the urge to compose never went away. “I wasn’t really aware I was writing an album. I wrote as a cathartic outlet,” she says, noting the need to let off steam after a hard day’s graft in the workshop. Fans may recall her previous tour in which she frequently appeared alone with no accompaniment save for a piano. “Truthfully, I’m a little tired of playing guitar at the moment,” she says. It was on a piano that the bare bones of her fifth album Reward started to take shape. Le Bon’s spindly guitar work still slants the album towards the avant-pop of previous releases Crab Day (2016) and Mug Museum (2013), but this time, tender introspection in the form of Hunky Dory-like chamber pop neatly bolsters her oddball sensitivities. Even the album’s sleeve suggests a gear-shift: Le Bon descends from a stony peak dusted with light snow, her brilliant red outfit and dyed blond hair popping against the canvas grey sky. The incline is steep, but she keeps her footing. “I made a series of decisions that led to a very solitary life in the Lake District, almost by accident,” she tells us, reflecting on the

Music

THE SKINNY

August 2019

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THE SKINNY

Changing Rooms T

he Skinny: Can you tell us about your project, Habits of Assembly? Corin Sworn: The work for the Edinburgh Art Festival comprises of an installation built around a collection of rooms built of cheap architectural material that you can move in and out of, and that will hold two videos and a sound piece. The videos are comprised of a collection of movements that I built with the musician Jer Reid and dancers Stephanie McMann and Kai-Wen Chuang. For the sound piece I collaborated with the poet Colin Herd and it goes between a humorous to do list and a referencing of different camera movements across the last century. One video is largely black and white, and looks at the different histories of the relationship between the camera as a reflective or monitoring device in terms of movement. So there were references to the Gilbreth’s Time and Motions Studies, where they filmed craftsmen or workers’ tasks, breaking each movement up across multiple bodies or speeding it up. The bodies are lit in such a way that they look like x-rays, as if their silhouettes are semi-transparent. And by looking at x-rays, the video then travels inside the body. The other is shot at the Couper Institute, a public hall in Glasgow, and it has a much more explicit image in terms of its relationship to the body. You see the dancers not as silhouettes but as figures and they go through a smaller set of movements. As well as a short section referencing the kind of robot vision surveillance pattern whereby it attempts to categorise something like a car or a dog or whatever.

“ Because our technology is portable it means that we are bringing our work into our home and vice-versa. So the body gets really pulled across these different obligations and spaces”

As the audience enters through each of the various sections, is there an intentional manipulation to their movement and way of encountering the work? Yes, there are sections where you can walk through what explicitly look like doorways but then there are parts where the walls are situated apart in a way that if wanted to you could squeeze through them. I chose this spacing in the hopes that people would play with the structure and that in playing with it you would feel the parameters of your body. Whether you choose to squeeze or take the direct route, you will experience how your body can change shape in order to move it through different widths and spaces. The morphing physicality aims to make the audience become re-aware of their bodies. One reason for using these cheap architectural walls is that I’m interested in having this need for support. In lots of my work recently, I have been trying to explore the notion that all things are integrated. For example, with works I have made it is not clear where a work ends and the next one begins. One of the reasons to have an installation is that it’s a system. You enter into the system. Support is necessary across various things and we try to divide them which gives us a sort of false image. This is something that I want to point towards; that we are meshed in complex systems that we can’t always draw clear lines in. In your statement for EAF you mention the idea of domestic and outside space – there is not always a clear divide, is there? No, and I think nowadays people are being asked to work... you don’t necessarily go to a nine to five job. Sometimes you have multiple jobs, sometimes your job bleeds over into your domestic life, often because our

technology is portable it means that we are bringing our work into our home and viceversa. So the body gets really pulled across these different obligations and spaces. I think the technology often produces obligations to meet. So when technology can do things, we kind of produce ideas or ways of being to meet those sets of practices but of course we could never multitask as perfectly as a smartphone, which can do an enormous number of things, and we then get caught in rather complicated ideals of our expectation. Of course, the other side of that, is that the public spheres disappear radically. Many spaces that we move through thinking they are public... you take out your phone and find someone telling you that you are not allowed to take pictures there because it’s actually a private space. One of the hardest aspects of AI is recreating human characteristics such as walking. Yes, at the moment there is more and more drive in entertainment to find ways to capture human movement because it does produce more immediate relationships between the viewer and the fictionally produced character. We sort of mirror across human movement in order to create this empathic relationship between human and machine, and vice-versa. There are lots of dancers who have been interested in some of the aesthetics that come out of machine production and so mimic them. In the early Charlie Chaplin film Modern Times, he shows this movement that comes out of being on the production line. Some people talk about the moon walk as directly referencing factory labour and Michael Jackson’s very tight and very repetitive movements being again similar to factory work and what is the basis of machines.

Interview: Katie Dibb

Some people would say that this discussion is very current, but it is also a discussion that other artists, such as Maya Deren and Trisha Brown, have been having for a while. I think your point that these discussions are ongoing is really true. Trisha Brown was trying to find movements that emerged from the body and from her interest in the kind of interior practice of movement, instead of a traditionally trained, aesthetically codified practice like ballet. She wasn’t using her body to meet a norm or an ideal, instead she was using her body to try and find movements that she thought were interesting. She often didn’t want to use a mirror as it gave too immediate a reflection and instead used a camera so she could be inside her own experience and then later watch back what you’ve done with some distance. That’s how she built the first dance and then later she handed on that dance to somebody else who is very very intensely classically trained. No matter how closely she trained this dancer the granularity of their movements would always be different and so they danced the dance together in Set, Reset and you can see the kind of textures that come about of Brown’s body, next to and against a more stylised and rigidly justified traditional body of the classically trained dancer. Finally, is there anything you’re especially looking forward to seeing during the festival? I’m so excited to just wander around and see the whole festival. There is a really interesting artist at Talbot Rice, Samson Young, and I am really looking forward to seeing Rosalind Nashashibi’s piece. Corin Sworn, Habits of Assembly, Edinburgh College of Art, 25 Jul-25 Aug, free

Corin Sworn

Corin Sworn, Glasgow, 2018

August 2019

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Credit: courtesy of the artist and Koppe Astner

We meet Glasgow’s Corin Sworn to discuss her exploration of the entanglement of technology and the body, Habits of Assembly, as part of the Commissions Programme at EAF

Mechanical Ear We meet James Richards to discuss Migratory Motor Complex, his first solo show in Scotland arriving at Collective for Edinburgh Art Festival this month

Interview: Donald Butler

e catch James Richards right at the beginning of installing Migratory Motor Complex, his first solo presentation in Scotland as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival at Collective’s City Dome space. “We’re laying out the equipment now and it feels proportionally really perfect for this kind of space. It feels like the mechanical, the physical elements of the work and speakers, were chosen or coloured for this room.” Richards is perhaps best known for his moving image practice exploring an abstracted, sensory relation to images and cinema but his background is in experimental and DIY electronic music. “When I went to art college, I started making video art that I would soundtrack, composing quite elaborate soundtracks for often archival found material.” Migratory Motor Complex is a part of a trilogy of works Richards has now undertaken, re-examining his relationship to sonic composition. “Around 2015, I started thinking about returning, or placing, audio systems in a gallery as a standalone experience without moving image. Somehow, it has this very cinematic relationship to the material.” These stand-alone audio works are presented as surround sound systems without a defined front, back or screen to anchor them, such as in a film context “but it plays on a lot of those things, those feelings of the way sound washes past you or appears behind or in front of you. Also, these quite cinematic visual effects almost like depth of field, things appearing to be out of focus or in the distance.” Richards likens the work more to a piece of music rather than purely sound, built up from a core backbone of melodic elements which sit alongside field recordings, natural sounds and cinematic audio effects. Specifically for this work, Richards collaborated with singer Kirsten Evans from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. “I would work with Kirsten in the studio [playing] material back to her in short fragments or forwards, and invite her to improvise along with these. We’d also go through certain texts, so in this case, they were quite fragmented or collaged, so not lyrics but little sentences or half sentences and words.” Understanding the body through the infrastructure of media, be that film or sound, sits right at the centre of Richards’ works. In his moving image pieces, such as his Turner Prize nominated work Rosebud, there is a fascination with the texture of, or interaction with, specifically printed erotic images. Migratory

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James Richards, Migratory Motor Complex, six-channel audio installation, 2017. Commissioned by Wales in Venice for the 57th Venice Biennale. Copyright James Richards; courtesy Wales in Venice.

Motor Complex can be seen as another approach to exploring the site of the mediated body: “Sound enters your body without your control. One refers to reading an image, but you don’t really refer to reading a sound commonly. There’s always that feeling that you have less control of its intrigue on you.”

“ Sound enters your body without your control. One refers to reading an image but you don’t really refer to reading a sound commonly” James Richards

Richards explains that in his audio works, the body continues to be highly evidenced through the presence of the voice, with vocal samples recorded very close to the mouth so as to catch the inhales between singing lines. “There’s also this idea of the technological body being present, the crackle of vinyl or the way the lips appear sonically.” As with any recorded medium the technology involved leaves its distinct trace, hovering at the edges

of our perception. Originally commissioned for the Welsh Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale alongside Chapter Arts Centre, this is the third time the work has been shown. Each presentation has been held in varying architectural contexts, allowing for differing emphasised readings of the soundscape and always mixed in situ. “If you mix it and edit on the sound system, you’ll be playing it on you can push that equipment more, push those pop and crackles or drumbeats [and] get them really sort of attuned to that kit. The result is a more physical sort of sculptural music experience.” In Venice, where the piece was presented in a chapel space, Richards notes that he noticed a prominent reading of the angelic choral sections of the work – whereas, when shown at Chapter in Cardiff in a black box theatrical setting with less visual material, he read the connections to industrial music more. The City Dome is an architecturally optic structure, the gears of the observatory still visible after the space’s refit to a contemporary arts venue. These evidenced mechanics of recording formats present a potentially fruitful context in which to place Richards’ concerns around the infrastructure of media in relation to the body and he mentions that the work “feels connected to this crude technological environment, it looks quite hosted.” Located atop one of Edinburgh’s most iconic landmarks and shown during the city’s increasingly visited festival period, one can only imagine the plural potentials of approach audiences will bring to Migratory Motor Complex for its Scottish debut. James Richards: Migratory Motor Complex, Collective, 26 Jul-13 Oct, Tue-Sun 10am-5pm, free

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THE SKINNY

Photo: Mark Blower

August 2019

THE SKINNY

Photo: Flag of Kanata over Edinburgh

#ICSSCOTLAND

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Welcome to Indigenous Contemporary Scene Indigenous Contemporary Scene Artistic Director Émilie Monnet introduces this year’s programme

The programme underlines cultural links between Scotland and Canada – could you tell us a little about what you perceive these to be? Back in 2017, when I first came to Edinburgh, I met many Scottish artists – especially Gaelic-speaking artists – who felt a certain resonance with the history of colonisation back home: they could relate to the government’s efforts at eradicating their languages, suppressing their identity and taking their land away. But history being complex, those who left Scotland to settle in North America also participated in the colonisation process, Scotsman-come-prime minister of Canada – John A Macdonald earning top honours for his role in the genocide enacted upon Indigenous peoples. The effects of these policies are still felt today and some of the performances we’re bringing to Edinburgh speak to these truths.

Onishka Productions Onishka is an interdisciplinary arts organisation that creates bridges between Indigenous peoples worldwide to challenge and transform the world we live in. ONISHKA means ‘wake up!’ in Anishnabemowin. In this spirit, we believe that Indigenous cosmologies provide pathways towards sustainable communities. O’Kaadenigan Wiingashk Collective O’Kaadenigan Wiingashk Collective is a multidisciplinary arts collective founded by Sara Roque, Sarah DeCarlo and Patti Shaughnessy. We embody the spirit of our collective vision to weave together artists, audiences, and communities.

Credits Editors: Eliza Gearty & Rosamund West Designer: Fiona Hunter Production Manager & Picture Editor: Rachael Hood Cover artist: Greg Hill

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There are many layers to our shared histories, and many conversations to be having. Some Indigenous peoples in North America also have Scottish ancestry. The connections to land are memories in our blood, in our families and stored deep within us. We’ll dig into these connections particularly with the Songs of the Land, the performance series we’re co-presenting with the International Book Festival. Why do you use the word ‘Kanata’ instead of the word ‘Canada’ throughout the programme? Using the word Kanata reminds us of the Indigenous origins of the lands now known as Canada. Kanata is the Haudenosaunee word for village; it became Canada through the colonial process of dispossession of Indigenous lands, identity and languages. It’s also referring to Kanyen’kehaka visual artist Greg A. Hill’s ongoing Kanata Project. He uses parody and humour to turn the tables on this part of colonial history and entangle a simplified nationalism, creating space for Indigenous presence. More than anything, it’s an opportunity to start conversations and centre them from an Indigenous perspective. There is a wide array of performance and artists within the programme – how did you go about putting them together? What were you looking for in your artists? Of course, many of the performances we are presenting are politically engaged because they speak to our truths, to the urgency of the realities we face today, and it’s far from the glossy image Canada projects internationally. But the programming also makes room for laughter, witty humour and great storytelling. Laughter is an essential part of how we interact with one another, it’s medicine, and shar-

Émilie Monnet

ing our stories is a way to generate awareness and understanding towards mutual respect. Overall, audiences will gain new insights into our realities and it is hoped this will inspire an engaged dialogue. This aspect is important, and at the heart of ICS: we want to engage, connect, share. ICS presents art that speaks to your heart, mind and spirit. There are many stellar artists in our community and we want the world to know about them. This programme is a glimpse into this rich and complex creative matrix. What will the context of the Edinburgh festivals bring to the presentation? We want to have these conversations in a global context because it’s important to create more solidarity, friendships and allyship everywhere. The Edinburgh Festivals form the most powerful festival coalition in

Co-produced by:

the English-speaking world and to be able to carve a space for these conversations to take place is very exciting because of the potential of it being both inclusive and expansive. We offer an Indigenous lens to global issues. It is both an act of sharing and speaking our truths; a call to collective creative action. The arts have much to offer in envisioning and creating other kinds of spaces that support reciprocity and co-existence, and for generating meaningful exchange. There will be many of us Indigenous artists in Edinburgh at this time; having this critical mass will be inspiring, stimulating and make for some good times. Being in Scotland in the context of ICS will be an opportunity for all of us to reflect – or continue to reflect – on identity, land and community-building in new ways. Connections we make here will come back with us to resonate back home.

Media partner:

Presented by:

Supported by:

Kanata

Book tickets at indigenouscontemporaryscene.org

THE SKINNY

Photo: Christian Blais

What led you to creating the Indigenous Contemporary Scene programme? What was your initial motivation? Indigenous Contemporary Scene (ICS), is a nomadic platform for the presentation of live arts, fostering dialogue and creative exchange between artists and communities. Founded by Onishka in 2016, ICS amplifies the voices of Indigenous artists internationally. This year we’re super excited to be partnering up with O’Kaadenigan Wiingashk Collective to present ICS Scotland, a month long program of performances, installation and creative conversations featuring Indigenous artists from across Kanata. By joining forces as Indigenous producers, we’re hoping to provide a robust international context for the presentation of the artists’ works, and explore the intersection of their voices within the context of the Edinburgh festivals.

Photo: Devin Clark-Memler

Isle of Arran

Creators Exchange on the Land The Creators Exchange on the Land brought together Indigenous creators from Kanata with their Scottish and Gaelic counterparts, for five days of creative dialogue on the Isle of Arran this July

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his is a first time for me, curating something of this nature,” says Patti Shaughnessy, the Canadian actor, director and producer, of her experience working on The Creators Exchange on the Land. “I actually don’t even know what that means really: ‘curating.’ Ha!”. This wry, humorous scrutiny of the mainstream discourse used to describe creating art is, although light-hearted, somewhat emblematic of the Indigenous Contemporary Scene’s ethos. The Exchange, kickstarting the ICS Festival programme, is designed to gather ‘participants who are curious and open, who are brave to offer new approaches to systems whether it be through the arts, land use or practicing an alternative culture in the face of economic and cultural domination.’ Shaughnessy asserts that invited participants are “people who have the guts to address and identify harmful colonial systems that continue to fail us as humans and communities and make our land sick.” Speaking to The Skinny a week ahead of the Exchange’s starting date, Shaughnessy is excited to be meeting up again with Shetland Island writer Donald S Murray (As The Women Lay Dreaming) and Bryony McIntyre and Barry Esson of Edinburgh’s political arts org Arika. Joining Scottish based participants are Toronto-based Indigenous artists, researchers and activists; Elwood Jimmy, Sara Roque and Leslie McCue. Shaughnessy feels there are already strong points of connection in the group, “that we are all interested in weaving communities together and creating unique generative spaces”. The Exchange will be taking place on the Scottish School of Herbal Medicine at Drimlabarra Herb Farm on the Isle of Arran, owned and operated by traditional herbalist Keith Robertson. “We are so grateful to spend time together on the Isle to acknowledge and connect with the land we are visiting,” says Shaughnessy. “It’s a dedicated time to rejuvenate before the hype and pressures of the Edinburgh Festivals... [and] to become inspired by the land and each other.”

Scottish Participants Keith Robertson Host Keith Robertson MSc (Herbal Medicine), F.NIMH (Fellow of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists) is a much-respected visionary and pioneer of traditional energetic

August 2019

and contemplative approaches in professional herbal training in the UK. He is also a traditional musician and singer. After serving on the NIMH Council he then established the Scottish School of Herbal Medicine in Glasgow in 1992. He ran the School for the next 18 years training to BSc (Hons) and MSc level. In recognition of his vision with SSHM, as well as his work with the NIMH and European Accreditation Boards, he was awarded a Fellowship in 2004 in acknowledgement of his services to herbal education. A correspondence pre-course and apprenticeship programme is now run from his herb farm on the Isle of Arran, which researches herbal medicines and vegan organic growing techniques. Find out more at veganherbal.com Donald S Murray Donald S Murray was brought up in Ness at the northern tip of the Isle of Lewis from an early age. He is a writer living in Shetland, writing poetry, prose, non-fiction, drama and fiction. His latest books are The Dark Stuff – Stories from The Peatlands (Bloomsbury) and As The Women Lay Dreaming (Saraband), a novel inspired by the effects of the Iolaire disaster that took place outside his hometown of Stornoway in 1919. He has been shortlisted for both the Saltire and Callum MacDonald Memorial awards. His most recent novel is currently shortlisted for the Authors Club First Books Award in London and was highly commended in the prestigious Sir Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. His Gaelic play, Sequamur has been performed in Scotland, Belfast, London and Ypres in Belgium. Bryony McIntyre and Barry Esson Mcintyre and Esson are behind Arika, a political arts organisation based in Scotland. Arika is concerned with celebrating and supporting connections between artistic production and social change. Arika runs a programme of public events called Episodes comprised of performances, discussions, screenings and collective learning. They also work on a smaller scale to produce events that support specific struggles in allyship with UK based activists and political groups. Alongside their Episode series, events programmed by Arika include the festivals INSTAL, Kill Your Timid Notion and Music Lover’s Field Companion, and the Shadowed Spaces and Resonant Spaces tours. They have worked on long term community projects with Ultra-red, SWARM (Sex Worker Advocacy and Resistance Movement), Arbert

Santana Ballroom Freedom and Free School, and presented a week long programme of events as part of the 2012 Whitney Biennial entitled A Survey is a Process of Listening.

Kanata (Indigenous Canadian Participants) Émilie Monnet At the intersection of theatre, performance and media arts, the practice of Indigenous Contemporary Scene producer Émilie Monnet centres on questions of identity, memory, history and transformation. Her works privilege collaborative processes of creation, and are typically presented as interdisciplinary theatre or immersive performance experiences. As a playwright and director, she is the artist in residence at Centre du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui in Montreal until 2021. This Time Will Be Different, her most recent installation performance co-created together with choreographer Lara Kramer, premiered at Festival TransAmériques this past June. Since 2016, she produces Indigenous Contemporary Scene (ICS), through her company Onishka which is a nomadic platform for the presentation of live arts and creative exchanges between Indigenous artists and communities. onishka.org Patti Shaughnessy Shaughnessy walks as Anishnaabe Kwe and Irish. She is a co-founder of the O’Kaadenigan Wiingashk Arts Collective (OKW) whose collective spirit works to weave communities together through festivals, discussions, productions and land based knowledge. OKW’s most notable activity was the production of the Ode’min Giizis (Strawberry Moon) Festival (2009-2012) in Nogojiwaning. Ode’min Giizis was a gathering of several artists and tribes co-presented with sister organisation Public Energy. OKW is grateful for the invitation to co-produce Indigenous Contemporary Scene with Onishka, with the intention to activate our collective spirit on Scottish lands. Shaughnessy works as an actor and director, often in Greenland, and upcoming as a coordinator for a circumpolar storytelling festival that will co-exist with Nuuk Nordisk. Shaughnessy is a mother and grandmother who resides in the drumlins of Douro where she grows plants. Sara Roque Filmmaker, writer, activist and cultural leader

INDIGENOUSCONTEMPORARYSCENE.ORG

Interview: Eliza Gearty

Sara Roque is the former Indigenous Arts Officer at the Ontario Arts Council where she worked for ten years, mentoring artists and building innovative programs, policies and resources with Indigenous artists and communities. She is an award-winning documentary filmmaker (National Film Board) and co-founder of the O’Kaadenigan Wiingashk Arts Collective (Peterborough, Canada) as well as The Good Medicine Collective (Toronto, Canada) working at the intersection of arts and health. Sara is a mixed blood Anishinaabekwe from Shebahonaning-Killarney Ontario and resides in Toronto.

“ [The Exchange is a] gathering people who have the guts to address and identify harmful colonial systems that continue to fail us as humans and communities and to make our land sick” Patti Shaughnessy

Elwood Jimmy Elwood Jimmy is a learner, collaborator, writer, artist, facilitator, cultural manager and gardener. Currently based in Toronto, he is originally from the Thunderchild First Nation, a Nêhiyaw community in the global far north. For 20 years, he has played a leadership role in several art projects, collectives, and organisations locally and abroad. He is currently the Coordinator of Indigenous Programs/Cultural and Organizational Change Catalyst with the Musagetes Foundation. ICS’s Creators Exchange on the Land took place on The Isle of Arran, 23-28 Jul

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‘A concert and a conversation’ E

valyn Parry, award-winning feminist theatre maker, and Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, actor, musician and storyteller, formed a wondrous partnership after an encounter by chance. Hired as artists in residence, they met aboard an environmental expedition sailing from Nanuvut to Greenland. “The whole trip was pretty wild and intense and amazing,” recalls Parry. “We connected on board, definitely recognising each other as politically motivated feminist artists. But also, for me it was a brand-new experience travelling in this part of the country. Meeting new Inuit people who were on the trip as a Southern white Canadian was very perspective-altering.” The experience sparked a yearning in Parry to know more about her country’s history of colonialism. “I became obsessed with talking to people about what they knew about the North and engaging conversation around it. I kept coming back to the fact that to really represent a perspective, it didn’t make sense to have another white Southern narrator. It needed to be a dialogue and the authorship needed to be shared in order to actually explore a change of perspective.” It was then that Parry approached Bathory. “I invited Laakkuluk to collaborate with me on something. And she basically said ‘Yeah, but you should come to Nunavut to make it.’” The result was Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools, a ‘concert and a conversation’ that is being staged outside Canada for the very first time at the Edinburgh International Festival this year. Drawing from the experiences of its

performers, the show explores the territory and culture of the Canadian Inuit community, and inspects the country’s current and historical climate. It also viscerally connects audiences to the critical climate conditions of the North, using creative, spell-binding set design to great effect. “I know that Scots are very connected to hiking and to harvesting, and that’s something that we share culturally,” says Bathory. “Inuit [people] – we see ourselves as a part of the land. We are not human beings that dominate the land, we are of the land and of the water.” The show connects the dots between various issues. “In the play, we talk about colonisation, we talk about climate change and we talk about our femininity,” explains Bathory. “We embody all the things that we talk about. We can only tell our own stories... Our rule is to be vulnerable, so that audiences can enter our understanding of our own histories in order to be able to see their place in the bigger picture.” Anticipating how the show will resonate with an Edinburgh audience, Parry reasons: “I’m aware that the Edinburgh audience is a very international audience, not just a Scottish audience... and it’s very interesting to see how people connect it to their own situation. We chatted to all kinds of people, around how this North/South conversation resonates in a different context. Obviously, Scotland has its own history around land dispossession and language dispossession and being the northern part of the island, there’s a colonising narrative as well. I think there’s lots of interesting parallels.”

Interview: Mirren Wilson

Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools

When asked the same question, Bathory laughs; “You might have to tell me!” “What I do as an artist is going to be completely new, I think,” she continues. “As a Greenlandic mask dancer, it’s a very visceral experience, where I interact with audience members one on one, and crawl around and

Photo: Jeremy Mimnagh

The Skinny chat to artists Evalyn Parry and Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory about their upcoming Edinburgh International Festival show, Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools

challenge and become a creature that is both fearsome and fearful and very sexual and very funny. So, I have no idea how that’s going to go down. We’ll see.” Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools is at The Studio, Festival Theatre, 2-5 Aug, 7.30pm and 3 & 5 Aug, 2pm, £20

Indigenous badassery Sage Nokomis Wright, the Managing Producer of Indigenous Contemporary Scene, introduces Kanata Cabaret Hour, part of this year’s CanadaHub line-up at King’s Hall

peaking of the show, which she has curated alongside Emilie Monnet and Patti Shaughnessy, Wright says it’s “a night of Indigenous badassery! “It is a cabaret unlike others because of the vibrant connection between the performers as Indigenous artists,” she tells me. “We share a special sense of humour as kin and a certain understanding of one another that allows the audience to witness a kinetic energy across the roster, night after night, through a rotating line-up of performers.” A radical mix of dance, music and live art from Indigenous perspectives, featuring playwrights, dancers, singers and performers, Kanata Cabaret Hour will be performed both in English and in a variety of Indigenous languages – something that Wright hopes will leave audiences feeling that they have experienced a “new story, a new word.” She wants people to leave feeling like they are “full from a home cooked meal your auntie made you.” Wright stresses, however, that it should not be seen as a cultural exhibit. “The linking factor is that all the pres-

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enters are Indigenous, not that we are presenting specifically Indigenous performances.”

“ Canada’s indigenous communities are always thriving. The land is not” Sage Nokomis Wright

The title derives from the Haudenosaunee word for town or village, ‘Kanata’, which was recorded by Jacques Cartier, the first European to travel inland in North America, in 1535. The word eventually became the name of the country now known as ‘Canada’. Using the term “is about reclamation”, Wright states.

As a symbol of this reclamation, Kanata Cabaret Hour uses a re-imagined Canadian flag, with three feathers in place of a maple leaf. The image was conceptualised by Greg Hill's Kanata Project “as a response to the need for the recreation of a new identity for ‘Canada’ that recognises and honours the origins of the country.” Asked about the position of Indigenous communities in Canada, Wright replies: “I think for our international friends, it can be easy to lump Indigenous people in Canada into one group. Canada is a country that spans almost ten million square kilometres, and our First Nations, Inuit and Metis people live on every foot of it, in vastly different climates, with different ceremonies and teachings and life experiences. One thing that unites us is our inherent talent for storytelling. What is under threat is our resources. Natural resource extraction and man camps, government involvement in family affairs, there are currently hundreds of boil water advisories affecting Indigenous communities across Canada. This is

Book tickets at indigenouscontemporaryscene.org

Interview: Chris Dobson

just a small taste of what threatens our existence, but Canada’s Indigenous communities are always thriving. The land is not.” She wants to bring the show to the Fringe because it is “an exciting opportunity to exhibit Indigenous excellence at such a major convergence of international talent.” Kanata Cabaret Hour has been curated specifically for this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, and has never been previously performed. Wright herself has a connection to Scotland – her grandmother is from Inverness. She is excited to be welcomed to this land and to come full circle, by presenting work on the land of her Scottish ancestors whilst honouring the intersection of her Scottish and Anishinaabe heritage. “Story-telling is inherent for us,” Wright says. “We are beautiful storytellers.” For anyone with an interest in this Indigenous storytelling, Kanata Cabaret Hour looks sure to be an unmissable evening’s entertainment this Fringe. Kanata Cabaret Hour is at CanadaHub, King’s Hall, 21-24 Aug, 7pm, £9-11 (£36 family ticket)

THE SKINNY

Written on the Body Choreographer and multidisciplinary artist Lara Kramer speaks about the use of ‘state of body practice’, her pivot to artistic realism and her decision to navigate intergenerational trauma through performance

ith its free healthcare, amply-funded school system and lenient cannabis laws, Canada seems to be one of the last bastions of liberal values in a world that is increasingly polarised and riven with hate. However, glistening as it does in the international spotlight, the glossy veneer of Canadian progressivism deflects the eye from the social realities of cultural imperialism and entrenched colonialism borne by the country’s First Nations and Indigenous peoples. Through her creative practice, Montrealbased choreographer and artist Lara Kramer (who is of Oji-Cree and settler heritage) seeks to interrogate the ways that this colonial trauma lives on in Canada and other settlerdominated nations, passing between different generations of Indigenous peoples. As part of Indigenous Contemporary Scene 2019’s Festival programme she presents works that explore the past, present and future of these experiences with a residency looking back at her career centring on narrative dance piece Native Girl Syndrome, collaborative performance work This Time Will be Different and open laboratory Miijin Ki.

“ There’s this realism in the sense of seeing bodies that are dealing with trauma, addiction or loss and how is that conveyed in the body” Lara Kramer

Recent scientific research has suggested that trauma can be passed down through our DNA via epigenetics — alterations to the ways that DNA is expressed, caused by environmental factors. These discoveries suggest that historic suffering of individuals’ ancestors could literally be carried within their bodies, shaping the way they move through the world and making their pleasure almost inseparable from pain. Embodiment, then, emerges as an

August 2019

important aspect of her work — a means of exploring these tensions but also as a gesture towards the reclamation of colonised bodies. As she explains, speaking to me over the phone from across the Atlantic Ocean, she combines a more traditional ‘muscular practice’ in her approach to choreography with a more holistic ‘state of body practice’. “I really have the artist become more acutely aware of their senses. They need to invoke their senses of taste and smell so this also creates a space of memory and there’s a nice visualisation that comes with it. I’m always looking at heightening the senses, it anchors the body.” Native Girl Syndrome uses this focus on the body to push past performance and enter into the realm of realism and puts the experiences of those burdened by poverty and addiction — the ones we are told to ignore or look away from — centre stage. The jerking movements of the performers on stage seems to externalise an internal pain or struggle, showing the interconnectedness of mental and physical wellbeing. Speaking of the piece, she details how she rejected some of the elitism we might associate with professional dance to deliver a work that tells the story of her grandmother’s struggles in a fundamentally racist and classist society. “There’s no beautiful lines in the work; it’s really about how these bodies are conveying an experience. There’s this realism in the sense of seeing bodies that are dealing with trauma, addiction or loss and how is that conveyed in the body. I think the more I pushed the realism of this work, the more it felt recognisable and accessible. You would see these bodies on a street, potentially, or you would see these bodies if you were doing documentary film-making.” Yet Kramer’s state of body practice doesn’t just facilitate realism, but also resistance. Alongside inherited trauma, Indigenous peoples must undergo the continued impacts of systemic racism in a world that only wants to make room for whiteness. Through Miijin Ki, Kramer explores alternate forms of bodily articulation, viewing the project through the lens of pleasure. “We were looking at ways of approaching [the] material as a site of pleasure and that was a really exciting task. It was this process of asking ‘what is pleasure?’ and thinking about what acts of pleasure we don’t normally see on stage, particularly when it comes to Indigenous bodies.” The work serves as a creative exchange of sorts between Kramer and other participating Indigenous artists, exploring ways in which the colonial trauma they carry co-exists with feelings of pleasure or joy. “There are

Photo: Stefan Petersen

Interview: Megan Wallace

sometimes moments when we are approaching moments of pleasure but inside of that we’re never fully rid of that historical and even present trauma. I wanted to say that in this act of pleasure there’s still a link to trauma as well, you can’t separate the colonised body from the pleasure — there’s an interconnectedness to it.” With Miijin Ki meaning “eating land” in Anishnaabemowin, the work is also a space to examine colonial land ownership values. As Kramer explains: “There are moments when we’re in discussion as a group about having been displaced from territory. We’re dealing with this sort of urban reality of watching land being consumed and over-consumed but what is that experience of being anchored on territory, Indigenous territory?” The space for creative exchange that is fostered by Miijin Ki is also a defining feature of This Time Will be Different, a work that involves performers of three different generations, including Kramer’s own daughter, to explore the impact of various Canadian government inquiries into the treatment of Indigenous peoples and the failure of the government to take concrete change to try to end the cycle of intergenerational trauma. “In Canada you see this practice of the government putting out a lot of effort into enquiries. These are periods of heightened hope, like; ‘OK, we’re going to be in a space of transformation and growth.’ But when you speak to the people who are at the core action of these, that’s clearly not the case. I spoke to a woman involved in the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and she said; ‘Well, the mandate isn’t to find any justice. The mandate is really to educate the population.’” The different generations who colla-

INDIGENOUSCONTEMPORARYSCENE.ORG

borate in the piece have — and likely will witness further — multiple inquiries into the Canadian government’s mistreatment of Indigenous peoples. Yet when even the way these investigations are carried out — with little respect for the peoples being consulted — seems to suggest a colonial complacency towards Indigenous peoples, it is clear that they do not come from a place of wanting to unroot racist and colonial attitudes. As Kramer puts it, “I feel that there was a reigniting of trauma with [inquiries like] the Truth and Reconciliation Commission [to examine the impact of the residential school system]. Hearing what the survivors went through in that period is horrific, but the commission had nothing in place for how they were going to support the people who were having to revisit childhood trauma. There’s not much in terms of care.” Yet there’s hope too — and it comes from an Indigenous, rather than settler, experience. While Kramer’s work as part of ICS will no doubt educate British and European visitors about the situation in Canada, the works also present themselves as spaces for remapping the meaning of the colonial body and freeing it from the reductive gaze of the white settler. As Kramer concludes: “We’re talking about a subject matter of colonial trauma, yet there’s this element of taking back the narrative.” Native Girl Syndrome, Summerhall (Bruford), 2-11 Aug (not 5, 6), 4.20pm, £8-10 This Time Will be Different, Summerhall (Bruford), 13-18 Aug, 4pm, £8-10 Miijin Ki, Summerhall (Bruford), 20-24 Aug, 4pm, £8-10

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Reclaiming Power F

or three decades, a crisis has been sweeping Canada that has been largely, and shamefully, ignored. Thousands of Indigenous women, girls and non-binary people have gone missing in the last thirty years – an epidemic that the Canadian Government refused to investigate until earlier this year. In May, a report by the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls was finally released. The findings of the report are harrowing. “Estimates are as high as 40,000 such cases – yet little to nothing is being done about it,” says Tara Beagan, a Ntlakapamux and Irish Canadian theatre artist, who wrote Deer Woman in response to the Genocide. “What a little person like me can do is tell one story that inspires a feeling of empowerment. One that acknowledges the rage from such a powerless standpoint to reclaim power.” The one-woman show was also written as “a partial antidote to the plays and films written by settler Canadians about the MMIWG [Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Genocide]. “These crimes are enabled by many

settlers, and then they go ahead and profit from it by telling our stories,” Beagan tells me. “I consider that appalling.” Deer Woman is a far cry from the victim narrative perpetuated by settlers. Its protagonist, Lila, is tough and complex, a multi-dimensional character who responds to the murder of her younger sister by formulating a plan for revenge. She is played by the Blackfoot actor Cherish Violet Blood, whom Beagan describes as “riveting, and so very brilliant in [the] role.” Lila is taught to hunt and slaughter deer by her father as a child, skills no doubt invaluable to the Army she later joins; heartbreakingly, she is deployed overseas when she learns of her sister’s death. “It’s no accident that the armed forces in Canada have special recruitment programmes aimed at Indigenous peoples,” says Beagan, of the high numbers of Indigenous people recruited to defend a Nation that does little to protect their communities. “These institutions tear down the individual and build them back up as cogs in machines... This is possible because all of the genocidal schemes [the Government] have already

Interview: Eliza Gearty

enacted can make an Indigenous person feel hopeless and without community in Canada.” Does the play call for change? “It accuses a nation and will not stand idly by, allowing for the system to continue its atrocities,” Beagan replies. “It also cracks a lot of jokes at the expense of the hegemony.” It would be reductive to minimise Deer Woman to its political message, though Beagan is certain that “whether or not you think it’s important won’t impact your excellent night at the theatre.” The show was given high praise at 2018’s Sydney Festival for Blood’s powerful performance, Beagan’s evocative writing and creative decisions that saw Blood deliver her confessions through the lens of a smartphone that projected close-ups of her face across massive screens on-stage. “Social media has been a great leveller in terms of access, across race and class”, says Beagan. “Lila is taking action to bring vengeance to the voiceless; and she is ensuring everyone with a wifi signal can hear her war cry.” Tara Beagan

Photo: Article 11

Tara Beagan’s play Deer Woman was described as ‘a work of immense power and artistry’ by critics in Australia. Now, ahead of its European premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe this Summer, Beagan explains why it’s a story that had to be told

The Skinny speaks to the actor Cherish Violet Blood about her role as Lila in Deer Woman Interview: Lynn Rusk

Deer Woman

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Photo: Prudence Upton

report named Reclaiming Power and Place, which was compiled over more than two and a half years, was recently released investigating three decades of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. The report, by the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls, determined that ‘state actions and inactions rooted in colonialism and colonial ideologies’ were a key driving force in the disappearance of thousands of Indigenous women. For years, activists and Indigenous peoples have pushed for a government inquiry into the high number of Indigenous women who have either gone missing or been killed. Deer Woman is a startling portrayal of just one of these stories. It’s a solo-warriorwoman work starring Cherish Violet Blood as Lila, a missing girl’s sister and a skilled hunter and veteran of war, who finds the perfect opportunity to avenge her sister’s murder. “I t took some time to get the words into the body. I’m supported by an incredible team. We make sure we check in a lot to make sure I’m not carrying the story home, because the story is a really hard one to tell,’’ says Blood, when asked about the emotional toll the part must take on her. It’s obvious from speaking to Blood how passionate she is about the role. She suggests that the play empowers Indigenous women as opposed to victimising them. “This story is being told by Indigenous people, performing

Book tickets at indigenouscontemporaryscene.org

an Indigenous story,” she explains. “Its not a settler telling our story for us.’ “In this piece, I’m not the victim. It was strange for me at first – which is weird because it should be celebrated. It was unchartered territory for me; as an actor, I usually play a character that is being raped or killed, as this is the subject material I always get. Unfortunately, it is always a sad story, and is usually not written by Indigenous people.’’ Blood thinks the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is an important platform from which to share this story. “The world is unaware of what is happening to Indigenous women and two-spirit people in Canada. There is a lot of stuff hidden by the Canadian government,” she tells me. “Just recently they released the missing and murdered Indigenous women report to the prime minister, and they refused to call it genocide, which is ridiculous as it’s thousands upon thousands of murdered and missing women. They are only counting from a specific time.’’ How does Blood feel the show will be received in Edinburgh? ‘’I hope audiences will come into the show with an open mind,” she says. “This story is about Canada’s treatment of the Indigenous people. This is one little part of this hidden story in North America. I want audiences to leave with questions.’’ Deer Woman is at CanadaHub, King’s Hall, 31 Jul-24 Aug (not 5,12,19), 2.30pm, £11 (£9)

THE SKINNY

Lacey Hill Q&A What inspired you when you were writing the music for Deer Woman? Lacey Hill: I was first invited by ARTICLE 11 to write music for Deer Woman when it was a live reading. I was inspired by the storyline and how it speaks to the connection sisters have because I know that connection being an older sister to two. Deer Woman is a story told and written about everyday realities for Indigenous women in Canada; I was inspired to write the songs because I am an Indigenous woman in Canada. How did the collaborative process work? Team Deer Woman is made up of two very talented and established artists in the theatre world, director Andy Moro and playwright Tara Beagan. Actress Cherish Violet Blood is my partner whom I wanted to support as best I could. So later I was mentored to develop my skills in what it means to put on a play. We all work hard together with love for the project.

Cris Derksen

Cello There

To what extent do you think music can help people focus on what unites them rather than their differences? I believe it’s one of the only things holding us together. Music brings us to a sense of belonging, the tones, notes, timing, rhythm and frequencies coming together to create a power great enough to bring people together in a way nothing else can. It’s truly magical, really, when you think about it.

Canadian cellist Cris Derksen chats about being an Indigenous person in 2019 and playing the cello ahead of her appearance at the Edinburgh International Book Festival Interview: Jemima Skala

Why should people at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival see Deer Woman? The storyline is amazingly disturbing and Cherish Violet Blood is friggin brilliant! She amazes me every time. I would like them to leave with a feeling that will stick with them for days.

August 2019

Photo: Article 11

Deer Woman has toured around the world – how has the reception changed? The common experience thus far in our travels together is, we have played in places where an almost all Indigenous audience was possible. Deer Woman has created a momentum with every show, every word – this story needs to be told. The shock has always changed of course but this play keeps getting stronger.

Deer Woman

Photo: Nadya Kwandibens/Red Works Photography

Singer-songwriter Lacey Hill composed the music for Deer Woman and accompanies the performance each night

ris Derksen isn’t exactly what springs to mind when you think of a cellist. Far from the stereotype of upper-middle class straight white man, Derksen is a half-Cree, half-Mennonite Canadian performer who uses the cello to speak to her experience as a person of Indigenous heritage. Using loops, effect pedals and drum machines, she warps the sounds of her cello into sonics that are instantly relatable, if perhaps not instantly comfortable. With three studio albums out and a busy performance schedule, Derksen will be performing at two events in Edinburgh International Book Festival’s Indigenous Voices strand – Songs from the Land: Sometimes I Speak English on 15 August with Inuit poet and throat singer Taqralik Partridge and Scottish musician Inge Thomson, and Calling Home on 16 August with Tara Beagan. For the former, there’s just one catch. “I can’t really tell you what it is!” she laughs when asked to explain a bit about it. “I’m going to be improvising on the cello to some different poets. They are going to come to Edinburgh, they’re going to get inspired and write new stuff entirely, so it’s all going to be very off the cuff.” Improvisation is where Derksen is at her most comfortable, having done four years of touring with celebrated Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq straight after graduating from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Given that Tagaq only improvises, this is where Derksen was able to cut her improv teeth, finding her voice. “It takes a lot of deep listening to be an improviser,” she muses. Returning to Songs from the Land, she says:

“I’m a big fan of improv, and I’m a big fan of listening and responding. I think it’s going to be beautiful. I have no doubt. I just don’t know what it will be.” Derksen’s measured calm is carried into her insistence on the importance of having discussions about indigeneity outside of countries with Indigenous populations. “I think there’s still a lot of preconceived notions about what indigeneity looks like,” she says, “and I think it’s easy to romanticise Indigenous folks in a way that isn’t true to 2019. Not necessarily as contemporary as we are.” This contemporaneity of Indigenous people is the key to Derksen’s work. She describes her practice of melding electronic sounds with the cello as “braiding that traditional and contemporary together.”

“ I’m a big fan of improv, and I’m a big fan of listening and responding. I think it’s going to be beautiful” Cris Derksen

INDIGENOUSCONTEMPORARYSCENE.ORG

“I think folks are always impressed with how I manipulate the tools that I use, and especially on a cello because it’s such a colonial instrument,” she observes. Having learned the cello through a school programme, Derksen was certain by the time she was 17 that she was going to be a musician. This early start imbued her with a self-assured musicality that meant she could adapt her instrument to her own self-expression. As she puts it: “All creators create from their own perspective, their own understanding, view and lens.” In terms of how her own identity slots into the music industry, Derksen is positive in the face of any potential hardship or discrimination. “What I’ve come to learn is that because I am so diverse and I have so many intersectionalities within myself, it allows me to make friends and create music for such a wide variety of audiences… It really just broadened my audience base.” She pauses and laughs: “I’m coming to Edinburgh to do a book show! It has been beneficial to my own career to be so diverse.” With a back catalogue and performance history that aims to bring the contemporary experience of Indigenous people to the fore, Cris Derksen is an exciting addition to the Indigenous Contemporary Scene programme in Edinburgh this August. Expect to think, consider, but most importantly of all, listen with open ears and an open mind. Sometimes I Speak English, Baillie Gifford Imagination Lab, Charlotte Square Gardens, Edinburgh, 15 Aug, 8pm Calling Home, with Tara Beagan, Writer's Retreat, Charlotte Square Gardens, Edinburgh, 16 Aug, 5.30pm

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What’s On Your at-a-glance look at the Indigenous Contemporary Scene line-up

CanadaHub, King’s Hall 31 Jul-24 Aug (not 5,12,19), 2.30pm (1 hour 30 minutes), £11 (£9 concessions) “My name is Lila and I am a proud Blackfoot woman. What I am doing is illegal.” So begins Deer Woman, a solo-warrior-woman work of righteous vengeance starring Cherish Violet Blood. After their time as Artist-in-residence at the inaugural CanadaHub, ARTICLE 11 returns with this thrilling tale of revenge telling the story of one of 1600 officially recognised missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada.

Songs in the Key of Cree

CanadaHub, King’s Hall 31 Jul-18 Aug (not 5,12,19), 7pm (1 hour, no interval) £11 (£9 concessions, £36 family) Born the eleventh of 12 children on 6 December 1951 in a snow bank on the Manitoba-Nunavut border to a family of nomadic caribou hunters, Cree playwright, pianist and singer Tomson Highway takes up residency in CanadaHub for Songs in the Key of Cree, a retrospective cabaret with Tomson himself at the piano. He’s accompanied by extraordinary Peruvian-Canadian singer Patricia Cano and jazz saxophonist Marcus Ali.

Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools

The Studio Festival Theatre 2-5 Aug, 7.30pm (1 hour 50 minutes, no interval), 3 & 5 Aug, 2pm, £20 A concert and a conversation, Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools is the meeting place of two people, and the North and South of a country. Inuk artist Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory and queer theatre-maker Evalyn Parry met on an Arctic expedition from Iqaluit to Greenland. Now sharing a stage, these two powerful storytellers map new territory together in a work that gives voice and body to the histories, culture, and climate we’ve inherited, and asks how we reckon with these sharp tools. In the Inuktitut language, when a knife is dull, it is said

Listings

to ‘have no face.’ The word ‘Kiinalik’ translates to mean the knife is sharp – or, ‘it has a face.’ Embodying the stories of their heritage, Evalyn and Laakkuluk put a face to the colonial histories, power structures and the changing climate that lie between them.

Native Girl Syndrome Summerhall 2-4 & 7-11 Aug, 4.20pm (1 hour, no interval) £10 (£8 concessions, £28 family)

A true advocate for Indigenous peoples, Lara Kramer’s work deals with the often brutal relationships between Indigenous peoples and colonial society. Native Girl Syndrome is inspired by the experience of Kramer’s own grandmother, having migrated from a remote First Nations community into an unfamiliar urban environment as a young woman. Kramer paints a ruthless portrait of homeless Indigenous women and, through the raw, street-style performances of Karina Iraola and Angie Cheng, she creates a troubling universe of truth and reality. The dancers’ drug-filled, disassociated personas take the audience on a potent journey through addiction, loss and alienation.

Panel: Land Acknowledgements & Cultural Protocols INSPACE, Fringe Central 4 Aug, 1pm Admission free, ticketed

In Canada, it is more and more common to acknowledge the land before performances begin. How do we acknowledge and care for the land inside and outside of our artistic practices? How do we ground our work in the land on which we live and create? A moderated conversation with participants of the Creators Exchange on the land, an initiative from ICS Scotland that brought together 13 creators and language keepers of Indigenous and Scottish identities.

This Time Will Be Different

Summerhall 13-18 Aug, 4pm (50 minutes), £10 (£8 concessions, £28 family) Witness the performative ritual that is This Time Will Be

Different, a performancebased installation that denounces the Canadian government’s discourse on Indigenous people and serves as a rebuttal of the industry built around reconciliation. From one inquiry to the next, from the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, has anything really changed in the relationship between the Government of Canada and Indigenous Peoples? Elders, parents, children, three generations on stage support one another as they explore this question together. This eloquent installation-performance piece is the creation of interdisciplinary artists Émilie Monnet and performer-choreographer Lara Kramer. Monnet’s work explores the interconnections between identity, memory and language while Kramer employs a raw, theatrical vocabulary and powerful imagery to create works of power and sensitivity.

poet Roseanne Watt join the conversation reading from some of their latest works.

Songs from the Land: Sometimes I Speak English

Kanata Cabaret Hour

A contemplation on home, language and loss, Sometimes I Speak English features Inuk poet, throat singer and visual artist Taqralik Partridge who performs alongside celebrated Cree cellist Cris Derksen as part of our Edinburgh International Book Festival’s Songs from the Land mini-series. Scottish musician Inge Thomson brings new works inspired by the beautiful landscape of her Fair Isle home to this exciting programme.

Kanata Cabaret Hour is a showcase of the many Indigenous artists performing in Edinburgh during August. The hour will offer up a radical mixture of dance, music and live art from both Indigenous and Scottish perspectives. Expect surprise guests and performances every night. This isn’t your coloniser’s cabaret, it’s self-determined Indigenous badassery!

Charlotte Square 15 Aug, 8pm

Miijin Ki [Eating Land}

Summerhall, Bruford 20-24 Aug, 4pm (1 hour, no interval), £10 (£8 concessions, £28 family) Miijin Ki, a word in the Anishnaabemowin language which translates to Eating Land, is a new work where Kramer, along with her collaborators, create non-violent tensions of living and being on the land. The work acts as a counter narrative to the pan victim Indian and a metaphor for the interconnectedness of all things in the modern and natural world. Presented as a ‘scratch night’, this public residency will give the creative team a chance to test things in front of a small audience night after night. An exciting open laboratory and a place for experimentation.

CanadaHub, King’s Hall 21-24 Aug, 7pm (1 hour), £11 (£9 concessions, £36 family)

Much-decorated Cree playwright, pianist and singer Tomson Highway, widely regarded as one of Canada’s greatest artists, takes up residence in CanadaHub with Songs in the Key of Cree. We asked him a few questions about the evolution of the work What inspired you to create Songs In The Key Of Cree? Tomson Highway: The beauty and the humour of my mother tongue inspired me to write the show; I think it deserves to be heard by the whole world. What are the themes that run through the show? The theme of the show is love; love is touched on a lot within the course of the show. Political? No. Educational? No, not really. It is, in the end, about entertainment, first and foremost – it will make people laugh, it will make people cry – but entertainment with a very strong social conscience. The show does not preach. It gives its message of joy and hope by opening hearts, by lifting spirits. And they will, indeed, be opened. And lifted. The show is described as ‘a retrospective cabaret’ and features yourself at the piano, the singer Patricia Cano and the jazz saxophonist Marcus Ali. Do you regard music as a kind of universal language? Yes, I very much regard music as a universal language, the only one that is understood by all countries and all races on Earth. The beauty of music is what can unite people and make them forget their differences, if only momentarily. Why should people at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival come see Songs In the Key of Cree? People should come and see the show to see a Cree Indian piano player, with the training of a concert pianist, play the piano... like a demon. And not ‘Indian music’ as they would think we still play and sing but very modern cabaret-style music modelled, in many ways, after the songs of such ‘mainstream’ songwriters as Cole Porter and Kurt Weill, with, of course, the lyrics in Cree. They will never have heard anything like it. What about the show do you think might resonate with Scottish audiences? The sheer beauty of the show, the power of the performers, the singer and saxophonist especially, will resonate, and resonate strongly, with audiences. Songs in the Key of Cree, CanadaHub, 31 Jul-18 Aug (not 5, 12), 7pm, £11 (£9 concessions, £36 family ticket)

Songs from the Land: Calling Home Charlotte Square 16 Aug, 5.30pm

As part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival’s Songs from the Land mini-series, Calling Home sees acclaimed Cree cellist Cris Derksen join celebrated Ntlakapamux-Irish playwright Tara Beagan for her response to the ongoing discussion around the Beothuk human remains currently residing in the National Museum of Scotland’s collection. Inuk spoken word artist Taqralik Partridge and Shetlandic

Book tickets at indigenouscontemporaryscene.org

Tomson Highway

THE SKINNY

Photo: Sean Howard

Deer Woman

Tomson Highway Q&A

Summer Dreams The Craft Scotland Summer Show offers an annual showcase for some of the country’s finest craft design makers – here are our top picks for a dreamy summer bedroom

Words: Stacey Hunter

August 2019

Vicky Higginson

eponymous textile brand. Boyd-Madsen uses knotting techniques with 3D knitted fabrics to create highly distinctive and tactile knitted soft furnishings in Edinburgh. I: @emmaboydmadsen_textiles Place a simple stem of craspedia into one of Viv Lee’s sculpural vessels and you have single handedly made any room approximately twice as nice. Lee’s work is underpinned by an interest in exploring the mind-body connection, with the vessel as metaphor for the body. Drawing inspiration from Zen Buddhism, she says the process of making “often takes place intuitively without a fixed idea of the outcome thereby allowing the material and the moment to dictate the form that emerges.” Working primarily with stoneware, Lee hand builds functional ceramics with a focus on sculptural vessels either burnished and unglazed or in a palette of neutral tones. I: @_viv_lee Any dressing table would be complemented by glassware from Vicky Higginson whose work combines hot glass and coldworking. Forms are handblown and worked into using cutting, carving and engraving techniques to create striking objects. Taking inspiration from Japanese and Scandinavian design, she creates elegant shapes accentuated with unusual and innovative surfaces. She explores the relationships between form, pattern and colour. Her Mix & Match range features colourful bowls with carved feet that would be the perfect receptacle for a pair of minimalist earrings. I: @VickyHigginson Symmetry, geometry and linear pattern is the signature style for Kinnaird Jewellery, seen here in these hand-carved gold statement studs. Numerous research trips, including visits to Peru and Morocco inform her practice, providing a fresh appreciation for the global story of makers, traditional craftsmanship and pattern making. The Edinburgh jeweller will also be participating in an exhibition titled Adfectus, opening during the Fringe Festival at Bloc Gallery (40 Ferry Road). I: @kinnairdjewellery

Emma Boyd-Madsen

Craft Scotland Summer Show, White Stuff, 89 George St, 2-25 Aug, free Open Mon-Wed, Fri-Sat 10am-6pm, Thu 10am-7pm, Sun 11am-5pm Book tickets for workshops at craftscotland.org Viv Lee

DESIGN

Ailidh Lennon

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Photo: Anna Mockford

Kinnaird Jewellery

Photo: Stacey Bentley

HAME

Photo: Gabriela Silveira

ith 18 new designers exhibiting for the first time at the Craft Scotland Summer Show, this annual selling event will be a hub for craft lovers in Edinburgh this August. In total, 41 designers and makers make this Craft Scotland’s biggest showcase yet and plays host to hands-on crafting workshops such as Hand Weaving with Le Petit Moose, Willow Weaving with Anna Liebmann and Paper Folding with Kate Colin. Beginning on Friday 2 August and open daily until Sunday 25 August, the airy second floor of White Stuff at 89 George Street is the venue. We’ve selected six pieces that would help to create a dream bedroom and conveniently doubles as a wish list you can cut out and keep for people who remark that you’re ‘hard to buy for’. Starting from the ground up is a handwoven flatwoven wool rug by Ailidh Lennon. The designer-maker describes herself simply as a ‘Rugwitch’, which we firmly approve of, and uses traditional tapestry and resist dyeing techniques to interpret the abstract shapes and shifting shades from the landscape of Iona into her sustainable textiles. Lennon uses single-origin yarn from local sheep working with the natural fleece colour and then hand-dyeing with plants and lichen gathered on the island. The colours of the fleece and dyes depend on the changing environmental factors of the season, allowing natural elements to influence the design process. I: @_ailidh A perfectly formed and practical piece of furniture comes from Glasgow designers and makers HAME. Founded by Lewis Macleod, HAME’s design process is led by curiosity and experimentation. Their Lambda stool-cumside-table-cum-step is part of a zero-waste range in which every object is cut from a single standard-size sheet of Baltic birch ply before being assembled and finished by hand. Their work aims to combine traditional hand skills with modern manufacturing technologies in new, interesting ways to produce high-quality, beautiful and useful objects that have, they say, ‘a quiet and honest character, celebrating the nature of their base materials.’ I: @madebyhame A pastel coloured cushion looks fresh and modern when it’s designed by Emma Boyd-Madsen. Born in Copenhagen, she takes inspiration from Scandinavian design to reinterpret traditional Scottish textiles, applying the principles of simplicity, highquality craftsmanship and a focus on materials. After graduating from Glasgow School of Art in 2017 and working for well-established textile companies Eribé in Melrose and Stine Goya studio in Copenhagen, she founded her

Photo: Matthew Beech

Going the Distance Fresh off a breakout year, and ahead of capping it all off by playing Indian Summer in Glasgow, The Beths’ Elizabeth Stokes talks about long distance, writing on the road and what future her really thinks

Interview: Tony Inglis

“ I don’t think I’ve done anything to piss off future me too much right now... But I’m sure I’ll think of something to get bummed out about eventually” Elizabeth Stokes

But what makes Future Me such a critical and popular lasting success, is Stokes’ ability to wrap up ideas of mid-to-late-20s existential crisis, self-deprecation and self-doubt, unrequited love and tanking relationships – which Stokes tells us are built from notes she takes “whenever things are going strangely” – into bright, whip-smart and hopeful sounding tunes. The album deserves repeat listens so that Stokes’ every line, every carefully crafted reference to the mundane and the personal, can be soaked up. The unceasingly fun riffs her words are dressed in

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Photo: Mason Fairey

lizabeth Stokes has been thinking about distance. And as the lead singer and songwriter of The Beths, it’s not surprising that her mind is occupied by vast expanses of time and space. From the band’s home in Auckland, New Zealand, to stealing hearts at festivals, like closing Primavera Sound in Barcelona, to returning multiple times to cities they played for the first time just a year ago – as they will to Glasgow, when the summer, or what’s left of it, begins to tail off later this year – Stokes has travelled far distances, both geographically and personally. Having been on the road for much of the last 15 months, covering that distance becomes a daily task. “Obviously, being on the road can be tough,” says Stokes down the line from Chicago where the band have a day off. “The biggest thing, and something I’ve been writing a lot about recently, is distance. Long distance relationships – not in a romantic sense. More like friendships and family, and navigating being away from people. And when you’re going through a hard time, maybe knowing they are too. That’s been on my mind a lot.” The Beths’ debut Future Me Hates Me came out around a year ago. The fact the band are packing out venues, ever-increasing in capacity, in disparate places, is testament to how it has gone over. The casual listener might baulk at the thought of Stokes’ writing moving along such melancholy lines, such are the bountiful sunny hooks and immediately melodic disposition of The Beths’ songs. make such replayability a pleasure. “I realised how important my lyrics are to me,” says Stokes in reference to her time at jazz school. “I was studying trumpet, and I realised I wanted to play ‘popular’ music. We loved jazz school; I mean, we loved music, and getting to study it all day, every day, and just going to a place where that’s all you do, was great. But I wanted to write songs again.” The story of The Beths – filled out by permanent members Jonathan Pearce and Benjamin Sinclair, with Tristan Deck now on drums – and their jazzy formative years is a bit over-emphasised now. Of course, the juxtaposition cries out for some mild surprise (jazz: long, intricate, improvised; The Beths’ pop-punky indie rock: lean, punchy, urgent), but actually that education informed, Stokes posits, a chunk of what she does best now. “I think because I did trumpet, and it was not a chordal instrument, it’s a melodic instrument, it does, in a lot of ways, feel like singing. And in the music I like to write, the melodies are really important to me, the way that they stand on their own. I think playing an instrument where it’s 100 percent melody – no words, no chords – there’s something to that. But maybe I’m reaching there.” Back on the subject of distance, two brief breaks over Christmas and in spring are the only tastes Stokes and her bandmates have had of home since their star shot up. That comes to bear, especially when where you’re from is so isolated and far away. “Your entire existence is wake up, drive to wherever the next city is, and then you play this show,” she explains. “There’s

this kind of routine, and everything is focused on this one thing. It’s definitely an endurance test where your whole day is leading up to this one set that’s like an hour long. And then if that set doesn’t go well… It’s where you get your energy from to continue to the next day. And that’s really fun most of the time. But when you get to go home and just be a regular person who’s part of whatever music scene that you’re in, and that focus becomes just a bit widened, it feels a bit more normal, I guess.” Those swirling feelings about distance – the ones Stokes says she’s been thinking and writing on – became tinged with heartbreak and disconnectedness back in March when a gunman, with links to white supremacy and the alt-right, shot and killed over 50 worshippers at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, injuring almost 50 more. The band may have been thousands of miles away, but this shocking act of violence reverberated with them, as it did all over the world. “We were at South by Southwest, coming to the end of a day where we played like four shows. We were on the way home when we saw the news. It was pretty surreal,” says Stokes, somberly. “It was really important that we were together, the four of us at least. You start reaching out to all of the good friends you know are not at home, and… I don’t know. It was just kind of like everybody reaching for each other and trying to make sense of it, coming to terms with what that means as a society in New Zealand that we’ve kind of let this happen. It was really strange being away from home and knowing that everybody was

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grieving there, but we were at this festival where everybody was just drinking, seeing life just kind of keep rolling on.” Life did keep rolling on in New Zealand, with politicians seeking to ensure that no such heinous act would be repeated. And roll on too do The Beths, arriving in Glasgow once more in September, having headlined their own shows and supported emo legends Death Cab for Cutie there already, to play the rejuvenated Indian Summer festival. In fact, it’ll be their last show in this part of the world for a while – to which Stokes, with casual but perfect comic timing, says “so, I think, we might just have a drink” – before going on to record a follow-up to Future Me Hates Me. “Something I really love is, even though it was all so exciting the first time, now we’re getting to a point where we’re coming back to some places for like the third or fourth time and it’s pretty awesome to be playing in slightly bigger venues, but then also just to see familiar faces. It just makes the world feel a lot smaller. That’s really nice.” At this point, contrary to the name of the record, it seems impossible that future Elizabeth Stokes will be anything but proud of the current iteration, never mind hateful. “I don’t think I’ve done anything to piss off future me too much right now,” she says, laughing. “I think I’m in the green zone. Hopefully. But I’m sure I’ll think of something to get bummed out about eventually.” The Beths play Indian Summer, BAaD, Glasgow, 1 Sep thebeths.com

THE SKINNY

August 2019

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THE SKINNY

Appley Ever After Ahead of the release of Animated Violence Mild, we talk about the violent nature of consumerism with Benjamin John Power, aka Blanck Mass

hat’s in an apple? A lot more than immediately meets the eye, that’s for sure. On the one hand, it’s an image of health and youth – ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’ as the saying goes. But within this vitality, there’s room for a worm of discontent: the inevitable decay, spoil and putrefaction of its ripe flesh. Apples bob to the surface throughout folklore in stories like Snow White and reside at the very heart of Christianity’s Genesis story, representing the kind of easy temptation that very quickly lapses into death and sin. It’s for this reason that the bitten apple – seeping blood like an open wound – is taken as the thematic emblem and cover image of Animated Violence Mild, the new album from Blanck Mass (aka Benjamin John Power). From his breakthrough as part of cult duo Fuck Buttons, throughout his two solo albums as Blanck Mass, Power has become known for the snarling malevolence of his music: all distorted vocals and frenetic beats, with last album, 2017’s World Eater, even splicing field recordings of his own underwater screams into the mix. Yet, with his latest endeavour, the tone of piercing discontent is muffled under a layer of sugary synth in a jarring repurposing of the stylistic hallmarks of the bloated, larger-than-life music of the 80s. It’s a curious musical choice, but one which crystallises the album’s central theme: the banal violence of consumerism. As Power explains, down the phone on a Thursday evening from his home in Tranent: “The 80s were kind of the birthplace of global mass consumerism as we know it. I used an Oberheim synthesiser that was used a lot in the 80s, particularly on Van Halen’s Jump, on that riff that I’m sure everyone is very familiar with. So there’s a very 80s sound throughout the album, and as opposed to a fetishisation or nostalgia, it’s a tongue-in-cheek piss-take of consumerism.” But don’t worry, Power’s diamond-hard electronic music hasn’t gone soft. “That very sugary 80s sound is one colour in quite a broad palette. There’s still a lot of ferocity underneath, even if that [synth] is quite prominent in the mixing process. There’s malevolence still, even if in some places it’s kind of coated with this sleazy palette on top.” It’s far from coincidence that this more upbeat synthesiser sits (uncomfortably) alongside harsher, more industrial effects. The clash of sounds and intensities function as a form of consciousness-raising as to the grisly side effects – i.e. climate crisis, large-scale exploitation of human labour, eroding natural resources – that lie behind our never-ending need to consume. As Power explains, this unexpected violence which humans invented but which now has us in its thrall, was Animated Violence Mild’s guiding theme. “Across the past couple of years, especially during this creative process, I was thinking a lot about global mass consumerism and the implications that it has on us as a species and where it’s brought us to. Consumerism is very violent by its very nature, it’s all-consuming and it’s something we birthed ourselves but has now taken control.” The apple adorning the album sleeve isn’t just an abstract theme, it’s also an imaginary

August 2019

brand trading under the Animated Violence Mild moniker. As Power explains it, the apple is not intended to call to mind Apple of the iPhone and iPad game – though, as we point out, you’d be forgiven for thinking he was taking aim at that Apple, particularly given the mass tax evasion lurking behind its clean veneer. “That wasn’t really my intention there. I was thinking of the idea of violence and I thought the apple was a good symbol. Especially when you reference its use within folklore and fairy tales and that kind of thing. Even religiously it has malevolent, kind of evil connotations, with Adam and Eve.” Breaking it down, Power explains that it was the apple’s innocuousness, perhaps even above its biblical connotations, that pushed him to take the fruit as his emblem of capitalist evil. It’s about showing that “violence can be found in the most unfamiliar of territories or objects.” Elaborating, he references two trades that embody the kind of hurtful environmental, health and labour practices he sees as especially problematic: “Look at the tobacco trade, or the coffee trade. This is consumerism at its most violent.” What concerns Power is both the internal and external effects of consumerism – how it’s rendered humans as a species incapable of satiating their own needs, or fending for themselves in nature, and also how it’s led to the systematic destruction of our environment. What started perhaps out of an animalistic drive to take what we can from the world around us has spoiled our Garden of Eden, and soon we’ll be burnt alive by rising temperatures and drowning under melting ice caps. “Global mass consumerism is like almost

a conditioning – you really have to drop off the grid, even then somehow you’re going to have some involvement with it. It’s intrinsic now. It isn’t necessarily just the human psyche but our environmental surroundings, the birth of consumerism and how that’s affected us but also the world around us.”

“ Consumerism is very violent by its very nature, it’s all-consuming and it’s something we birthed ourselves but has now taken control” Benjamin John Power

Is Animated Violence Mild a rallying call then? An anti-capitalist album with a powerfully ecological message to boot? While the record, which moves you to dance at one moment and despair the next with whiplashlike intensity, is clearly one that evokes a response in the body of the viewer, Power is ultimately looking for fans to build their own relationship with his music – and doesn’t want

to lay down the law too aggressively. “Obviously I do want to move and create some kind of response within my music, hence some of it being very violent and some of it being very, very heartfelt and soft and emotionally driven, but what really interests me is the differences between how [my music] might impact me and how it might impact someone listening. It’s always interesting to see other people’s perceptions of that same piece of music that I’ve written. “I’m always very keen that people form their own relationships with these pieces of music – I don’t always have lyrics that are intelligible, or those of which that are intelligible to me are kind of disguised by whatever signal processor I might be using at the time. I don’t really want to push my own agenda onto people, I want them to form their own relationship [with the music]. It’s obviously a whole new artistic process in itself, the moment that you share it with people. That’s not just me, that goes for every artist or creative.” It’s clear that Animated Violence Mild is a project that aims towards provocation, rather than preaching. Yet there’s a palpable grief that courses through the album, coursing through the hollow beat of the 80s-inspired electronica – and there are moments of alarming sonic violence. Power might not be spelling out his despair at our late-stage capitalist dystopia, but you can certainly hear it. Let’s just hope we’re moved to do something about it. Animated Violence Mild is released on 16 Aug via Sacred Bones Records blanckmass.co.uk

Photo: Harrison Reid

Interview: Megan Wallace

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Feature

Keeping it Reel Mark Jenkin’s hypnotic Bait takes us into the heart of a conflict between a disenfranchised fisherman from Cornwall and the supercilious holidaymakers who infiltrate his town each summer. Jenkin tells us more about his singular approach to filmmaking

Interview: Jamie Dunn

London. “I went online and spent a huge amount of money on the best Super8 camera I could find, under the effects of the general anaesthetic I was taking probably.” Ever since this epiphany, Jenkin has been shooting on celluloid. “I sort of rebranded myself,” he explains. “I said, ‘No, I don’t do the digital side, I just work with film.’”

“ I've come to realise that any film made about contemporary Britain, it's going to have an element of Brexit in it” Mark Jenkin

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Photo: Courtesy BFI Photo: Courtesy BFI

This embracing of analogue doesn’t fully explain how Jenkin arrived at Bait’s singular visual language. The focus is the bullish Martin (Edward Rowe), whose boat is now used to ferry tourists on booze cruises and whose family home by the harbour is now owned by a smug couple from London. Martin barely scrambles a living by fishing from the shore and selling his meagre catch to the local gastropub, squirrell-

ing away the few cash-in-hand notes he gets in an old biscuit tin labelled ‘Boat’. The simple story of class tensions between the locals and the well-monied holidaymakers suggests kitchen-sink realism, but Jenkin chops scenes together like a string of sense-memories. Close-ups of characters’ squinting faces and clenched fists are intercut with violent edits to inanimate objects, the juxtapositions deliciously escalating the social tensions. The Soviet-style montage combines with the small-town freakiness of The Wicker Man and the glitching, hand-processed images to create a heady brew. When it comes to influences, though, Jenkin says he’s in the dark. “With filmmaking – because it’s such a clusterfuck getting everything together – once you get to the point where you’re into development, all the influences just go out the window because you’re just trying to get the thing made,” he says. “So I do think a lot of it is inspired by the limitations during the shoot.” Take, for example, the abrasive cutaways which seem to suggest a debt to Sergei Eisenstein. “I ended up with a bin full of obscure cutaways that quite often were just shot because I had a few feet on the end of a roll left before I changed the reel. I’d go, ‘Oh, I’ll just quickly shoot something that’s in the room,’ having no idea where it was gonna be used. But I valued these offcuts because of their materiality, so I ended up going back to them. I certainly didn’t think of it at the scriptwriting stage, and probably wouldn’t have discovered these shots if I wasn’t shooting on film.” The choices of which shots to include are almost subconscious, he explains. “I often don’t know what

Photo: Courtesy BFI

hat is this? When is this? Where did this come from? These are some of the questions that will run through your head in the opening minutes of Bait, the strange and startling first feature from Mark Jenkin. At first glance, the film appears to be ancient. Shot in black and white on grainy 16mm, it looks battered and decayed, like it’s a print from the early days of cinema that’s been rescued from some sloppy archivist’s dank shed or dusty loft. Its old-school visual language, quicksilver frame-rate and montage editing, which suggests Sergei Eisenstein remaking Robert Flaherty’s Man of Aran, supports the theory it’s some found object from the silent era. It quickly dawns on you that this drama centred on class tensions in a small fishing village in Cornwall – where the traditional community is being elbowed out by the more lucrative tourism industry catering to the wealthy London types who descend on the town each summer – is set very much in the present-day. Ironically, Jenkin reckons his path to these analogue techniques began in 2010 when he started playing around with his swanky new digital camera. “I thought I could shoot something on my DLSR,” the filmmaker recalls when we meet in Edinburgh on the day following Bait’s UK premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival. “I thought it was the revolution; I could make something without loads of blokes in baseball caps and puffer jackets around and just get back to being me and the actors.” When he assembled the film, however, it didn’t live up to what he’d imagined. “It wasn’t purely an aesthetic thing, I felt that something was missing. There was another element at work within it, which I think was the computer within the camera that was making decisions for me that I didn’t understand.” Shortly after this disappointment, Jenkin fell ill and was laid up in bed for weeks, but he found some inspiration – as many cinephiles have over the years – through the work of filmmaker Mark Cousins. “I couldn’t do anything except watch TV, so I ended up watching The Story of Film,” he recalls. “Just hearing Mark talking about his love of cinema made me realise how the passion had gone out of my relationship with film.” Jenkin started reminiscing of simpler times. To 1993 to be precise, and his excitement of making his first film, a short documenting a trip by train from Cornwall to London, shot on Super8 and edited in-camera to The Smiths’ tune

Photo: Courtesy BFI

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these montages mean. But I love that. It’s like Bresson said: ‘I want people to feel my films before they understand them.’” All this chat of montage and form might suggest something cold or academic. What we should also point out is that Bait is hilarious, although it sounds like this is news to Jenkin. “The humour element, that was a real surprise for me, watching the film at the premiere in Berlin and hearing people laugh.” We’re incredulous at this revelation. You didn’t realise you’d made a class comedy that’s as playful as it is brutal, we ask. “Well, I do now,” Jenkin laughs. “But it’s very difficult when you’re making a film, especially because I worked in such isolation through postproduction, to then realise it’s funny because it’s only funny if people laugh at it.” In retrospect, Jenkin is relieved it’s worked out that way. “I’ve learned through the last few months of screenings that people laugh at a certain point – it’s after about 12 minutes – and if they laugh, then they will laugh through it all. And if they don’t laugh, then it’s a worry because I’ve realised now, watching it communally, that it is the humour that gets you through that first bit of the film.” Humour wasn’t the only surprise Jenkin had in store at that world premiere in Berlin. Many film critics, this writer included, have pointed out Bait’s story of class warfare in Cornwall seems to connect allegorically to our current political moment in the UK as a whole: namely, Brexit. Even before we hear a radio report discussing fishing grounds and chlorine-washed chicken, it seems like Martin’s war with the holidaymakers is some sort of comment on our divided nation. Jenkin doesn’t see it this way. “It was never a comment pro- or anti-Brexit,” he insists. Cut to the world premiere in Berlin. “The very first question in the Q&A afterwards was about Brexit…’” He gives a deep, exhausted sigh that everyone in this country can probably identify with. “I’ve come to realise that any film made about contemporary Britain, it’s going to have an element of Brexit in it.” There is a silver lining, though. “It isn’t deliberate, but I think we’ve made a film that sits in the grey area, or it’s created a little bit of grey area where there is no grey area at all. I’m proud of that.” Bait is released 30 Aug by BFI, with a preview at Filmhouse Edinburgh on 27 Aug (on 35mm) followed by a Q&A with Mark Jenkin

THE SKINNY

Getting Lit Sophie Hyde, the Australian filmmaker behind 52 Tuesdays, returns with Emma Jane Unsworth adaptation Animals, a tender study of female friendship starring Holliday Grainger and Alia Shawkat. Hyde sits down with us to talk adaptation, poetry and Dublin

or protagonists Laura (Holliday Grainger) and Tyler (Alia Shawkat), the night is always young in Sophie Hyde’s Animals, an adaptation of Emma Jane Unsworth’s book of the same name. The Dublin nightlife is their wacky racetrack, and white wine is their fuel. But once Laura, a novelist struggling with writer's block, falls for a tall dark piano player called Jim (Fra Fee), her friendship with Tyler begins to splinter. Tyler is a free spirit, a wild, reckless Hawksian woman invoking poetry and literary references in every other sentence. On the surface, she feigns disapproval at Laura’s willingness to settle down outright. But go deeper and there’s a horrible fear in her that Laura’s settling down might mean the end of their riotous nights out, and their friendship as they know it. Hyde met us at Sundance London, where the film had its UK premiere, to talk adaptation, friendship and Dublin. The Skinny: There is a point in the film where Laura sees Jim playing the piano for the first time, and it’s intercut with them having sex. It feels like “watching” prose. I’m curious about how much you were trying to evoke the book in terms of your style. Sophie Hyde: I really loved the book and how literary it was, but I also loved how connected to experiences I was in the book. So, certainly, we were trying to find ways to put that onscreen, particularly the very extreme point-of-view of Laura. We really tried to make it feel like we feel with her through the film, and that scene is a prime example. Whether it’s imagining or a memory, it’s so much through her gaze. It’s such an interesting moment you picked up on, because when we were shooting it, I worked with my partner who’s the cinema-

August 2019

tographer [Bryan Mason], and in that scene, I wanted to take the camera and was doing some of the shots. We’d never normally do that. It was just trying to express the view [of Laura]. I don’t remember if we then used those or if Bryan just took on what I was doing, because it was such a visual idea. What were your personal reasons for adapting this book? I was really taken with the women on the page. They were very familiar to me, and I wasn’t seeing them onscreen. I was very connected to the visceral quality of the bodies, and the way bodies are talked about. I wanted to understand how the body operates as a young woman, how it’s imposed upon and how it drives you. I really liked Emma [Jane Unsworth]’s take on the world, that she was speaking to young women – young people, I suppose – in a very funny, frank way. But the comedy isn’t too broad. There was something else going on, like a seriousness and sincerity as well. I really loved that. I wanted to see friendship on the screen, too, and the idea that these relationships that are important to you aren’t just romantic is something that I’m interested in. I think we’re sold this story all the time with the same kind of love that, a) it’s romantic and b) it always lasts forever, and if it doesn’t last forever, it’s not worth anything. The book was set in Manchester. Why was the setting changed to Dublin? When we first looked at the film, we were setting it in Manchester. Originally, we moved it to Dublin for financing reasons. But when we thought about setting it in Manchester and shooting it in Dublin, that felt like we were abandoning this beautiful idea. Dublin became the perfect setting in my eyes, and the film is

so much better there. It’s a very literary city. There’s poetry everywhere, and everyone’s drinking really heavily, so they [Tyler and Laura] are not anomalies in that city. So much white wine in this film! So much white wine! And I loved the look of Dublin, this old-world, dilapidated strangeness that was a bit street as well. It elevated the story for me. Manchester would have just been quite different, and I think it’s important that the specificity of the city became something rather than just being a generic city. It felt like it needed to be part of it, which is how Manchester worked in the original novel. It felt like a character. So instead of taking that character away, we just shifted it.

“ I wanted to understand how the body operates as a young woman” Sophie Hyde

There are lots of moments in the film where it builds up to a big conflict between the two leads and then doesn’t fully explode into that conflict. The complication of a friendship is that it doesn’t happen in big dramatic beats all the time. There’s a real complexity inside a friendship between two women like this. You love the things that are annoying about the other person, so in those moments, you get how someone’s pushing and challenging you. You even like that they’re so abrasive, publicly.

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Interview: Thomas Atkinson

The friendships I’ve had, you don’t have a big fight and then it’s all done. It’s moments, it trundles along, and I think it’s interesting to put that onscreen when we’re all taught to be so dependent on narrative structure and the satisfaction of a narrative that we understand. Trying to find ways to still be fulfilling and still have the feeling of catharsis, or whatever, but not just tell the same story, was a challenge. You mentioned earlier about the book being very literary. I was wondering if you, as a director, saw the way that Tyler invokes poetry and poetic language all the time as sincere or facetious. My god, I always fall on the sincere side! [Laughs] I find things funny when they feel a bit real as well. I don’t need to LOL. I really enjoy that character, the broad about town, and I really love how abrasive she is and how literary she is. Somebody said in an audience at a Q&A, “She’s the poet! They’re in this relationship where Laura’s the writer but Tyler is poetic all the time.” And she kind of is! She has a fabulous way about her. It seems a lot like the relationship between the two is that Laura is the novelist writing from inspiration, but the muse, the interesting character, is Tyler, who is living the life that Laura wants to capture in her book. Tyler certainly thinks of herself as a muse. We laugh at that in a way. But ultimately, yeah, I think she is a muse to Laura. But not just because she’s a vivacious youth. It’s because she’s pushing Laura to not settle for things. That is what Tyler offers Laura. That’s a perfect muse in some respects. Not easy to be around, but certainly the idea of celebration as to who Tyler was is crucial to the audience. Animals is released 2 Aug by Picturehouse Entertainment

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Like a Boss Fancy a Bruce Springsteen musical set in [check notes]...Luton? Director Gurinder Chadha and writer Sarfraz Manzoor tell us how they convinced the Boss to lend his all-American songbook to their film about a Muslim teen coming-of-age in Thatcher’s Britain

n the bar of a boutique hotel just off Glasgow’s Blythswood Square sits Gurinder Chadha, director of Bend it Like Beckham and Bride and Prejudice. She’s wearing a tracksuit emblazoned with the name ‘Springsteen’ and is methodically dividing up a pile of sweets in shimmering foil wrappers. A handful is pushed in my direction. “Here you go, my darling; you have these,” she says. I mumble a thank you, genuinely touched, and take one. “Oh have them all,” she says with a hearty laugh. “I don’t like dark chocolate.” This exchange isn’t all that different from the experience of watching Chadha’s sprightly new film, Blinded by the Light. It too appears a bit eager to please at first but wins you over with its spiky streak and contagious exuberance.

“ I wanted to make you understand what it was like to be 16 in 1987 and how you lurched from possibly being punched in the street to the euphoria of listening to music” Gurinder Chadha

your daddy done’.” Manzoor has a habit of spilling off into Springsteen lyrics. “I was like, Wow! This is like a little film unfolding in music. And I really wanted to know what happens to these characters.” In Blinded by the Light, Monsoor’s onscreen avatar is Javed (played by winsome newcomer Viveik Kalra) and the Springsteen song that gets him hooked is Dancing in the Dark. “The River didn’t really work, words-wise,” he notes, “but ‘I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face... I’m just living in a dump like this’. That’s absolutely the feeling I had at 16.” Like Javed, Manzoor also wrote corny poetry and dreamed of escape: escaping the boring concrete jungle of his crummy hometown; escaping the skinheads who spit at him in the street; and escaping his domineering father, who commandeers his Saturday job money and forbids him from attending parties with his friends. This coming-of-age angst plays out to sequences set to Springsteen songs, including a Bande à part-esque romp through Luton scored to Born to Run and a scene where Javed flirts with a girl from school using the lyrics of Thunder Road, with Rob Brydon distractingly on backing vocals. It transpires that it was the Boss who inadvertently brought Chadha and Manzoor together in the first place. “I introduced myself to Sarfraz about 25 years ago because he interviewed Bruce in the paper,” Chadha recalls. “I was like, ‘Oh my God. Here’s another Asian person who likes Bruce’. I thought I was the only one.” Knowing she was a fellow Bruce tramp (aka hardcore Springsteen fan), Manzoor passed Chadha an early draft of Greetings from Bury Park. “I thought it was great,” she says, “and I told Sarfranz, ‘I know how to turn this into a movie’. I could envisage it as a three-act drama.

Plus, I understood all the nuances of being Brittish Asian, and I was a massive Bruce fan, so I got it on every level.” What they really needed to make the movie sing – both literally and figuratively – was the Boss’ music. Turns out this was relatively straightforward: the gallus filmmaker simply told Springsteen they were doing it. Manzoor explains that they both got chatting to the singer-songwriter at a BFI event in 2010 and it turned out he’d read Greetings from Bury Park. “He was walking into the BFI and saw me and just stopped, walked over and said, ‘You know, your book is really beautiful’.” Manzoor was speechless, but Chadha took her chance. “Gurinder was next to me and when she heard that she’s like, ‘We’re gonna make a film of it and I made Bend it like Beckham and I know your kids like that’. She immediately planted that to him and he said, ‘Okay, well talk to Jon [Landau, Springsteen’s manager]’.” Seventeen Springsteen songs pepper the soundtrack, but this is no jukebox musical. “We didn’t want it to just be the greatest hits,” says Manzoor. “I wanted it to be that the songs were a character in the film.” At every stage of the writing, they would ask themselves, where’s the story at? And how does the song fit in? “So Independence Day becomes obviously about father and son,” continues Manzoor. “And Because the Night has a line ‘They can’t hurt you now’, so that’s used in the scene where all these Asian kids are having a night out and feel protected from their parents.” Blinded by the Light premiered back in January at Sundance and was one of the buzziest titles from the festival. Early reviews are scattershot with phrases like ‘feel-good’ and ‘crowd-pleaser’, but just because the film is light doesn’t mean it’s lightweight. Manzoor

Interview: Jamie Dunn

says he pitched it as “What would a John Hughes film look like if it was set in Luton?”, but it seems Chadha had different ideas. The project had been parked for a few years while she was working on her Indian partition film Viceroy’s House, a very polite and restrained prestige drama. Then Brexit happened. “It just hurt me to my core really,” she says. “I was so upset with all the ugliness and xenophobia that came out of Brexit. That’s when I said, ‘Right, I’m going to make this my next film and all my anger and frustration, I’m going to channel it into this’.” A few passes of the script later and this effervescent coming-of-age musical was suddenly spiked with truth-bombs about Thatcher’s Britain. “[Brexit] is why that stuff – the national front marches and Javed being spat at – feels so visceral. Normally I’ll hide away from that stuff because I don’t want to make my films too graphic and to let racism define us [the Asian community]. But in this instance, I wanted to make you understand what it was like to be 16 in 1987 and how you lurched from possibly being punched in the street to the euphoria of listening to music to your parents sort of having a go at you… that complete feeling of what it meant to be British and Asian.” Chadha’s anger seemed to chime with Manzoor: “Music’s great but it doesn’t stop the real world outside,” he says. “I find it kind of funny when people talk about it being a feelgood movie because it is a feel-good movie, but not in a totally mindless way. There’s some pretty hardcore stuff going on underneath, but there’s also joy and jubilation.” Sounds kind of like Springsteen’s music, in other words. Blinded by the Light is released 9 Aug by Picturehouse Entertainment

Blinded by the Light is based on Greetings from Bury Park, the 2007 memoir of Pakistanborn British journalist Sarfraz Manzoor, which combines Manzoor’s experience of growing up Muslim in 80s Luton with his passionate devotion to the music of Bruce Springsteen. Earlier in the same Glasgow bar, Manzoor recalls first getting into the Boss. “It’s September 1987. I’m 16 years old, just started Luton sixth form college and I have met this guy called Rhoops. He’s got a turban and he’s very into double denim,” he begins. Back in 1987, Manzoor is what would now be referred to in modern parlance as a ‘basic bitch’. He’s a Top 40 kid and thinks Springsteen is a phoney who makes millions out of pretending to be working class. But when his new pal forces a cassette from Springsteen’s Live 1975–85 album into his hands, Manzoor’s life is changed forever. What struck him first is the way Springsteen connects with his audience. “The tape begins with a long story about him and his dad,” Manzoor recalls. “I’m listening to him and I’m thinking, Foreigner don’t do this. I’ve never heard the Pet Shop Boys doing a long preamble before It’s a Sin. And I’m like, ‘This is amazing. Who is this guy?’” And then he starts singing The River. “The song is a story: ‘I come from down in the valley / Where, mister, when you’re young / They bring you up to do like

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Situation Critical The Skinny was proud to partner with EIFF’s Student Critic Programme this year. Here’s a selection of the ten participants’ work, ranging from a celebration of tender doc Scheme Birds to a withering takedown of Glasgow-set drama Balance, Not Symmetry

Schemers Dir. David McLean Written and directed by the man himself, Schemers depicts the dawn of David McLean’s career running the gig scene in Dundee in the 1970s and 1980s. After breaking his leg and ending his brief football career, Davie (Conor Berry) falls hard for a student nurse, Shona (Tara Lee), asking her to a disco that doesn’t exist. With the intention of impressing the subject of his affections, Davie embarks on a career of bringing the biggest bands of the decade to his humble hometown. Schemers is a flawed tale of angst and ambition, which falls short through the hollow representation of several of its characters. As a wholehearted celebration of Dundee, however, it can hardly be faulted. Davie’s rocky road to success pits irrepressible teenage spirit against the limited opportunities of 1970s Scotland. The rip-roaring soundtrack, featuring the likes of The Proclaimers and Tears for Fears, creates a sense of anticipation and embodies the city’s potential, which Davie and his pals grab with one hand, a pint of Tennent’s in the other. The film’s uplifting quality is sabotaged, though, by a narrow portrayal of the women that Davie encounters. The romance underpinning the narrative is jarring, as the lack of motivation behind Shona’s love for Davie paints her as a feeble, scantily-clad pushover. Meanwhile, the composition of the remaining female characters demeans the role of women in the music industry to little more than whiney wives and groupies. This incessant alienation, worsened by a script that gives each woman no role outside of their male counterparts, deeply undercuts Schemers’ otherwise positive and inspiring tone. In many ways this project is a love letter from David McLean to the city that made his name, reminding us there is no town too small for someone who dreams big. It’s just a shame that the same level of affection and respect wasn’t afforded to the women who helped him along the way. [Rachel Baker] Rachel Baker is a student at the University of Glasgow

August 2019

Words: EIFF Student Critics Programme 2019

EIFF Student Critics

The Vast of Night Dir. Andrew Patterson Usually, a film will attempt to disguise its influences, but with its Twilight Zone opening and framing scenes with a crackly 1950s television set, sci-fi mystery The Vast of Night relishes in the genre thrills of its predecessors, crafting a watch that’s equal parts charming and suspenseful. When quippy radio host Everett (Jake Horowitz) and wide-eyed switchboard operator Fay (Sierra McCormick) pick up unusual transmissions one night, they delve into the supernatural mysteries clouding their sleepy New Mexico town. This may be B-movie material, but director Andrew Patterson and his cast and crew bring their A-game, doing away with flat cinematography and wooden performances. As Everett, Horowitz commands his scenes with endless charisma, pockmarking his conversations with clever asides. “You read the Bible, Sam?” he asks. “That has the answer to everything.” McCormick’s Fay, meanwhile, has an earnestness that unfolds in tight angles as she struggles to comprehend the alien messages.

The leads’ chemistry and snappy dialogue build in flowing shots that make it seem something is lingering off-screen in the night. The wide framing of the empty streets and ambient sound design is countered with the pair’s quick, charming chatter, which almost seems an act of defiance to the threatening isolation of their town. At points, Patterson overindulges in his mysterious atmosphere, and the narrative has to rely on two weighty exposition drops to speed things up. Screenwriters James Montague and Craig W Sanger take care filling the speeches with tension, but they can’t help but feel both rushed and dragging. At one moment Fay and Everett stand side-by-side holding Fay’s infant sibling, facing an intimidating threat. They appear a typical image of a 50s nuclear family, now confronting a stark realisation that the world they wish to conserve is mutable by greater powers. Atmospheric and arresting, The Vast of Night transcends its familiar narrative with vibrant performances and stylistic flair. [Rory Doherty] Rory Doherty is a student at the University of Glasgow

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Underdown Dir. Sarah Kaskas “In life there is honey and there [are] onions; it’s not all honey,” we are wisely told in Sarah Kaskas’ feature documentary debut, Underdown. As she reveals throughout the film, life below the poverty line in Beirut’s concrete jungle is certainly not that sweet. Refreshingly simple cinematography captures pulsating images such as politicians’ eyes on posters plastered over the walls of the city looking on to their collateral damage, setting the scene for this politically-fuelled observational documentary. Kaskas zooms in on an affected trio: Arak-drinking, cigarettesmoking taxi driver Abu Hassam, eleven-yearold Syrian refugee Ali and Lebanese Samya struggling to make ends meet. This is an important film exploring the lasting effects of inflation, war and a corrupt government on a class in Lebanon known as the ‘underdown’ – the lowest of the low. But, interestingly, Kaskas avoids observing Beirut’s decadent wealth and chooses to focus instead on the very specific problems our trio have faced, such as Abu Hassam’s heartbreak →

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→ and Samya’s struggle in paying for her mother’s glaucoma operation. This is not necessarily a problem, but it does not make for a particularly engaging watch considering there is a lack of vital information such as the Middle East’s abhorrent lack of wealth distribution and the 1.5 million refugees who have recently fled to Lebanon. Understandably, Kaskas chooses to pivot her film around raw human experience. She intelligently and with delicate empathy captures her subject matter at their most vulnerable. Overwhelmingly humbling the viewer and evoking a rare kind of hope, Abu Hassam, sleeping in his car and envisioning a life on the streets, considers himself “a king” because at least he still has both legs – many aren’t so lucky. Despite a certain lack of self-awareness regarding the film’s political voice, Underdown never fails to capture moments of profound sorrow and endearing hope. [Dalia Al-Dujaili] Dalia Al-Dujaili is a student at the University of Edinburgh

Scheme Birds Dirs. Ellen Fiske, Ellinor Hallin As images of the grey and desolate housing schemes of Motherwell slip across the screen, 18-year-old Gemma wistfully remarks in her metallic, West Coast twang that she “don’t want to fly the nest any time soon,” words that pierce the heart. This is the opening of Scheme Birds, the international and cross-cultural collaboration between Creative Scotland and Swedish filmmakers Ellinor Hallin and Ellen Fiske. The film follows teenage Gemma as she navigates the harsh truths of motherhood, relationships and violence in one of the most deprived towns in Scotland. From the relentlessly harrowing content – which includes an incident of extreme gang violence that leaves a young boy paralysed – it would be easy to think that Fiske and Hallin had constructed the film’s narrative for sheer shock value alone. However, the visually raw and unfiltered footage highlights the profound reality of the bleak post-industrial setting. As Gemma explains, the area has been and still is defined by the hardships it has suffered.

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Scheme Birds does not recoil from the difficult. Delving with a respectful intimacy into the lives of their subjects, the directors skilfully draw out the nuances of their subject matter. Fiske and Hallin’s voices are notably absent, and consequently, the film evolves through its own momentum. Contrasting to the pervasive adversity that constitutes the integral element of Scheme Birds, Hallin and Fiske pepper the film with breathtaking, music video-esque sequences around the youthful pursuits of the central figures, which serve not only to remind the viewer of their ultimately innocent natures but of their status as victims of circumstance. Hallin and Fiske took the Best Documentary award at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, as well as the prize for Best New Documentary Director. Like the pigeons kept by Gemma’s grandfather, used throughout as a metaphor for escape and freedom, Scheme Birds soars in a quietly magnificent manner. [Elizabeth Bowie] Elizabeth Bowie is a student at the University of St Andrews

What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael Dir. Rob Garver With the advent of her centenary, What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael is a perfect opportunity to get reacquainted with the contentious film critic’s pervasive work. For those uninitiated, Kael was one of America’s most influential film critics, working at The New Yorker for over 20 years. Often vitriolic, always insightful, as a female film critic with assertive opinions she was easily distinguishable from her more academic male peers. This documentary from Rob Garver offers an enjoyable overview of that extensive career, engaging in her successes and losses as well as giving glimpses into her juicier conflicts. It also acts as an affectionate tribute to a writer whose work continues to inspire and polarise readers to this day. One of the film’s most enjoyable aspects is the inclusion of Kael’s reviews, narrated by Sarah Jessica Parker, played over various classic moments of American cinema. The documentary delights in oscillating between films she

praised and ones she slated, keeping any audience members unfamiliar with Kael’s work enjoyably on their toes. Her caustic takedown of The Sound of Music being read over images of smiling Von Trapp children and a guitar-wielding Julie Andrews is a humorous highlight. It would have been interesting to gain more insight into some of the meatier areas of Kael’s career which largely remain unpacked. Her public and personal attack on film critic Andrew Sarris, or Renata Adler’s scathing review of her sixth collection of film reviews, When the Lights Go Down, are fascinating disputes that are glossed over to maintain the documentary’s buoyant tone. With the likes of Quentin Tarantino, John Boorman and Paul Shrader all popping up, the talking-head interviews – with the exception of Lili Anolik – present a striking absence of female voices. Overall, though, Garver’s film is a congenial ode to a unique and important cultural voice of the 20th century. [Oliver Thomas] Oliver Thomas is a student at King’s College London

Cronofobia Dir. Francesco Rizzi A suspicious-looking middle-aged man sits alone in his van and quietly observes a lonely woman. A few days later, she invites him into her house and the two strangers begin a peculiar relationship. This is the curious premise of Cronofobia, an atmospheric psychological drama from first-time director Francesco Rizzi. The film works as a gripping character study, diving deep into the protagonists’ minds and gradually revealing their past and secrets. We discover the two characters may not be all that different. Michael (Vinicio Marchioni), a professional mystery shopper by day, is dealing with an existential and identity crisis, while Anna (Sabine Timoteo) is unsuccessfully trying to overcome the trauma of losing her husband. The two make for an unlikely couple, yet both need each other. Their strange and outright weird pairing is what gives the film its uncanny atmosphere. The characters may be alienating, but they

remain captivating thanks to the two actors’ heartfelt, go-for-broke performances. Whether it is yet another awkward encounter in a public cafe or a simple intimate moment, both Marchioni and Timoteo bring entirely unexpected levels of nuance to the scene. Similarly, Rizzi’s sure-handed direction and eye for arresting visual compositions keep the film’s elements of suspense and romance consistent and balanced – especially considering the treatment of the titular mental disorder as the film’s overarching theme (chronophobia is the fear of passing time). Overflowing with originality, Cronofobia works as a thought-provoking mystery-thriller, but it also helps to address much more sensitive and often overlooked issues. Its themes and style may not be to everyone’s taste, but Rizzi’s confident execution and his cast’s delivery make it one of the most memorable films of the year. [Daniel Mohr] Daniel Mohr is a student at the University of Aberdeen

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The Grizzlies Dir. Miranda de Pencier Prefacing itself with the sobering truth that Nunavut, the most northern territory of Canada, has the highest suicide rate in North America, Miranda de Pencier’s debut feature The Grizzlies is an uplifting but cloying portrait of youth in a remote community ravaged by alcoholism and domestic abuse. Opening mid-flight, Ben Schnetzer’s Russ – a naïve white teacher transferring from the South – enquires how long his fellow passenger has lived in Nunavut. “6000 years,” the elderly Native quips back. It’s a tone the film sticks to. Understandably, the students are at first reluctant to involve themselves in Russ’s program – their inescapable, poverty-stricken surroundings are, after all, moulded by the white man. However, the teacher finally gets them onside through his love of lacrosse, presenting it as an alternative to their destructive lifestyles. De Pencier’s attentive approach – offering cultural support to the cast in a week-long audition process – is apparent. As Anna Lambe,

who plays Spring, rightly commented at the Q&A following The Grizzlies’ EIFF premiere, the film’s message is of a community helping itself. De Pencier’s trust in her cast of inexperienced but knowledgeable unknowns pays off too. The performance of Paul Nutarariaq as Zach, a tough but vulnerable teen forced to hunt for his family’s food while his parents get high, is layered and startlingly honest. So compelling are the young performers that the movie deviates from telling Russ’s story, as was originally planned, and, as a result, it never feels tokenistic. But good intentions only take the movie so far. While the narrative fits together nicely, its beats too frequently recall Hollywood string-pulling rather than reality, heightening injustices with a false poetic gloss. As a feel-good film, The Grizzlies will work for many, but its frustrating tendency to stray into formulaic tone and plotting lessens its impact and dilutes its social commentary, stopping it from ever fully succeeding. [Fin Stockting] Fin Stockting is a student at the University of Cardiff

Balance Not Symmetry

Sin Fin Dirs. César Esteban Alenda, José Esteban Alenda A wonderfully emotional film, low-key Spanish sci-fi Not the End tells the story of a couple – Javier the regretful time traveller (played by Javier Rey) and a heartbroken yet spirited woman named Maria (María León). After Maria commits suicide, Javier travels back in time to spend one last day with his partner. Mirroring their first date, Javier attempts to bring Maria out of her heartache by recreating the evening they spent together years ago. The couple are vividly brought to life: we immediately know who Javier and Maria are. They contrast each other completely, Javier being a bit introverted and scientific, while Maria bubbles over with excitement. Both actors are delightful. Rey does a fantastic job of showing his deep regret for neglecting Maria, and León’s eyes are so deep and sad that her pain seems to become our own. The effective script is constantly referring back to small inside jokes between the pair or celebrating little quirks, like Maria’s cracking knuckles. It creates a relationship between the characters and the audience as we learn their secrets and shtick. The time travel is worn lightly, focusing more on the relationship between Javier and Maria than the actual science behind it. But as

a romance story, it works surprisingly well. Here, time travel is a statement on regret, the desire to change the past, as Javier attempts to remedy his relationship with Maria. The film plays with the concept of time in even subtler ways as well, such as the missing of a bus or catching the sunset – it’s always there. The thoughtful script suggests the writers knew exactly what kind of story Not the End was as they were writing it, and crucially what details would make it stronger. Not the End is a well made and powerful

Venezia Dir. Rodrigo Guerrero Rodrigo Guerro’s Venezia is a sob-stifling study of grief and a twisted love story of sorrow and isolation, played out against the backdrop of a city famed for romance. It’s not easy watching, but the film’s sensitive illustration of loneliness is gut-wrenching and universal. Sofia (Paula Lussi) wanders through the cramped cobbled streets of Venice alone. For her, love has left this place. A fog hangs over the city and her life. Director of photography Gustavo Tejeda’s cinematography is drained of colour; Sofia’s grief has rendered Venice grey. Skulking in the shadows of crowded Venetian streets or sitting on a barren beach, Sofia is always achingly alone. The constrained aspect ratio emphasises her feelings of claustrophobia, trapped in a city of honeymoons with no one to love. We learn little about the protagonist’s life before her loss, though this is deliberate. The film captures how grief, immediately and without prejudice, can gobble

up your identity; she is defined by loss. Sofia’s lack of language adds to her isolation. The script darts between Italian, French, English and Spanish. Eschewing subtitles, Guerro leaves the audience as perplexed as the protagonist. Lussi has few lines, but the story hangs on her actions, not words. In one moving scene, her character reads the letter of a past lover, resulting in her face cracking into a long-awaited smile before mutating into shaking sobs. Lussi’s performance is heart-aching and sorrowful. The film does little to challenge the historical stereotype of women in film as bereaved and tear-stained victims. However, flashes of female friendship, shared sorrow and solidarity offer Sofia brief relief from an icy loneliness that otherwise haunts the heroine. Venezia quietly guides the audience through a tale of bewilderment and bereavement. Don’t forget your tissues. [Maeve Allen] Maeve Allen is a student at University College London

Balance, Not Symmetry Dir. Jamie Adams Balance, Not Symmetry is unbearable. Directed and co-written by Jamie Adams, this aimless and inconclusive drama about a young woman processing a deep loss recycles clichés and wallows in narrative shallows without a hint of self-awareness. Laura Harrier (Spider-Man: Homecoming) plays Caitlin Walker, a disturbed British-American art student living in Glasgow who tries to take back control of her life after her father’s death. Torn between supporting her mourning mother (Kate Dickie) and fulfilling art school duties, this young woman attempts to overcome a creative blockage and finally figure out who she really is. Almost every part of this setup could have been successful. The idea of depicting the experience of loss from the perspective of a young person is refreshing and needed but the inconsistent writing crushes hopes for a solid and smartly-structured story. Random and sketchy plots appear suddenly and then disappear without a word of explanation. The

mother’s fledgling addiction miraculously stops being an issue, while Caitlin’s edgy affair with Rory (Scott Miller) – a self-proclaimed artist – disappears from the director’s interest as soon as it occurs. The film generates some energy through the presence of The Florida Project’s Bria Vinaite as Hannah, Caitlin’s flatmate, but her spiky performance alone can’t cover the narrative gaps. Balance, Not Symmetry’s most striking flaw, however, is the clumsy filmmaking. Frankly speaking, it looks as if Adams has squished together an intimate family vivisection, MTV-styled teen drama and a bunch of video clips for Scottish rockers Biffy Clyro into one storyline. Even the song choices don’t appear to correspond with the plot, accentuating the sense of narrative confusion. Overall, Balance, Not Symmetry is devoid of fully-formed characters or ideas. The film’s narrative patchwork, with its inconsistent structure, offers its audience neither a sense of balance nor symmetry. [Maria Kamińska] Maria Kamińska is a student at the University of Warsaw

reminder of the unforgiving nature of lost time, and its gentle and sensitive approach to love and loss is a refreshing change to the idealised fairytale love stories that dominate cinema today. [Sara Kotwicki] Sara Kotwicki is a student at Warsaw Film School To read more from Edinburgh International Film Festival’s student critics, head to www.edfilmfest.org. uk/index.php/studentcritics2019

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Beyond Borders: Carbon’s Casualties Since 2015 New York Times photographer Josh Haner has been travelling the world documenting the realities of climate change on both an environmental and a human level

Interview: Rosamund West

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These images are very beautiful yet convey a disturbing truth about the state of the world. Is this aesthetic appeal necessary to communicate with a broader public? It can be problematic if you over-aestheticise the impact of an issue at the expense of the often sad, real-world effect it has on people across the world. You want to draw readers in, but not create something beautiful at the cost of the reality beneath it. At the same time, photojournalism allows us to capture the reader’s attention, especially when the story is one that’s been heard before and could be easy to ignore.

Orkney: The Broch of Borwich lies on one of Scotland’s Orkney Islands, where some of the world’s oldest structures, many built before Stonehenge or the pyramids, have survived for 5,000 years. About half of Orkney’s 3,000 archaeological sites are under dire threat as rising sea levels accelerated by climate change erode the surrounding coastlines. Climate change is threatening to erase Orkney’s pieces of history and cultural heritage as seas rise and rainfall becomes heavier and more frequent. For this image, I flew the drone above the Broch to give context and show its perilous location and how susceptible it is to further erosion.

Do you find platforms like Instagram help or hinder in effectively spreading a message about the state of the world? You have very little time to capture someone’s attention on Instagram. As people scroll through their feed, it takes a lot to cause someone to pause. Many of my images are not quick reads – they depend on a careful look. My photos often depend on captions which provide a deeper context and help to broaden the impact of the story. Is there a disparity between public awareness and public action – does social sharing correlate with increased activity? As a photojournalist, my job is to tell a story, not attempt to cause action. I tell stories honestly and leave it to the viewers to decide how they’d like to process what they see.

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Photo: Josh Haner/The New York Times

The Skinny: How do you gain access to these remote locations? Josh Haner: I often work in a team with a reporter and a translator or fixer. I begin by researching drone laws in the country where I will go to document the story. Depending on the specific regulations, it could take months to gain permission to use a drone. Each of these remote locations come with their own unique challenges. Before visiting the Galápagos, we spent months negotiating the details for permits to be allowed to visit places that are largely off-limit to tourists. At all times we were accompanied by a park ranger to monitor our impact on the environment and to make sure we weren’t disturbing any of the animals or the ecosystem. We had to quarantine our clothing before the trip and change shoes and clothing each day so we didn’t spread contaminants from one location to another. In Bolivia, months before we actually went to do our reporting, we met with leaders of the Uru-Muratu people who used to live on the edge of Lake Poopó. Because it is a very remote area, we had to figure out the logistics of where we were going to stay, what we would eat, and how long we wished to report. We also had to explain that we wanted to use a drone – we translated it as ‘a flying camera’. When traveling to these remote locations, the most important thing to remember is to respect the local culture and traditions. Many of the stories that I am telling look at how human lives are being impacted by climate change, so making personal relationships is key to being able to learn intimate details of how their lives are affected. In Kiribati, we met with elders each time we arrived on an island to show our respect. In Niger, I hired a military convoy in order to photograph an area in a desert where human traffickers move migrants onto Libya.

Photo: Josh Haner/The New York Times

his month a selection of his photography is on show in The New York Times: Carbon’s Casualties in both Edinburgh’s Summerhall and in the gardens of Traquair House as part of Beyond Borders festival.

Kiribati: While working on a series about climate migrants and refugees, I took a boat to the island of North Tarawa in Kiribati to meet a pastor whose sermons address climate change. With few places to stay on the island, I camped outdoors under the thatched overhang of the church’s pavilion. That evening I met Tabwena Kaokatekai who has been working on a project to slow coastal erosion. She invited me to meet her the next morning during low tide. A little after sunrise we walked to the edge of the island. The water had receded from the previous day’s high tide and a row of tiny plants formed a line in the sand. As she cleaned algae off the roots of the saplings, Tabwena told me that she and nine other women in town had transplanted cuttings from nearby mangrove trees to form a wall. As I watched her tend to these small saplings, she told me, “I don’t want my land to be lost to the sea.” To me, this image shows a small community’s resilience and serves as a reminder that even one person can make a difference as our world attempts to adapt to a changing climate.

Photo: Josh Haner/The New York Times

“ Many of the stories that I am telling look at how human lives are being impacted by climate change”

Photo: Josh Haner/The New York Times

Josh Haner

Galápagos: When we started researching the effects of climate change in the Galápagos, it became obvious that most of the changes were happening underwater. I learned how to scuba dive and how to operate a camera underwater so that I could document the life of marine iguanas and how food scarcity is impacting their survival. We don’t know much about the species but scientists believe that their skeletons shrink and contract during periods of food stress. We also spent months dealing with permits to be able to visit places largely offlimits to tourists. I had to be accompanied by a park ranger at all times to monitor my impact on both the flora and fauna to make sure I didn’t disturb the very unique ecosystem.

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What do you hope will come out of the exhibitions and discussions in Edinburgh this summer? As we continue to travel with this exhibition, I hope that people realise that climate imagery isn’t just photographs of polar bears floating on a piece of ice in the Arctic. People are more visually literate than ever and I’m trying to present the complicated effects of our changing climate in ways that make people connect and realise the universality of our changing climate. You don’t have to travel to the middle of the Pacific Ocean to witness first hand the effects of climate change. We see eroding coastlines affecting heritage sites in the Orkney Islands and we see invasive species changing the ecosystem of Yellowstone, America’s first National Park. Climate change is everywhere. The New York Times: Carbon’s Casualties, Summerhall Corner Gallery, Edinburgh, until 27 Oct, free From Carbon’s Casualties to Climate Solutions at the Edinburgh International Book Festival: Panel discussion featuring Josh Haner, Tim Winton, Laura Watts and Fred Pearce, 11 Aug, 7.30-9pm The New York Times: Carbon’s Casualties at the Beyond Borders International Festival: Panel discussion featuring Stephen Dunbar-Johnson and other guests, Traquair House, Innerleithen, 25 Aug A selection of images from The New York Times: Carbon’s Casualties exhibition will be on view in an outdoor exhibition in Traquair House’s Walled Garden throughout August, and at the Beyond Borders International Festival, on the 24-25 Aug

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A Guide to Fringe Hook-ups As an influx of visitors hit Edinburgh (and Tinder) for the festivals, here’s how to navigate the minefield that is dating during the Fringe

Words: Liv McMahon Illustration: Viki Mladenovski

very year, the arrival of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe brings on mixed feelings of excitement and despair. August sees Edinburgh come alive as clubs stay open til 5am and the price of pints rises to at least a fiver. It’s a time rife for experimentation, as performance artists and thespians flock from all over to soak up the atmosphere, rich with a sense of adventure, and this by no means begins and ends with the range of art, theatre, comedy and music on offer. The season breathes life into a city typically only besieged by stag dos, silent disco tours and slow-moving tourist groups all snaking their way through its narrow cobbled streets. While for many locals, like my flatmate, the Fringe is easily considered ‘the least wonderful time of the year,’ for others it presents a whole new world ripe with sexual and romantic possibilities, as sex preferences and attitudes shift to suit the festival’s experimental energy. As a bisexual woman shyly navigating my sexuality during the Fringe, I was beset by worries that I couldn’t freely immerse myself in the festival’s burgeoning LGBTQ+ spaces. What if I wasn’t queer enough to be there? Or would I be rejected for my record of having been with and slept with mostly men? But something about the sheer influx of people from far and wide also provided some sense of anonymity that allowed me to explore my sexual preferences without shame or reservation.

What you can expect With Glastonbury down and Scottish summer in full swing, Londoners stream through the Meadows, wellies and yellow raincoats at the ready for inevitable downpours, loudly exclaiming to unamused Edinburgh natives that this is their seventh Fringe in a row – so they basically live here now. In my experience of stumbling through the Fringe between shifts spent shovelling burgers to starry-eyed performers waving their theSpace cards for discounts, finding a decent hook-up in the Fringe can be remarkably similar to trying to walk through George Square without being pounced on by flyerers – exhausting, endlessly frustrating and pretty much impossible. At this time of year, Tinder and Grindr get overloaded with male performers who will tell you why their two-star show is actually an undiscovered work of genius. Hinge users will only respond to the app’s questions with the title of their puntastic one-person sketch show. The rarity of seeing a show that proves side-splittingly hilarious is evident when, two years down the line, you’ll find yourself still stalking its effervescent star on Twitter in the hope that someday they’ll remember you for laughing extra loudly or dreaming up scenarios of you actually asking them out (and not giving in to fear and requesting a selfie instead). What to avoid Take my advice here – avoid date plans predicated on selecting a show at random, hoping that no matter how bad it is, it’ll give you something to bond over. I promise you that it is absolutely not worth it and there is not enough alcohol in the world to make it bearable. Also, reviews are your friend – read them before going along to yet another show you

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soon discover is decidedly not the sex-positive feminist experience you’d anticipated. Run while the lad banter rumbles loudly enough to keep the room distracted. The only bonus of going to lots of terrible Free Fringe shows is that it will perfect your exit strategy should you find yourself at a lecture on drama as critical pedagogy disguised as a date or in a crowded bar with a musician who pulls out a uke and makes a song out of small talk. And don’t get lured into the possibility that a potential hook-up’s Airbnb might look like something fresh out of BBC’s Clique; they’re likely paying the equivalent of your month’s rent every week to stay in a single loft bed in Bruntsfield which, yes, will probably break during a clumsy, drink-fuelled quickie. What to do Hide. Going outside is how I once ended up on a date in a disused building turned into a barn-style bar, sat on a bale of hay with a man who was playing a goat in a flailing Footlights production. These overpriced places open up all over Edinburgh in August as they lie abandoned as former bars, clubs and businesses soon to be turned into luxury hotels or sets of student flats. Let them cast you back to the good ol’ slum days when cattle crawled through the city’s underbelly. But should you venture into the festival, you might want to check out the shows still sidelined by the mass of white male mediocrity which swarms the Fringe year after year. Escape the festival’s 50 shades of beige and explore the comedy and performance art pushed to the sidelines by checking out Fringe of Colour and Somewhere at the Fringe for shows which will leave you feeling less like the butt of the joke

should you identify as BAME and/or LGBTQ+. You deserve to feel seen and laugh until your face hurts just as much as anyone else and will probably leave these shows feeling excited to explore the Fringe’s nightlife beyond the pale, puke-scented hell of the Hive. Dance, snog and smile the night away till the early hours in inclusive, sexy safe spaces catered to by nights like Shoot Your Shot. Here, you’ll find yourself less likely to be hitting on someone while anxiously wondering, ‘are they gay or do they just really like glitter?’ If you want to make your feelings for your comedy crush known, get creative – the classic move of chucking your bra won’t wash with these theatrical folks. Instead, get their attention by whipping your tights off halfway through their show; you’re serving Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct only with added clumsy charm should you accidentally get trapped in the seductive process. And hey, if you forget to take them with you at the end, nae bother – they’ll make an interesting token of appreciation that’ll be sure to arouse their curiosity. If apps aren’t your thing, take inspiration from those flyering with utter desperation – write your number on bits of paper and hand this out to passers-by. With enough mystery, intrigue or pizzazz, you might just get a date out of it, or enough of an experience to pitch a show on it for the following year. Where to go Too much time spent in the old town, where clowns and circus performers lurk around every corner, ruining the romance of the Royal Mile, will have you running for the Pentlands. Sneaking off to the less-mobbed ends of Leith can feel like you’ve escaped the mayhem and

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actually sustain a fun, flirty conversation without having to shout over musical theatre troupes parading through Bristo Square, serenading you with badly written songs about actual shit.

“ Finding a decent hook-up in the Fringe is like walking through George Square – exhausting, endlessly frustrating and pretty much impossible” Wow your date by taking them on a whimsical wee wander through Dean Village, or along the Portobello Promenade – they’ll be smitten at your knowledge of the city beyond the festival limits and grateful for the refuge from over-enthusiastic, overworked and underpaid flyerers and their megaphones. But if you find yourselves trapped within the Old Town, it’s worth pitching a tent outside Paradise Palms to ensure you catch Polyanna, offering a gloryhole of queer performance and music at its most glittery and grungey. It’s worth missing that Brexit-inspired burlesque show for.

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Get Off the Grid As Instagram environmental influencers take off, one writer explores the problem of environmental activism and capitalism’s unlikely union

ith more and more of our lives spent online, and more and more of our future being threatened by climate change, it comes as no surprise that environmental activism would harness the power of digital technologies to reach momentum and spread awareness. In fact, activism is no stranger to the internet: ever since the popularisation of household computers, digital tools have been used to inform, mobilise, and organise for political purpose, increasingly becoming more central to the nature of activism. In the case of environmentalism, online tools such as blogs and e-commerce can be used to create accessible learning platforms, build specialised market places selling eco-friendly everyday items that may not be available on the high street, and encourage alternative economies. Online forums and social media have also helped to foster community, and create a consumer-led dialogue, sharing knowledge horizontally from peers to peers. And while the full power of the internet has been harnessed by organisations to build upon their offline work and drive in new crowds, more and more initiatives are created as online platforms first, with or without the intention to extend to offline action.

against the message? Born online in the past decade, influencer culture can be seen as the direct continuation of the mid-noughties bloggers, albeit almost entirely native to social media. Usually focused on a specific topic such as beauty, fitness, or fashion, the influencer is essentially an individual becoming a brand. Through a carefully and coherently composed online presence, influencers grow engagement, driving brands’ interest to generate both social and monetary capital in the form of sponsor posts, gifted products, and ambassador roles. The influencer business model thus relies on a never-ending loop of consumption, where the product is the influencer’s own, unique personhood. This business model thrives most on Instagram, due both to the platform’s visual nature and to its unique position as both a social media and an app. As a social media platform, Instagram focuses on the individual interaction with the whole, letting individuals construct and broadcast their identity piece

Words: Mayanne Soret Illustration: Jasmine Floyd

by piece on the platform’s distinctive grid galleries. On the other hand, as an app, it is geared toward consumption, using its format as a marketing platform for something that is so expansive and intangible that you will never be done buying it: lifestyle. Both of these aspects unite to create the very singular digital space the platform has become, and it is this very structure that risks complicating, and even negating, both intentions and methods adopted by eco-friendly accounts. With Instagram being wired toward the individual, it only fits the model that these accounts would be putting the onus on individual choices and changes; but this approach to environmental activism presents several problems. First, the belief that saving the planet is an individual responsibility, one that relies solely on our capacity to outgrow our ego and ditch plastic straws. This is not to say that individual action does not matter: it does. Individual action is an important tool to make our consumer voices heard and a good

“ Digital spaces – much alike physical and institutional ones – are not neutral” In the case of sustainable living, Instagram is host to a variety of eco-friendly accounts. Just type in the words ‘zero waste’ and you’ll be given a full list of accounts ready to upload daily reminders, tips and ideas to lead a waste-free life, with many accounts’ followings rivalling beauty and fitness influencers. Among the most successful, Trash Is for Tossers, a zero waste blog created in 2013, boasts over 344K followers, while The Zero Waste CollectiveTM is followed by over 416K. Smaller accounts still drive consequent engagement, ranging everywhere from Australia’s blog The Green Hub Online (30.6K followers) to The Ethical Fashion Guide (nearing 8K followers). With their overly positive message and helpful content, the success of these accounts is cause for celebration, but engagement numbers are not the only thing they share with influencers. They also feature a familiar aesthetic: a look at these accounts will reveal an abundance of overexposed flat-lay, earthy colours, and smiling portraits of their founders and ambassadors, almost always a young white woman in a pristine, urban interior. By borrowing the codes and aesthetics of influencer culture, these accounts have effectively harnessed the power of social media for maximum visibility. But is this proximity to the social media sub-culture threatening to corrupt their message – the medium being inherently and irremediably

August 2019

INTERSECTIONS

exercise in building alternative structures of consumption, as well as an effective way to set in motion long-term changes in our everyday behaviour. However, with only just over a hundred companies responsible for 70% of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere between 1988 and 2015, individual action must go hand in hand with radical political action and a dismantling of the very economic and political structure that has created the climate crisis. Moreover, by focusing on individual action, these accounts risk positioning the climate crisis as an individual moral failure rather than a political and societal one, ignoring how climate change impacts populations along racial and class divides. Interestingly, two of the most popular environmental influencer accounts have recently launched zero waste related businesses: Trash Is for Tossers’ creator Lauren Singer opened a high street shop in New York, dedicated to re-usable packaging, while the Zero Waste CollectiveTM – an already trademarked brand – has an online store selling similar low-waste items. At their core, they have valuable ideas but these approaches nonetheless suggest that it is in everyone’s economic power to have a zero waste lifestyle, presenting it as an immediate and permanent fix to climate change, universally accessible. While some of these goods are available to purchase online, it still does not account for geographical disparities in food access that will impact the capacity of individuals to buy sustainably and cruelty-free. Aside from accessibility, this attitude also risks creating ineffective solutions in the long run, as well as to foster a neo-colonial attitude toward climate change. By ignoring the nuances of environmental racism and the class system, these platforms seem more interested in catering environmentalism to a capitalist sensibility than they are in raising awareness of the climate crisis. Of course, influencer culture does not exist in isolation: it is part of a wider neo-liberal digital culture focused on self-improvement and quantifiable productivity meant to amass capital. By presenting zero waste solutions as permanent ones, devoid of any socio-political reading, these accounts offer a vision of climate justice and sustainable living that is not only compatible with, but also thrives on capitalism. In fact, the creator of The Zero Waste CollectiveTM recently launched a new consultancy business, with the Instagram handle @sustainable.influencers and slogan: ‘Being sustainable and making $ don’t have to be mutually exclusive.’ But with the realisation that capitalism is the economic and power structure that has unequivocally led to climate collapse, can sustainable living truly succeed in an individualistic, capital-focused economy? It would be too easy to portray social media as the root of all evil, but what these examples remind us is that digital spaces – much like physical and institutional ones – are not neutral. Remembering our own proximity to capitalism may help us keep integrity in our intentions and values, and establish more sustainable solutions in the long run, both on and offline.

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Travel in the age of Instagram The complex reality of visiting a concentration camp in the modern age

he frost-laced winds swirled in slow, solemn waltzes. My gaze lay straight ahead. I stared, shivering, trying to contemplate the length of the tracks ahead; of where they began, where they led, where they ended. It was hard to ignore the fact that I had a gaping hole in my boot. It had threatened me with its presence for the last three days and today, of all days, succumbed to the elements. The leather had split, leaving an almighty wound. The sole hung a clean inch away from where it should, and my foot swam in a miserable icy bath. How could anyone survive a winter here? Looking around, I couldn’t help but reflect that even in the heart of summer, this was a place which must always feel cold. The horizon was patterned with brick-like structures; buildings which could quite easily have been mistaken for army barracks. They stood in uniform rows and stretched as far as the eye could see. In the distance, a perimeter fence stood guard. Watchtowers looked on. Unseen eyes caught you in their grasp. I felt my shoulders creep lower in their sockets. I was standing on hallowed ground, yet I could never quite have contemplated how that feeling could seep into your very bones. This

was Birkenau, the largest death camp within the Auschwitz complex. It’s where 90% of people who were taken to Auschwitz died. One million people lost their lives in this place. It was a hard thought to swallow, and in all honesty I didn’t quite know how to feel. Quite simply, the concept of one million souls was too hard to fathom, and my mind was saturated with impossible-to-answer questions. How could this happen? How could humans let this happen? Like many people visiting the camp for the first time, I’d been hit by a wall of confusion. And then something happened to bring me out of my stupor. In the distance, a girl caught my eye. She was perhaps mid-twenties, with tumbling blonde hair and an opulent fur-lined jacket. Her make-up was flawless. She walked with determination along the middle of the railway tracks – the tracks which had once shepherded the camp’s prisoners to their fate – and as she did so, heads began to turn. After 50 yards or so she stopped and turned to face a friend, waiting patiently behind. She placed her hand on her hip, dropped it

fashionably and shook her hair into place. A thumbs up from the pal was given, a Cheshire Cat grin was donned and the lens clicked obligingly. A quick check to make sure that all was Instagram-worthy, and off the pair skipped. My confusion doubled. Did she really just get her photo taken, smiling, at Auschwitz? It seemed I was not alone in my bewilderment. Several folk had stopped to watch as the event unfolded. Some scoffed and rolled their eyes. Others tutted. One elderly lady, whose eyes caught mine, looked positively depressed. Her reaction resonated the most. It was depressing. Is this what our generation had come to? So hooked on social media and the vapid imagery which comes from relaying every experience that we can’t bring ourselves to switch off from our screen-lives and actually take in the real world around us? Are we so busy ‘checking in’ that we’ve forgotten to actually check in? Now I’m not saying this girl had any malicious intentions in getting her photo taken. It would be unfair to make any assumptions on her character based upon a quick observation. What worried me was her apparent obliviousness to her surroundings. It was as though she was treating Auschwitz like any other tourist

attraction; as though the crumbling ruins of a gas chamber was as appropriate a background to her selfie as the Eiffel Tower. And then I wondered, could she really be blamed? After all, it is an uncomfortable truth that Auschwitz today is very much marketed as a ‘must-see’ destination when visiting Poland. Read any guidebook to visiting Krakow and you’ll find it listed amongst the top ten things to do. Visit any tourist information office in the city and you’ll find numerous companies offering tours to the camp. Prior to visiting, I had my reservations about this. There was no denying that I wanted to visit Auschwitz. It wasn’t out of some morbid curiosity or so I could feel validated in ‘doing my bit’ for humanity. I wanted to gain a deeper understanding into why things developed so badly for European society during WWII. I wanted to see if I could gain any kind of perspective on how such atrocities could possibly occur, and how hatred could extend to actions so unimaginable. I wanted to learn from the experience and pay my respects to those lost during the Holocaust. And yet I felt uneasy mentioning to people that we planned to go, never quite sure whether they would react with understanding

“ This is the era of Trump-ism, of Brexit and terrorism, of building walls and forming borders. It’s easy to see how hatred and prejudice could start to bubble beneath the surface given the chance”

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Words: Izzy Gray Illustration: Edith Ault

“ Are we so busy ‘checking in’ that we’ve forgotten to actually check in?”

or disdain. What I felt uncomfortable about was talking about the world’s most notorious concentration camp like it was a tourist attraction. I worried whether as consumers, we were becoming desensitized to the experience in front of us and whether the true intention behind sites of remembrance was becoming – ironically – forgotten. Watching this girl strike her pose, I felt like I was watching my fear come to fruition. Is this it? Has Auschwitz become a commodity? Are people forgetting what happened here? The truth is, Auschwitz is one of the most visited sites in Europe, with an estimated one million travellers passing under the infamous ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ gate every year. Even on a

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quiet December morning, ours was among dozens of busses which had pulled up as part of an organised tour. Our guide suggested that on an average low-season day such as this, there would be at least 5000 visitors to the camp. It was hard to imagine that 75 years before, hundreds of prisons were forcibly crammed into these rooms and here we were, willingly squeezing ourselves into the tight parameters, yet having absolutely no real perspective on the type of conditions they must have endured, having never truly suffered ourselves. There was a deep discomfort which came from visiting somewhere so intrinsically linked to human suffering, and yet did I regret being there? Ultimately, no. Here’s why.

Visiting Auschwitz will hit you like a slap in the face. Sometimes a good old thump of reality is no bad thing. For me, that first bolt of perspective came in the entrance to one of the exhibition rooms, as we passed by a line of photographs. It was a row of headshots, just a small sample of those taken of prisoners as they arrived at the camp. Most were already skeletal, their eyes sunken and heads shaved. The Nazis had certainly made their best efforts to strip the prisoners of their humanity, and yet their eyes bore straight into my consciousness. There were two dates engraved beneath each photograph; one, the date they arrived. The other, the date they died. For many, the two were only days apart. By the end of this corridor, there was a unanimous and respectful silence among the group. This swelled as we moved through the museum, each room displaying something more harrowing than the next. Empty suitcases, once filled with the belongings and hopes of a better future. Locks of human hair. Shoes piled high to the ceiling, filling an entire room. I don’t think there could have been a single soul who emerged from the depths of the former gas chamber, knowing what happened within those four walls, who could have

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thought to themselves that this was anything close to a fun day out. Their faces said it all. So many lives... As the day wound on, I began to get it. Yes, there were a lot of visitors. Yes, the crowds could be overwhelming – off-putting even – but the very fact that so many people feel compelled to experience the horror of Auschwitz even after the passage of time speaks volumes in itself. It showed that people want to learn. They want to understand. They want to pay their respects. There was something undeniably uplifting to take from that. I began to see that although the promotion of Auschwitz as a travel destination may have become somewhat confused over the years, the intention remains the same. The museum is not there to serve as some gory fill-your-boots insight into the macabre depths of humanity, it’s a reminder of what has happened in the past and what should never happen again. It’s a site of remembrance and a tribute to those murdered, but it’s also an important lesson for the future. Evil has to start somewhere. It doesn’t come from thin air. We’re living in scary times. This is the era of Trump-ism, of Brexit and terrorism, of building walls and forming borders. It’s easy to see how hatred and prejudice could start to bubble beneath the surface given the chance. For most people who visited the camp that day, I’m pretty sure the message got through. There was a collective spirit shared among the visitors, jumbled though it may have been with feelings of sadness, humility, dismay and, inevitably, anger. The majority of visitors we encountered reacted to the site with complete respect. Phones were tucked away. Plaques were read in silent contemplation. Questions were asked with genuine purpose. Of course, you’re always going to get the odd knobhead who forgets the significance of where they are. Sadly, the concept of switching off from our virtual worlds will always be lost on some, but perhaps that’s just my own personal bugbear and something I need to accept. Tolerance, after all, comes in all shapes and sizes. And anyway, perhaps there’s no right way to feel after visiting somewhere as harrowing as Auschwitz. Perhaps it represents something greater than any of us born decades down the line can really fathom. Perhaps that’s okay. As long as we try to understand and learn from it all, there’s #hope for us yet.

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Eat, Play, Laugh The Edinburgh Fringe is back, and that means a whole load of shows at least partially connected to food and drink. Let’s take a look...

Comedy Top of our admittedly-niche list of ‘food-related absurdist comedies’ is Good Morning Croissant (Heroes @ The Hive, 7.20pm), the new show from the immensely inventive Adam Larter. Larter’s show last year was not about food – it was a lo-fi disco-powered retelling of the story of King Arthur – but now he’s getting very culinary. Well, he’s trapped inside a cardboard supermarket. Hoot and chuckles guaranteed. Also food-adjacent and also fantastic are sketch duo The Delightful Sausage, on this list for two food-related reasons. One: Amy Gledhill’s giant hotdog costume. Two: their 2019 show is called Ginster’s Paradise (Monkey Barrel, 12pm). That’s. How. You. Attract. This. Author’s. Attention. From sausages to eggs, and the new show from comedian and kitchen-bound Heath Robinson impersonator George Egg. Egg’s previous shows – Anarchist Chef and DIY Chef – have featured live cooking with trouser presses, irons and giant blowtorches. His latest, Moveable Feast (Assembly George Square, 4.30pm), offers advice on getting one’s gourmet on while mid-train journey. For fans of eating while sitting still, we have just the thing – Dan vs Food (Pleasance Courtyard, 1.30pm, 14 Aug only). It promises… well, it promises that ‘a man called Dan will eat a three-course meal live on stage in a 750 seat theatre.’ Given that this is the Fringe, the event is for charity (in aid of food poverty charity FareShare), and the list of participants on the Pleasance website reads like an explosion in a comedy flyer factory, we suspect there’s a bit more to it than that. He better eat that meal though. Not into watching someone eat? What about someone talking about what they can’t eat? In Bread with Joseph Emslie (Laughing Horse @ Cabaret Voltaire, 12.25pm) is the stand-up comedian’s look at his life as a coeliac. Talking about eating more generally is the domain of Jessica Fostekew’s The Hoovering Podcast (Monkey Barrel, 3pm, 13 & 14 Aug only). The pod features a host of hilarious and interesting people talking about good things they’ve eaten, with a pair of recordings lined up for this year’s Fringe. And if you like your laughs liberally sprinkled with booze, The Thinking Drinkers have you covered with their new show Heroes of Hooch (Underbelly Bristo Square, 8.20pm). You’ll get through five drinks over the course of the show, which, in our experience, goes some way to making up for the slightly dry nature of the material. Three-star comedy, five-star hospitality.

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Cabaret, dance and theatre Gin! Gin and cabaret, but mainly gin! That’s the pitch of The Gin Show (Hill Street Theatre, 8.40pm), comprised of a trio of gin tastings with some music and performance thrown in for ballast. Described as ‘the perfect way to end a day at the Fringe’ twice in the space of one blurb on the Fringe website, if that helps your decision either way. Or maybe you want something a bit more robust? Hitler’s Tasters (Greenside @ Infirmary Street, 6.35pm) tells the tales of the women forced to act as poison tasters for Hitler during his rule. Also over in ‘serious drama’ territory is the intriguing Comrade Egg and the Chicken of Tomorrow (Pleasance Courtyard, 11.25am). Comrade Egg uses physical theatre and clowning to tackle the issue of PTSD in abattoir workers, and to take on the excesses of the meat industry more generally. Slightly lighter is Just Desserts (Underbelly Cowgate, 10.40pm), a foodie cabaret from ‘Australia’s singing cook’, Michelle Pearson. This one’s got it all – live pop-rock! Meditations on the power of societal expectations! Free dessert at the end! And for something a bit stronger, two productions with one-word names that’ll have you

Words: Peter Simpson Illustration: Josie Sommer

reaching for the thesaurus. First up, Chocolate (Assembly Rooms, 2.30pm), an immersive dance piece that takes our collective love for a Freddo and turns it up to 11. “Immerse yourself in cacao, conflicting desires, the anticipation of tasting and full-bodied wild sensory dance,” they say. “Well alright,” we reply. Then there’s Feast (Summerhall, various times), and the phrase ‘Dionysian anarchy’ in the brochure blurb. A one-woman physical theatre show about our relationship with food, the rituals of dining and the excesses of modern consumerism, all expressed in extremely visceral fashion. Food events and masterclasses Sometimes it’s not enough to watch someone pretend they’re a sausage, or to see a performer explore our darkest recesses while also covering themselves in milk. Sometimes, we just want to learn something we can take into our everyday lives. Something like ‘how to make gin and tonic taste good’, perhaps. The Arbikie Gin Masterclass (The A Club at the Merchants Hall, times vary) will see the Arbroath-based field-to-bottle distillery talk you through their spirits, explain the art of the mythical Perfect

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Serve, and treat you to a fancy cocktail while they’re at it. Or maybe you want to learn how to describe/enjoy/brag about whisky. A Dram is Worth a Thousand Words (The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, various times) is the event for you, offering up a tutored trio of whiskies under the guise of a learned scholar from SMWS. If you want to get more immersive with your whisky drinking, Whisky Through the Ages (Jeffrey St Whisky & Tobacco, various times) is a ‘journey’ through the history of the national drink. Five drams, much chat, big immersion. And if you just want to throw yourself headlong into the world of whisky, All Senses Ahead! (SMWS, various times) has a bit of everything. There’s a trio of whiskies to try, and there’s a three-course meal to get stuck into. There are stories and songs to hear, and some historical facts to attempt to remember. There is also, for some reason, a virtual reality element to all this, so if you ever feel like you’ve had enough of the Fringe this August, there is at least one place you can (pretty much) get away from it all. theskinny.co.uk/food

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Mon’ the Hops As Mono gear up for their meat-free Beer Festival, we take a look at the relationship between beer and veganism Interview: Peter Simpson

Chews Bulletin This month’s food round-up features beer festivals in Glasgow and Dundee, a healthy dose of veganism and an evening of agave-based fun Words: Peter Simpson

irst up this month, a chance to evade the flyerers and mimes of the Fringe with the help of gin. The Gin Fayre brings together some of the country’s best gins under the extremely fancy roof of the Mansfield Traquair, to coincide with International Scottish Gin Day. Not a ‘Day’ that we’re totally familiar with, but if it means the chance to hide in a big old church with a G&T, we’ll play along. 3 Aug, various times, Mansfield Traquair, 15 Mansfield Pl, Edinburgh, £22, tickets via edfringe.com Up in Dundee, things get a bit hoppier with the Tayside Craft Beer Festival. Duke’s Corner play host to pop-up bars celebrating some of the best breweries across Dundee, Angus, Fife and beyond. You’ll find tasty brews from the likes of Law Brewing and the always-fantastic 71 Brewing, as well as spirits from the much-loved Arbikie distillery and a whole lot more. 4 Aug, from midday, 13 Brown St, Dundee, dukescorner.co.uk The following weekend, the beer festival merry-go-round lands on Glasgow. First up is the debut of Milngavie Beer Festival, which promises over 25 craft beers by breweries from across Scotland. Early signs are extremely promising, with Jaw Brew (big flavours, equally big eye on sustainability), Brewdog’s Overworks offshoot (sour and funky) and Overtone (amazing beers, extremely cool design) all involved. Throw in the dual promises of hip-hop and pizza, and we’re on board. 10 Aug, from 3pm, Finsbay Loft, 14 Stewart St, Milngavie, £10, tickets via Eventbrite Then it’s back into town for the Mono Beer Festival, an animal-free collaboration between the vegan bar/diner/venue and Williams Bros. That means vegan barbecues, cool music and entertainment curated by the

Mono crew, and a tap list of exciting beers from Williams and beyond. Oh, and if that hasn’t convinced you, there’s also karaoke. 11 Aug, from 12.30pm, Mono, 12 Kings Court, Glasgow, £5 plus booking fee, tickets via monobeerfest.brownpapertickets.com And if beer’s not your thing, may we interest you in some tequila? The Good Spirits Co’s regular tastings continue this month, and they’re taking in the extremely prickly, agave-powered world of Tequila and Mezcal. You’ll get a welcome cocktail then work your way through six tequilas and mezcals. A delightful evening, or an evening that ends with you trying to work out how many bottles you can carry home or justify buying in one go? That’s up to you. 10 Aug, 7pm, Good Spirits Co, 23 Bath St, Glasgow, £25, tickets from Good Spirits Co or 0141 258 8427. Staying in Glasgow, GVG Fest (that’s Go Vegan Govan) returns for its second outing this month. It’s a free event featuring a variety of vegan traders and producers, with the goal of giving info and support to people who want to move towards a plant-based diet. 24 Aug, from 11am, The Pearce Institute, 860 Govan Road, Glasgow, free entry, facebook.com/ govegangovan Finally, it’s the return of the equally altruistic Beer Makes Glasgow. A charity beer festival with all proceeds going directly to Drumchapel Food Bank, it’s a great chance to do some good while also working your way around some of Scotland’s best breweries. More than 40 beers from over a dozen breweries; that’s a whole lot of charity to get through. 30 & 31 Aug, various times, Drygate, 85 Drygate St, Glasgow, £5, tickets via citizenticket.co.uk

That’s Mono, the super-cool bar with the really good record shop attached? The very same; it’s also 100% animal-free so, y’know, an ideal candidate for a celebration of vegan booze. Mono’s vegan?!? But I had a sausage pizza in there last week… Oh my sweet, hypothetical boy – yes you did, and yes it is. Making vegan food cool, exciting and near-indistinguishable from non-vegan food has been the goal of Scotland’s cohort of trendy meat-free places for a while. Seeing as everyone else in the world is tripping over themselves to put on drinks festivals, a vegan beer fest is a solid logical progression. But – and correct me if I’m wrong – isn’t all beer vegan? I mean, it’s hops and water and… other stuff? In short, no it isn’t. OK… care to elaborate at all? Sorry, yes, absolutely. A lot of beer is vegan and vegetarian, but when it isn’t, it’s usually due to fish bladders. Go on. When you brew a beer, you sometimes end up with a hazy or murky end product thanks to the yeasts lurking in the liquid. To clear those yeasts out, brewers use a variety of tricks, but one is to add isinglass finings (bits of fish bladder) to get the murk to separate out.

It’s much less of an issue with bottled and pre-packaged beers, where there’s some kind of filtering process built in, but it’s particularly true when it comes to cask ales. Jeezo. Then there are other beers which might contain lactose or honey, but they’re a bit easier to spot. They’ll have the words ‘milk’ or ‘honey’ in the name? They’ll have the words ‘milk’ or ‘honey’ in the name, yes. Cool. So who out there is making tasty vegan beer? Well, a lot of Scotland’s best craft breweries are knocking out animal-free beers on the regular. Why are you talking like that? Sorry, got a bit carried away. Barney’s, 71, Black Isle, Pilot (who wrote an entire blogpost about how much they hate isinglass), Overtone and WEST all produce great ranges of vegan beer, as do the Mono Beer Festival’s co-curators Williams Bros. Oooooh… Ooooh is right; Williams are combining some of their vegan beers with a roster of breweries from across Scotland and beyond. Personally, we’re stoked to see their tropical Che Guava lager on the list. It’s super-crisp, really refreshing and it’s gluten-free. It’s like a beery Rubicon. Guavas, you say? See, we knew we’d get you on board eventually... Mono Beer Festival, 11 Aug, 12.30-11pm, tickets £5-7 monocafebar.com/events/mono-beer-fest/

That sounds like you just made it up. Not a word of a lie, that’s how it goes down.

Mono Cafe Bar

Lifestyle

FOOD AND DRINK

THE SKINNY

Photo: Caitlin O'Connell

71 Brewing

Photo: Grant Anderson

A vegan beer festival? Well, I guess there’s room for *everything* these days… First of all, you seem lovely. And second, yes, Mono are hosting their inaugural Mono Beer Festival this month. It follows in the footsteps of Glasgow Vegan Beer Fest, which ran at the venue for the last couple of years.

August 2019

Lifestyle

THE SKINNY

RE V IE W

It's Album Time We take a closer look at the 20 albums longlisted for this year’s Scottish Album of the Year Award

he Scottish Album of the Year Award has, in a relatively short time, become an institution in Scottish music, continuously putting the likes of the Brits and Mercury Prize to shame. The award celebrates all corners of the Scottish music scene, with a £20,000 prize available to the winner and £1000 going to each of the nine runners up who make up the shortlist of just ten acts. Now in its eighth year, after a record number of 293 album submissions, this year’s longlist is another fine selection representing a true cross-section of what’s going on in Scotland’s ever-vibrant music scene, proudly taking in everything from rock and pipe music via classical, electronica, trad, jazz, folk, dance and pop. Needless to say, it’s going to be another tough year for the judging panel. In alphabetical order, we’re delighted to share with you the 20 albums on this year’s longlist. Aidan Moffat and RM Hubbert – Here Lies the Body [Rock Action, 11 May 2018] Aidan Moffat and RM Hubbert are no strangers to the SAY Award, Moffat winning the inaugural award for Everything’s Getting Older alongside Bill Wells, and Hubby winning in 2013 for Thirteen Lost & Found. Maybe they can pick up the award together in 2019? Aidan O’Rourke – 365: Volume One [Reveal Records, 25 May 2018] With two previous SAY Award shortlisted albums with his band Lau, 365: Volume One sees Aidan O’Rourke, the former BBC Radio 2 Folk Musician of the Year, claim his first longlist inclusion as a solo artist. Andrew Wasylyk – The Paralian [Athens of the North, 1 Feb 2019] Andrew Mitchell’s third album as Andrew Wasylyk, The Paralian came to light following a commission to create new music for a restored 19th century Erard Grecian harp. In turn this has now led to Mitchell’s first SAY Award longlist spot as a solo artist. Auntie Flo – Radio Highlife [Brownswood Recordings, 12 Oct 2018] The moniker of the Glasgow producer Brian d’Souza, Auntie Flo received past recognition from the SAY Award in 2013 and 2016 for Future Rhythm Machine and Theory of Flo respectively. Mixing a cornucopia of worldly sounds, beats and rhythms, Radio Highlife sees him back on the longlist for another go.

August 2019

Words: Tallah Brash

Brìghde Chaimbeul – The Reeling [River Lea Recordings, 18 Jan 2019] Winner of the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award, Brìghde Chaimbeul is a piper, whistle player and pianist from the Isle of Skye. Produced by Aidan O’Rourke, her debut album The Reeling sees the young artist brought to the fore with a place on the longlist.

Fergus McCreadie Trio – Turas [Self-released, 18 Apr 2018] Pianist Fergus McCreadie won the award for Best Instrumentalist at the Scottish Jazz Awards aged only 20. A recent graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, his debut solo record Turas has made its way on to this year’s SAY Award longlist.

Kinnaris Quintet – Free One [Self-released, 20 Sep 2018] Formed in 2017, the Kinnaris Quintet are an all-female group combining Scottish and Irish folk music with bluegrass and classical. As their star continues to rise, their debut album has now landed them a spot on this year’s longlist.

C Duncan – Health [FatCat Records, 29 Mar 2019] C Duncan’s third album is the first he didn’t record and produce himself, seeing him work with Elbow’s Craig Potter. With previous shortlist inclusions for The Architect and The Midnight Sun, could this be the year he scoops the big prize?

Free Love – Luxury Hits [Full Ashram, 9 Nov 2018] Formerly known as Happy Meals, the Glasgow duo were shortlisted for the award for 2015’s Apero, and longlisted for 2017’s Full Ashram Devotional Ceremony. Following a name change, could it be third time lucky for the pair as Free Love with Luxury Hits?

Mastersystem – Dance Music [Physical Education Recordings, 6 Apr 2018] In a month when Frightened Rabbit’s The Midnight Organ Fight turned ten, Scott and Grant Hutchison released Dance Music, their debut album as Mastersystem, alongside friends and brothers Justin and James Lockey. Gaining a place on the 2019 longlist, this will be a bittersweet win if it goes all the way.

Carla J. Easton – Impossible Stuff [Olive Grove Records, 5 Oct 2018] Following a longlist nomination in 2017 for TeenCanteen’s Say It All With a Kiss, Carla J. Easton’s sugar-coated debut solo record Impossible Stuff, produced by Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire) and recorded in Montreal, sees the Glasgow artist in the spotlight once again. CHVRCHES – Love Is Dead [Virgin Records, 25 May 2018] The Glasgow three-piece, comprised of Lauren Mayberry, Martin Doherty and Iain Cook, have so far failed to win the award with previous shortlistings for The Bones of What You Believe and Every Eye Open. Could 2019 be their year? Edwyn Collins – Badbea [AED Records, 29 Mar 2019] The former Orange Juice frontman and ever-prolific Edwyn Collins’ eighth studio album Understated featured on the 2014 shortlist. Following suit, follow-up album Badbea sees Collins getting recognition once again with a place on the 2019 longlist. Fatherson – Sum of All Your Parts [Easy Life Records, 14 Sep 2018] Fatherson won The Skinny’s reader poll for Scottish Album of the Year in 2018 for Sum of All Your Parts, the Kilmarnockformed band’s third album. With previous longlist inclusions for I Am An Island and Open Book, could they go all the way this time?

Graham Costello’s STRATA – OBELISK [Bpqd Records, 1 Feb 2019] With a jazz resurgence going on all over the UK, Graham Costello’s STRATA are pushing the boundaries of what jazz is in Scotland in 2019, and, following three years in the making, their debut album OBELISK has found its way on to the longlist.

Niteworks – Air Fàir an Là [Comann Music, 17 Aug 2018] With influences as disparate as the Peatbog Faeries and Apparat, Skye’s Celtic/electronic hybrid band Niteworks’ second album Air Fàir an Là has won the four-piece a place on this year’s longlist.

Karine Polwart with Steven Polwart and Inge Thomson – Laws of Motion [Hudson Records, 19 Oct 2018] The multi-award-winning folk singer-songwriter Karine Polwart has received two previous shortlist nominations for 2012’s Traces and 2017’s collaboration with Pippa Murphy, A Pocket Full of Wind Resistance. Can her latest collaboration see her finally claim the top spot?

Sean Shibe – softLOUD [Delphian, 22 Sep 2018] softLOUD is the second studio album from Edinburgh classical guitarist Sean Shibe, and with an impressive number of accolades already under his belt if it takes the judges’ fancy it could be the first classical guitar album to win the coveted award.

Kathryn Joseph – From When I Wake the Want Is [Rock Action, 10 Aug 2018] Kathryn Joseph won the award in 2015 for Bones You Have Thrown Me, And Blood I’ve Spilled and 2019 sees the singer-songwriter in with a chance of doing the double with longlist inclusion for her stunning second album From When I Wake the Want Is.

The Twilight Sad – IT WON/T BE LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME [Rock Action, 18 Jan 2019] With previous inclusion on the SAY Award shortlist in 2013 for No One Can Ever Know, and longlist in 2015 for Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave, could their fifth album IT WON/T BE LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME be the one that finally seals the deal?

Music

The winner of the 2019 SAY Award will be announced at a ceremony in the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, 6 Sep sayaward.com

Review

A New Life The Skinny catches up with the producer of Pianodrome at The Pitt, Matt Wright, about its inspiration, this year’s line-up and how the venue offers a contrast to modern-day Fringe chaos

Interview: Amy Hill

Something Smashing

The pair produced prototypes over the next four years, improving the design as they went along, learning more about how different parts of pianos could be used. “And then finally we got to the point where we thought we were ready,” continues Wright. “We got some funding last year from Creative Scotland to get a warehouse, as well as hire some people to help us build it.” The Pianodrome is built as an amphitheatre, with audience seating in the round. It was first opened to the public during last year’s festival, when it occupied Edinburgh’s

Matt Wright

Wright explains that the move to The Pitt feels almost equally natural. “It’s another old structure, which doesn’t have any other uses, and so it feels like a sort of DIY space,” he says. “And, of course, the Pianodrome can fit inside!” This year, the Pianodrome is hosting

PIANODROME AT THE PITT HIGHLIGHTS #Pianodrome Live, 31 Jul-25 Aug, 7-10pm (Wed-Sun evenings only) Supported by Made in Scotland Showcase, #Pianodrome Live, hosted by five-piece band S!nk, is the venue’s flagship evening show, with a different guest joining the band every night. The show aims to demonstrate how the Pianodrome can be used, in particular with it existing in the round. Highlights include Callum Easter (3 Aug), Will Pickvance (10 Aug) and Dawanggang (23 Aug).

Review

Photo: David Wilkinson

Free Love

Akala

Akala @ The Liquid Room, Edinburgh, 3 Aug Following a sold-out appearance at the 2018 Edinburgh International Book Festival, BAFTA and MOBO award-winning hip-hop artist and activist Akala is back in Edinburgh this August for a run of shows at the Gilded Balloon as he continues to celebrate his book Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire. With various opportunities to catch Akala – In Conversation between 2-6 August, on 3 August he’s dropping his evening show for a live performance at The Liquid Room.

Photo: Paul Husband

Do Not Miss Free Love @ Summerhall, Edinburgh, 2 Aug We can’t think of a better way to start August than with this absolute – excuse us for going wildly Scottish here – stoater of a gig. Free Love are one of the most exciting live acts to have come out of Scotland in recent years, and it will never not be utterly thrilling to see Suzi Rodden catapulting herself offstage to get up in a crowd. What’s more, the show will feature the exciting angular hooks of Glasgow sextet Kaputt and the exceptional beats and vocals of Edinburgh duo Maranta. It’s a no-brainer.

everything from physical theatre to folk music to life-drawing classes. The line-up includes four shows from the Made In Scotland showcase, including Raymond MacDonald’s Lie Still My Sleepy Fortunes (16-17 Aug), Tom Bancroft’s In Common (14-15 Aug) and Kirsty Law’s Young Night Thought (13, 15, 19 & 24 Aug). Gill Maxwell, executive director of the Scottish Music Centre, and the music partner of Made In Scotland, is thrilled about the collaboration with Pianodrome, and says that the venue is “on course to present an exciting programme, with lots on offer for music lovers.” Wright echoes her words: “In the context of the Fringe, where throwaway culture is rife, a space made entirely of recycled material can offer a message to people. “It’s so easy now to exploit natural resources,” says Wright. “Often we don’t think past the lives of beautiful things like pianos. We wanted to divert that stream of waste, and give these instruments a proper homage and a new life.” Wright also says that they feel as if this venue returns to the roots of what the Fringe is all about. “The Fringe began as a way of waking people up again, and offering a place to be creative in a post-war environment,” he says. “It’s all about showcasing the art that’s all around us, and opening avenues for creative exploration.”

I Piano, 7-11 Aug, 3-4pm If you’re into shadow-puppetry, then this is the show for you. With puppetry accompanied by live piano, this show is set to be family-friendly and extraordinarily relaxing, with music that ranges from Beethoven to boogie-woogie. If you’re in need of some mid-afternoon escapism, this is not to be missed.

Lunchtime concerts, 1-24 Aug, 1-2pm (excludes 14-16 Aug) You can check out who’s playing in these concerts in the Fringe guide, and there are some real gems. The event is by-donation, and showcases some true up-and-coming musical talent. There are 24 different shows, from folk to soul, and indie to jazz – truly something for everyone. Highlights include Café Spice (9 Aug), Weird Cousins (10 Aug) and the Fergus McCreadie Trio (15 Aug).

pianodrome.org

Florence and the Machine @ Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, 7 & 8 Aug Florence Welch and her Machine are rolling into town this month to kick off the extensive Summer Sessions series taking over Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens from 7-18 August, which will also feature shows from CHVRCHES, Primal Scream and Lewis Capaldi. So if you’ve never seen the 2015 Glastonbury headliners in action before, now’s your chance as they play two nights on the Ross Bandstand in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle; be sure to get down early for the all-singing, all-dancing, hugely exhilarating Self Esteem on support duty.

Music

Florence and the Machine

Randolph's Leap

Randolph’s Leap @ The Glad Cafe, Glasgow, 10 Aug The quirky Glasgow indie-pop octet – fronted by excellent songwriter Adam Ross – are heading to The Glad Cafe tonight for, from what we can make out from our trusty friend The Internet, their first full band show in a while. With hints at a brand new album in the pipeline (hopefully in the not too distant future), we reckon you’ll get a sneak peak of some brand new songs at this show, mixed in with fan favourites like I Can’t Dance to This Music Anymore and Isle of Love. Support comes from the superb Moonsoup.

THE SKINNY

Photo: Euan Robertson

s Fringe madness descends upon Edinburgh and the city once again fills with flyerers, vendors, ticket booths and just about every kind of street performer imaginable, Venue 391 – Pianodrome at The Pitt – feels like a breath of fresh air. Made entirely of upcycled pianos, and situated this year at The Pitt, Edinburgh’s food and drinks yard down on Leith’s Pitt Street, it’s a space that feels both physically and conceptually miles away from your average Fringe venue. “I think when you see the amount of waste that goes into building the Fringe, and you see the amount of, full-on consumerism, a lot of people feel uncomfortable,” the Pianodrome’s producer Matt Wright tells us ahead of its move to The Pitt this August. “So we want the Pianodrome to be a sort of antidote to that. It’s a space where people can breathe.” Wright’s S!NK bandmate, and the Pianodrome’s designer, Tim Vincent-Smith already worked with reclaimed wood, and dreamt up the idea of a performance venue built entirely from recycled pianos. “It started off as an idea when Tim noticed that you could get an unlimited supply of pianos that have been chucked out from people’s houses,” explains Wright. “People are devastated about it, no one wants to throw them out, but a lot of them are not really playable anymore.”

“ I think when you see the amount of waste that goes into building the fringe... a lot of people feel uncomfortable”

Photo: Claire Maxwell

Photo: Olivier Bardina

Royal Botanic Gardens. “The Botanics seemed like a natural home for what we’re doing,” says Wright. “This lovely space, with the trees growing offers a real connection with the natural world.”

Fife Finds a Way Idlewild, Honeyblood and William McCarthy (Augustines) are set to headline September's Outwith Festival, a heartfelt celebration of a community on the rise. Chris Foote and Jonny Watt discuss proclaiming the merits of Fife to the world, and vice versa

Interview: Fraser MacIntyre

Kathryn Joseph: From When I Wake @ Summerhall, Edinburgh, 13-15 Aug Presented as part of Cryptic’s year-long programme celebrating 25 years of ‘ravishing the senses’, award-winning singer-songwriter Kathryn Joseph is bringing the acclaimed theatrical version of her stunning sophomore record From When I Wake the Want Is to Summerhall for a short run as part of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. Directed by Josh Armstrong, Joseph’s stunning songcraft and hair-raising vocals are further heightened by Czech body architect Markéta Kratochvílová, with staging from James Johnson and lighting by Nich Smith.

August 2019

million expansion. “They were selling out shows across the country and couldn’t afford to get to the venues,” Watt says of the band and Todd Howe’s film, which sheds light on the failure of the music industry to support one of the most “triumphant, cathartic” live forces of recent years. “Everyone that goes to see William will leave entirely uplifted.” Nae Pasaran (5 Sep), Beats (7 Sep) and other films will screen throughout Outwith, now a six-day celebration of local and visiting art, theatre and literature. Their designated Live Music Day on 7 July will feature, as well as the aforementioned Idlewild and Honeyblood, an eclectic line-up including Song, by Toad alumni Meursault, Siobhan Wilson and Jonnie Common performing on various stages throughout Dunfermline. Fife institution James Yorkston and Withered Hand will co-headline a separate event on 8 July. “What we’ve tried to do over the last few years is really cultivate the local talent,” says Foote. “This year we’ve built on top of that. “There’s a lot of local artists that have really taken the festival to heart,” Foote continues, referencing Moonlight Zoo, riding high on recent single Survive. “People are coming from across Europe, and we want to

King Tut’s Summer Nights @ King Tut’s, Glasgow, 17 & 18 Aug As the extended version of King Tut’s Summer Nights series rumbles on through August, the middle of the month brings some exciting upand-coming acts to the famous Glasgow basement. On Saturday 17 August, Dundee’s Echo Machine, whose latest 80s-indebted single Automatic Love we premiered last month, will take to the stage alongside The 101, Amy Lou & The Monday Club and excellent Edinburgh four-piece Swim School, who recently played TRNSMT’s controversial Queen Tut’s stage. The following night will feature the likes of Mt Doubt and Megan Airlie.

Echo Machine

Photo: Ian Schofield

make sure that everyone, including the artists, has a really positive experience and wants to come back. You’re not going to spend an arm and a leg here, but the whole town, from the bakers to the candlestick makers, will be taken over by this. There’s a real party atmosphere because everyone’s involved.” “We’re just across the bridge from Edinburgh and 40 minutes from Glasgow,” Watt adds. “You’re never going to say to yourself, ‘this is the biggest party of the year’, but this is one you’ll feel really comfortable going to. We have free stages running all day and DJs and collectives like EQ looking after you into the early hours. A lot of artists come from Dunfermline and rarely return, and we’re trying to change that culture. We want people coming up to feel they’ve been supported. Eighty school kids will be putting on their own gig at Carnegie Hall the night before we welcome Man of Moon, Avalanche Party and The Van T’s. Without wreaking complete nuclear meltdown, these bands know they can really go for it here.” Outwith – while introducing recent Edinburgh and Glasgow breakthrough artists Goodnight Louisa and Scarlett Randle, alongside acts from Malta and Brazil – is very

Tacocat

Tacocat @ Broadcast, Glasgow, 25 Aug Tacocat backwards is just Tacocat. This is the kind of staring-you-in-the-face-fun-fact we love here at The Skinny, and as well as being a pleasing palindromic word – what’s not to like about tacos and cats? – it’s also the name of an excellent Seattle riot grrrl-inspired punkpop four-piece, who happen to be gracing our very shores this month. Fronted by the exuberant Emily Nokes – with four albums and just as many EPs to their name in a decade – Tacocat tackle feminist issues, politics and more with their unique sense of humour and are bundles of fun live.

Music

“ We were told we couldn’t be a part of the festival as we were outwith the EH postcode, which is probably the best thing that’s happened to us” Chris Foote

“Nobody is from Dunfermline,” Watt was told when his band Foreignfox, also on the line-up, first sought gigs outside of their hometown. Five years later, Outwith has much to offer locals and visitors alike, passionately proclaiming the merits of Fife to the world, and vice versa. A unique and heartfelt celebration of a community on the rise, Outwith promises to be far more than a mere Bloody Mary for your Fringe hangover. Outwith Festival runs across various venues in Dunfermline, 3-8 Sep; Live Music Day takes place on 7 Sep; Rise: The Story of Augustines screens at the Carnegie Library, 7 Sep outwithfestival.co.uk

WENCH @ The Old Dr Bells Baths, Edinburgh, 25 Aug As the Edinburgh Fringe winds down for another year, WENCH are here to help you move on and take you out of the madness of the city centre for a ‘female-led feast of punk, poetry, art, folk and electronic music’ on Sunday 25 August. Taking place at The Old Dr Bells Baths in Leith, there’ll be music, poetry and storytelling from Edinburgh group Acolyte, featuring former Scottish slam champion Iona Lee and Maranta’s Gloria Black. Glaswegian riot grrrl duo The Twistettes are also set to play, as is Jess Aslan, aka Xica, an electronic artist from London.

Acolyte

Review

Photo: Jethro Optical

Kathryn Joseph

Photo: Andy Catlin

n 1947, eight theatre groups performed, uninvited, on the fringes of the inaugural Edinburgh Festival Fringe, a post-WW2 celebration of European culture. One of the venues they used was Dunfermline Abbey. Three years ago, Dunfermline Delivers’ Chris Foote reached out to the Fringe to see if they’d be interested in celebrating the now gargantuan event’s humble beginnings with a commemorative concert across the Forth. “We were told we couldn’t be a part of the festival as we were outwith the EH postcode,” Foote tells us, “which is probably the best thing that’s happened to us.” Foote swiftly brought together a small group of prominent figures in the Dunfermline music scene – including Foreignfox frontman Jonny Watt, who he now shares an office with – to piece together a local festival that has now, in its third year, reeled in Scottish heavyweights Idlewild and Honeyblood to headline, alongside William McCarthy – formerly of Brooklyn’s Augustines. A few hours before he takes to the stage on 7 September, McCarthy will introduce Rise: The Story of Augustines with an acoustic set, in the sublime surroundings of the Carnegie Library, which recently underwent a £12.4

Photo: Troy Nelson

Idlewild

Photo: Helen Moga

Honeyblood

Photo: Amy Muir

much a celebration of Dunfermline and its surroundings. “We’ve got local cakes and beers on the riders, and volunteers from the college giving out wristbands and helping run a couple of venues,” Foote says, delighted to be part of “something positive for the town I’m from” after managing festivals abroad. Watt concurs: “The festival has given a lot of people civic pride. It’s brought us together. We’re mixing the old with the new.”

Album of the Month Blanck Mass

Animated Violence Mild [Sacred Bones, 16 Aug]

rrrrr

On World Eater, Benjamin John Power uncovered within himself a remarkable ability for creating music that held within it both the chaotic enormity of the planet’s ongoing problems and the intimate raw feeling of those affected by them. In this follow-up he’s moved in a more specifically political direction, examining humanity's relationship with consumerism, losing none of this gift; honing in on his most hyperactive tendencies and streamlining them into a superb, breakneck wonder of a record. The density of soundscape that has typified Power’s work up until this point remains, but every aspect has been ratcheted up in intensity. On Death Drop and Hush Money every layer tries to elbow the others aside, lending an emphatic energy, like an Andy Capp whirl of limbs played out at titanic scale. Even the short (in comparison) Creature/West Fuqua leads with a grinding metallic drone before giving way to gorgeous harps and plaintive vocal samples. Lead single House vs. House captures this intensity

Ride

This Is Not a Safe Place [Wichita Recordings, 16 Aug]

rrrrr

My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride – the trifecta of shoegaze royalty. Ride were the more immediately likeable of the trio, less inward, willing to play about with styles divorced from the reverb-laden effects that were a signifier of the scene. With This Is Not a Safe Place, Ride’s second full-length record in as many years, they look to breach the shores of what they consider safe and reach out for uncharted waters. Opening with R.I.D.E., it’s one of the best, and strangest, songs the band have put their name to; a chunky, swirling dance remix of a shoegaze song. Future Love and Repetition are where this record’s manifesto is laid out plainly. The former, a jangly pop song with Marr-esque guitars, the latter, a mess of a song, but also one that works. It’s a shame that this willingness to experiment doesn’t hold up as the record goes on. Clouds of Saint Marie is by-the-numbers dream-pop, Eternal Recurrence seems drawn through the prism of cock rock, while Dial Up and Shadows Behind the Sun feel like weightless ballads. Ride’s legacy is set in stone, but, in the end, most of This Is Not a Safe Place is not as wildly contentious in its desire to be different. After a strong start, more of that risk would have been welcome. [Tony Inglis] Listen to: Future Love, Repetition, R.I.D.E.

Review

rrrrr Brilliant rrrrr Life-changing

perfectly. Built on popping sampled snippets and enormous snares it features some of Power’s most beautiful vocal manipulations to date, and with a trance riff retooled to bulldozing effect it manages to feel simultaneously furious, wounded and cautiously hopeful without ever feeling anything less than totally committed to itself. There is a definite move towards a more synthetic sound in attempting to articulate these themes of consumerist idealism, but it avoids the affected self-congratulation that permeates so much vaporwave and it never feels at the expense of real emotion. The synth strings motif on No Dice veers oddly close to the Who Wants to be a Millionaire theme tune, but surrounded as it is by snapping percussion and haunting vocals it takes on an abrasively momentous quality. From its first moments Wings of Hate is swamped with emotive melodies but Power miraculously keeps finding space to build into where there seemed to be none. It becomes almost punishingly compact with sound while never

Blanck Mass

mulching into one texture, a testament to his writing as well as his production. It may well be Power’s finest solo record, a continuation of the last decade-and-a-half of pushing himself into new sonic realms. It’s an astonishing work; actively abrasive and

Jade Imagine

Rachel Sermanni

Basic Love [Marathon Artists, 2 Aug]

So It Turns [Self-released, 23 Aug]

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‘The weekend / The week’, Jade McInally sings on her band’s debut album Basic Love. In that juxtaposition, unknowingly surmising the album’s entire premise, the ever-present ‘they’ – in this case the working week – impinging on our moments of freedom, reminding us of the lack of control we have over our own existence. It’s a theme the Aussie three-piece make their own as they reckon with the futility of it all, the never-ending obligations of adult life and the queues at Dominos with eye rolls aplenty in this wide-spanning full-length. This conveyor-belt like monotony is mirrored in its economic, threadbare guitars that undertow their soundscapes. Jade Imagine spread their wings over them, employing frequency dialling-like electronics, eerie basslines and dramatised drums. They sound like a group that’s really enjoying themselves, finding regular moments that could induce an en-masse handclap. Basic love is true to the present day. Yet even in such darkness, humanity transpires and that’s true of Basic Love, the band never straying into the territory owned by mooddestroying colleagues ready to send you further down the well on a Monday morning. In spite of the banalities of life, Basic Love sees Jade Imagine endearingly leap for the light. Bask in its glory. [Paddy Kinsella] Listen to: The Weekend, Get Out of Your Head, Remote Control

Rachel Sermanni’s work has always thrived on oppositions – the light of her music against the darkness of what can sometimes inspire it, or the beauty of her melodies against the ugliness of the feelings they sometimes evoke. So It Turns presents the Scottish artist grappling once more with these oppositions, but using it to mill a finer, richer blend than before. Her first album in four years, So It Turns found the Highland talent decamping to Berlin, no less, working alongside producer Axel Reinemer. It’s an album full of breathy

Domiciles

This Is Not a Zen Garden [Last Night from Glasgow, 16 Aug]

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A reasonable amount of hype has surrounded the Dunfermline shoegaze quintet Domiciles around the Scottish scene of late. The dedicated songwriting duo of Nick Young and Rory Cowieson have expertly crafted a dreamy sound both on record and in a live setting. As a result, they’ve been picked up by Last Night from Glasgow for their debut release. And indeed, This Is Not a Zen Garden is a solid debut from the young east coast band. While there’s nothing extraordinary about this faithful recapturing of the early 90s shoegaze/ psychedelic sound, there is a lot of potential

RECORDS

Photo: Harrison Reid

rrrrr Shite rrrrr Boring rrrrr Solid

incandescent with fury with a core of unaffected raw feeling. [Joe Creely] Listen to: House vs. House, Death Drop, Wings of Hate

silences, its sparse palette allowing each subtle hue and colour to state itself with renewed eloquence. Diving into the personal, So It Turns is by no means an introspective experience. Sermanni’s views have been increasingly shaped by political and societal challenges, with a portion of the proceeds from this new album set to be donated to Extinction Rebellion Scotland. This directness extends to the music, too, with the excellent Typical Homegirl boasting a rock crunch, or the jazz-leanings on freewheeling moment of inspiration Tiger. An album to savour, from an artist whose nuanced, often challenging work reflects these tortured times. [Robin Murray] Listen to: Put Me in the River, Tiger

for exponential growth on what Domiciles have started here. One imagines that live the experience is even fuller. Lead single For a Reason is beautiful with its female-led vocals. The Rat brings in a motorik krautrock element to proceedings while Want/Need washes over the listener in an extremely pleasing manner, owing much to the great My Bloody Valentine. Towards the album’s climax, Domiciles adopt a heavier hitting style on Hyacinth and closer The Drug is Not Enough ends on a chilling sample of a life-support machine. The whole record is a dutiful and classic nod to the shoegaze genre, a great record to get lost in. [Adam Turner-Heffer] Listen to: For a Reason, The Rat, The Drug is Not Enough

THE SKINNY

forevher [Secretly Canadian, 16 Aug]

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There is infinitely more pressure surrounding the release of a sophomore album – will it live up to the first? Were they even that good in the first place? Were we all just caught up in the haze of the hype? Alexandra Lilah Denton’s comeback album as Shura, forevher, definitely lives up to the hype of its predecessor. In conversation with her 2016 debut, Nothing’s Real, which spoke to heartbreak and confusion, forevher has matured, taken those deeply painful experiences and learned from them. It’s less glitzy, shiny and shimmery, but this plays to her advantage, her matured sensibilities coming to the fore.

Black Belt Eagle Scout

At the Party With My Brown Friends [Saddle Creek, 30 Aug]

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Mother of All my Children, Katherine Paul’s debut album as Black Belt Eagle Scout, was a veritable patchwork quilt of mourning. Written while her friends and relatives protested at Standing Rock, and in the wake of both bereavement and a break-up, the

forevher is about the first stages of a blossoming relationship, the borderline between seeing someone and being committed to them, and all the anxieties and excitement that this entails. For Shura, this relationship is long-distance, hence there are a lot of references to and metaphors about flying: flyin’, BKLYNLDN, and skyline, be mine are the more obvious ones. Rather than labouring a point, the flying metaphors become emblematic of the soaring highs and striking intensity of new love, best summed up in the lyrics: ‘There’s gonna be turbulence’. From the album’s opener proper, side effects, it’s clear that this is Shura at her finest. Throughout the album, she queers pop, giving it depths of emotion that the shiny veneer of heteronormative pop tropes lack. The close harmonies on tommy mimic the physical closeness that Shura doesn’t have in this long-distance relationship; the Elton John-like piano stabs on forever infuse the

track with a historical awareness of Shura’s queer pop forefathers; and the music video for lead single religion (you can lay your hands on me) is everyone’s gay nun fantasy. forevher is an excellent comeback from

record was coloured with the dusky hues of loss. It was a monochrome portrait of Paul’s life at its nadir, and of her identity as a radical Indigenous queer feminist. It may come as a surprise to some, then, that her latest offering, At the Party With My Brown Friends, is one centred upon love; maternal love, filial love, the love and security of community, and finally, global and societal love, or lack thereof, particularly towards Indigenous people and people of colour. That’s not to say that At the Party With My Brown Friends doesn’t have its shadows, its moments of darkness, only

that if Mother of All my Children was a break-up blanket, a place in which you cocoon and cry, ATPWMBF is a warm summer blanket to share with your favourite person. The climactic chord progressions and grungy drumbeats of its predecessor, the kind that choke you up even before the vocals kick in, have been eclipsed by dreamlike lyricism and the gentle pairing of keys and picked guitars on ATPWMBF. An album imbued with heartfelt sentiments, both expressed and inexpressible, At the Party with My Brown Friends is at once

Shura, proving that she is more than the sum of her capacity to go viral. [Jemima Skala] Listen to: the stage, control, side effects

Shura

earnest, rippling with intensity, and a refreshing summer soundtrack. It’s a colossal forward-step for BBES, but one that keeps intact, and sees Paul’s unique artistic vision flourishing. Above all, it serves as a welcome and touching reminder that, in a global climate of political turbulence, intolerance, and bigotry, love and acceptance are critical. [Rosie Ramsden] Listen to: At the Party, Real Lovin, Half Colored Hair

Slipknot

The Hold Steady

Jay Som

Whitney

Ezra Furman

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We Are Not Your Kind [Roadrunner Records, 9 Aug]

Thrashing Thru the Passion [Frenchkiss Records, 16 Aug]

When Slipknot announced that their new record, We Are Not Your Kind, would see them “doing heavier things than we’ve ever done”, fans fell over their spiked-shoe heels in anticipation. It’ll be good news to hear then, that not only is WANYK as savage and unrelenting as their best releases but they’ve also been courageous enough to go places they’ve only ‘hinted at’ before. Meaty riffs, expertly orchestrated songwriting skills, arena-championing choruses, and delicate experimentation with metal nuances – this is Slipknot, and this is undoubtedly a Slipknot record. If you’re wanting We Are Not Your Kind to be heavy, you got it – but there’s far more craftsmanship hidden beneath the distortion. [Dylan Tuck]

There’s a point where, to become truly great, a band must transcend their influences. You can become a great live band over time, like The Hold Steady, but to join the top table of record makers takes something a little more startling. Thrashing Thru the Passion is a good album of fine songs, great lyrics and passionate playing – but ending with the playing-at-beingThe-Clash Confusion In the Marketplace, after various nods to Dexys, E Street Band, Van Morrison, The Replacements, Boomtown Rats and more, its staccato block chords might be one homage too many. While it’s been great fun finding out who The Hold Steady love, it’s now time we found out how to love them, too. [Alan O’Hare]

Listen to: Unsainted, Nero Forte, Red Flag

Listen to: Blackout Sam, Entitlement Crew, The Stove & The Toaster.

August 2019

Anak Ko [Lucky Number, 23 Aug] Melina Duterte’s bedroom-pop stylings as Jay Som have highlighted her talent as a singer, songwriter and producer for the past four years. While the Los Angeles-based singer is usually one to record her music within the private confines of her bedroom, on Anak Ko she invites talented friends to contribute additional vocals and instrumentation, and it’s all the better for it, adding a spice of entertainment. Although Duterte’s vocal dexterity is a delight to the ears on the majority of the album, it’s the instrumentals that take the win on If You Want It and Crown. With lo-fi music, it’s easy for vocals to get lost in the shadows, but that’s fortunately not the case on Anak Ko as Duterte’s vocals can to take you away. [Tommy Monroe] Listen to: Devotion, Crown, Peace Out

RECORDS

Photo: Hollie Fernando

Shura

Forever Turned Around [Secretly Canadian, 30 Aug]

Twelve Nudes [Bella Union, 30 Aug]

If there is such a thing, Whitney’s sophomore record represents the calm after the storm. Three years ago Light Upon the Lake presented the Chicago duo as musically drawn to beauty and thematically leaning towards melancholy. Forever Turned Around still sounds every inch a Whitney record, but the latter is tentatively swapped out. After the soft resignation of Giving Up, the story of this second LP is one of quiet optimism, from the nervy satisfaction of Used to Be Lonely to the measured reflection of My Life Alone via endearingly open-hearted cuts Song for Ty and Friend of Mine. All of the beats are familiar, perhaps to a fault, from the instrumental at the midpoint to the shyly epic closer, but Forever Turned Around represents nuanced progress from an admirably subtle band. [Joe Goggins]

On Twelve Nudes Ezra Furman said he wanted to make a nude emotional reaction to the times, free of overthought and studio tinkering. Trading in the more experimental tendencies of Transangelic Exodus for fuzzed guitars with shrill solos and breakneck basslines, this stripping back is to mixed effect. It’s always a risk with a ‘stripping things back’ record that the artist strips away what makes them singular and idiosyncratic. This isn’t quite true of Furman. He maintains his voice, his melodic instinct and knack for presenting raw emotional landscapes without ever slipping into self-pity or losing his sense of humour. However, in throwing himself into the garage rock mould he loses the loose relationship with genre that allowed the twitchy dynamism of his best work. [Joe Creely]

Listen to: Used to Be Lonely, Friend of Mine

Listen to: I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend, In America

Review

Night Fever ou’re likely to see many a bleary-eyed performer, worker or resident wandering the streets of Edinburgh this month after a particularly heavy night (or ten) as festival season descends upon the city and August’s late licensing comes into full force. As well as being a hotbed for theatremakers, comedians, artists and the like, the Edinburgh festivals also offer up added opportunities for local club promoters to take full advantage of the late licensing allowed to the city’s venues throughout the season. With bars open until 3am and clubs til 5am, there are multiple extra hours – two to be exact – of partying to be had, and it’s worth taking advantage of.

“ I wish there was more opportunity to put on events like these outwith the Fringe, but the archaic licencing laws of Edinburgh and the 3am curfew doesn’t allow it” Nick Karlsberg

Kickstarting this year’s season is Scottish institution Shoot Your Shot, who bring their queer clubbing extravaganza to Summerhall on the festival’s opening night, with further parties planned at La Belle Angele and Paradise Palms throughout the month. Celebrating its fifth birthday this year, Shoot Your Shot has grown into one of Scotland’s biggest and most-beloved queer parties, and has provided a platform for up-and-coming performers and DJs to build a name for themselves, with a rotating cast of regulars still returning to play at the nights. “It’s amazing to see how it’s went leaps and bounds,” says founder Suzanne Bonner, who goes by the DJ alias of Bonzai Bonner. “When I started it, of course anything I’m going to have an affiliation with is going to be queer, but I found it a bit intimidating just to have that exposure of myself... but ever since I’ve just had the confidence to carry that it is what it is and just be honest with it.” Also celebrating a five-year anniversary, Rhythm Machine bring their August festival residency back to Summerhall for the fifth year. Run by resident DJs William Francis and Andy Danet, aka Yves, the night invites contemporary artists to display their work in a club setting while DJs spin tracks across multiple genres. Some of the artists set to feature in their residency this month include Rosa Johan Uddoh, Matthew Arthur Williams, BOG, Rachael Golden Simpson and Hannan Bouchemla Jones, with guest DJs Plugkeisha, Sydd Viscose and Oko DJ also stepping into the booth. “Our intention with Rhythm Machine has always been to nurture a space outside of the regular club circuit,” says Francis. “Holding the night in an arts space has given us the opportunity to build that, and our August

Miss World

Review

Photo: Tiu Makkonen

Interview: Nadia Younes

Shoot Your Shot

festival residency specifically has allowed us to provide an international platform for the work of some of the local artists who have been part of the club’s community throughout the years.” Edinburgh festival favourite Pollyanna also turns five this year, and Miss World resident Julia Barbour will be back at the legendary queer cabaret show, DJing after the performance finishes. As one half of all-female collective Miss World, alongside co-founder Emily Grieve, Barbour holds a monthly residency at Sneaky Pete’s, as well as co-hosting a monthly show on local community radio station EH-FM. Barbour and Grieve launched Miss World four years ago, with the aim to showcase female and queer DJs from Scotland and beyond. In April this year, they announced the launch of their DJing workshop series, offering five places to women (trans inclusive) and non-binary individuals interested in learning to DJ and starting their own club night, all of whom will play at their All Stars show at Sneaky Pete’s this month. “We’re excited to be featuring them in their debut club sets… There’s already such a cool mix of genres and tastes in the group,” says Barbour. “We’ve chosen August to put on our All Stars night, featuring loads of different DJs, including some who are really new to DJing because Fringe crowds are so open,” she continues. “At Miss World we like to promote new talent and bring as many different sounds to the table as possible, and this is the perfect time for it.” And as if one August residency wasn’t enough, Headset founder Nick Karlsberg, aka Skillis, has taken on two weekly residencies this month – holding down Friday nights at The Mash House with Headset and Monday nights at Sneaky Pete’s with Headset’s Gay Garage – as well as continuing to run weekly drum’n’bass night Midnight Bass every Tuesday, also at The Mash House. “I like running nights that are geared towards local people as well as having a big mix of people, including students and tourists,” says Karlsberg. “I just want it to be an Edinburgh vibe, not too student-y or tourist-y but everyone still welcome.” But the opportunity to host multiple

CLUBS

Photo: Tiu Makkonen

We speak to some of the promoters behind Scotland’s best club nights about their Edinburgh festivals residencies and the benefits of late licensing for Scottish club culture

residencies like these is largely a result of the benefits of the late licensing in Edinburgh throughout August. With Glasgow City Council introducing a pilot scheme trialling late licensing within a handful of clubs in the city, it’s hoped that the success of these will be seen in other cities across Scotland. “I wish there was more opportunity to put on events like these outwith the Fringe, but the archaic licencing laws of Edinburgh and the 3am curfew doesn’t allow it,” says Karlsberg. He continues: “In my opinion, the way Edinburgh City Council and the licencing board operate is hugely detrimental to arts, music and youth culture in this city.” Bonner believes that the risk of putting on an event in Edinburgh over Glasgow any other time of the year can sometimes be too high to take. “A lot of concentration is just based for what happens here in August, and if you try and do something any other month you always feel ‘is it actually going to work?” she says. Barbour argues that it’s a testament to the tight-knit community in Edinburgh’s club scene that so many different nights are able to flourish in the city, despite the strict and rigid regulations. “I think we’re really lucky in Edinburgh to have the scene that we do, especially since so many venues in the city are under threat of closure and the Fringe is so dominant in the entertainment calendar,” she says. “We’ve found ourselves in a really supportive community, especially in Sneaky Pete’s and EH-FM.” With just about every major city across the world allowing its nightclubs more freedom with late licensing and with the recent trials in Glasgow, it’s hoped that Edinburgh will eventually follow in the same footsteps, because clubbing is for life, not just for the festival. Shoot Your Shot takes place at Summerhall, 2 Aug; La Belle Angele, 9 Aug; every Wednesday at Paradise Palms Rhythm Machine takes place at Summerhall every Saturday in Aug Miss World: All Stars takes place at Sneaky Pete’s, 2 Aug Headset takes place at The Mash House every Friday in Aug; Headset’s Gay Garage takes place at Sneaky Pete’s every Monday in Aug Midnight Bass takes place at The Mash House every Tuesday in Aug

THE SKINNY

August 2019

Review

THE SKINNY

On the Rise As Glasgow collective OH141 bring their late night stage back to Jupiter Rising, we meet one of the DJs on the bill, DJ Scotia

Interview: Nadia Younes

“ Every time I go to an event really I’m there to soak in and grow in myself” DJ Scotia

DJ Scotia

Photo: Khadija Moustafa

orking under multiple guises is commonplace in the music industry, often used as a means to release different projects. For Edinburgh-based DJ, producer and rapper Shaheeda Sinckler, aka DJ Scotia/ aka Nova Scotia/aka Nova, operating under several monikers allows her to explore various different musical ventures. “There’s kind of three elements to it, and Nova Scotia the Truth is the blanket term,” says Sinckler. “And also the way it distinguishes it from the actual place, Nova Scotia.” In Sinckler’s musical world, she produces under the alias Nova Scotia, raps under the name Nova and DJs as DJ Scotia – the latter of which is the project she will be bringing to this year’s Jupiter Rising festival.

Taking place at Edinburgh’s Jupiter Artland from 23-25 August, Sinckler will be DJing on the festival’s late night stage curated by OH141. Sinckler has strong ties with OH141, as a close friend of the collective’s founder Sarra Wild, with whom she has collaborated on numerous projects, and as a regular DJ at OH141’s club nights. Most recently, Sinckler was included on the same OH141 bill as rapidly rising grime MC Flohio, who she cites as a “massive inspiration”, and the club nights have proved extremely influential on her musical career. They have provided her with a space to hone her craft and pick up tips from fellow DJs and performers along the way as well. “The last [OH141] I went to was kind of a turning point for me because I saw this DJ called Manara,” says Sinckler. “She was doing so many blends and her mixes were really quick, so she was playing countless songs in one DJ set because she was mixing it so quickly... Ever since then it’s just pushed me to do better in my DJing.” She continues: “Every time I go to an event really I’m there to soak in and grow in myself as well; get ideas, see how other people do things and see how it can be applied to my own stuff.” Sinckler moved back to Edinburgh, following a stint in Glasgow, last year in order to focus more time on her music, and in

January this year she released her debut mixtape as Nova, Risin’ Up. Most of the mixtape is produced with sampled material which Sinckler raps over, with just one of its tracks, Respect Nova Interlude, produced by Sinckler herself. But the mixtape is also a collaborative affair, with six of its nine tracks featuring guest vocals from Theta – Sinckler’s oldest friend – and two tracks produced by local producers Demonize and Mumbla. “For me, releasing the mixtape definitely changed straight up for me,” says Sinckler. “I definitely started getting gigs and more interest in my work and stuff, so it was definitely worth the time that it took but now it’s about trying to keep things going and keep some level of consistency or progress.” She’s certainly not slowing down either, with her next project already in the works, and it seems to be shaping up to be another heavily collaborative offering. Just a few of the producers Sinckler mentions having already recorded tracks with for the upcoming project include some of Glasgow’s finest DJs and producers, many of whom are also affiliated with OH141, such as K4CIE, $1000 Wallet and Inkke. If Risin’ Up was Nova’s introduction to the rap world, then her latest project is sure to see her rise even further. DJ Scotia plays Jupiter Rising, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh, 23-25 Aug

Club, Actually Shoot Your Shot Festival Opening Party: Cormac Summerhall, Edinburgh, 2 Aug Undoubtedly one of the best club nights in Scotland, Shoot Your Shot turn five this year, and the celebrations are expectedly colourful. They bring Northern Ireland’s Cormac along for an Edinburgh/Glasgow double dunter at the beginning of the month, kicking off with their Fringe opening party before heading over to The Poetry Club in Glasgow the following night to continue the celebrations. LEZZER QUEST are on the support for the Edinburgh night, while SYS resident and founder Bonzai Bonner holds down the support fort solo in Glasgow.

Wormhole with Objekt feat. DEBONAIR La Cheetah Club, Glasgow, 17 Aug Back for the second part of his 2019 La Cheetah residency, Objekt brings along another massive guest to follow in the almighty footsteps of his first guest Eris Drew. Londonbased DEBONAIR is an integral member of the NTS Radio crew having been with the community station from its very early days, beginning her bi-weekly show in 2011 and working within the station’s core team before progressing to the position of Programme Director, but she now spends more of her time focusing on being an international superstar DJ.

First Edition: Kornél Kovács The Mash House, Edinburgh, 10 Aug Hot on the heels of releasing his debut album Stockholm Marathon at the end of April via Studio Barnhus – the label he co-runs with Petter Nordkvist and Axel Boman – Kornél Kovács makes a return to Edinburgh this month. The Swedish DJ/producer last appeared in the capital at FLY Open Air back in May, where he appeared on the Boiler Room stage, so grab the opportunity to catch him in an indoor late night environment this time around with both hands (i.e. buy a ticket).

Animal Farm: SPFDJ Sub Club, Glasgow, 23 Aug Prepare yourself for an absolute face-melter as Sweden’s SPFDJ descends upon the Subbie basement for techno purists Animal Farm. Shaping her unforgiving DJing style as a resident at Berlin’s notorious Herrensauna nights, she soon went on to found her own record label Intrepid Skin, through which both VTSS and Nene H have launched music. It really cannot be stressed enough how much SPFDJ’s sets are not for the faint-hearted, so proceed with caution; you’ve been thoroughly warned.

August 2019

Palidrone: Josey Rebelle The Mash House, Edinburgh, 24 Aug It’s hard to believe Palidrone are only just over a year old given the number of massive parties they’ve brought to Edinburgh in their short existence, and they continue to do just that this month. Heading up the bill of this quite frankly unmissable show is London DJ and Rinse FM stalwart Josey Rebelle, who continues to go from strength to strength, proving herself as one of the best and most in-demand DJs going right now. Joining her is Leeds/Sheffield-based DJ 96 Back and a team of local supports, including Skillis, Percy Main, C-Shaman and Iced Gem.

CLUBS

Words: Nadia Younes

Sub Club SoundSystem BAaD, Glasgow, 24-25 Aug Escape from Edinburgh for the closing weekend of the Fringe and have a big ol’ party at the Barras courtesy of Sub Club. Moodymann, Jayda G, Horse Meat Disco and Harri & Domenic hold things down on Saturday, but Sunday seems to be where the real party’s at. Soak up the sun (hopefully) and DJ sets in The Courtyard from Peggy Gou, Gerd Janson, Sofay and Sensu, plus a live set from Henrik Schwarz, while in The Backyard you can catch some of Scotland’s finest, including Le Freak, LEZZER QUEST and Ribeka.

Shoot Your Shot

Review

Photo: Tiu Makkonen

Take full advantage of the Fringe’s late licensing and party right through til 5am in Edinburgh, while there’s also plenty of fun to be had across the M8

Review

THE SKINNY

Where Art Now? It’s August, and the country is past saturation point with culture and tourists Events and Exhibitions August is always the peak of cultural activity in Scotland, thanks to the various Edinburgh Festivals. Here’s a broader look at what’s coming up in art events and opportunities in the next month across the country. In Glasgow, the exhibition space Celine has put together an exhibition of work from the archive of photographer and photojournalist Phyllis Christopher. She’s a notable contributor to On Our Backs, the first lesbian erotica magazine published in the USA. Her work also documents the 80s, 90s and 00s in San Francisco, at a key juncture in gay rights,

‘straddling the boundary between voyeur and participant… Operating in the studio and the street.’ The exhibition continues until 22 September, and is open by appointment, which can be booked through the Facebook page Gallery Celine. Opening on 2 August, Tramway in Glasgow present the work of American artist Nick Cave (not that one) who has for several decades built his rich textile and sculptural practice. His Sound Suits are his best known work, often made of bright and flamboyant materials covering the whole body of the performer. Cave’s work is a vibrant and

Lucy Wayman, Breathless Body, 2017, Materials, rope

The first surveyed collection of collage ever to be displayed, Cut and Paste is a timeline of artworks that reveal the continuity of the art form through the most pivotal moments in modern art. The artworks are grouped into art periods; however, inspiration and style blur these lines. While walking through 400 years of collages, the works on display range from serving a functional purpose of editing into the early 19th century to being a tool for a conceptual change in art in the 20th and 21st centuries. Arriving at the more contemporary examples, collage makes an appearance on the music scene. Collage album covers for The Beatles and the Sex Pistols become the face of the change in music. The stick and paste medium becomes the DIY aesthetic of radical

ideas and thinking. The creative scene was full of a community of artists who dare to be different, and the password was collage. Cut and Paste delivers a series of artworks that are diverse, and the versatility and vigour of each selected piece warrants your attention. Throughout the exhibition, the visual commentary of the collection strikes you on a personal level, as the carefully worded accompaniments offer an insight into the artists’ inspiration from both art and society. While the approach of the works varies, Cut and Paste exposes the role of collage as a conspirator for experimentation and new ideas in politics, society and art, that go way beyond traditional conventions. It’s hard not to be awestruck by the artists in this collection and the role they have played in art history; Cut and Paste is undoubtedly the name-dropper of the summer. [Eilidh Wilson] Until 27 Oct, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, £7.50-13

Natalya Goncharova, Costume Design for One of the Three Kings in La Liturgie, 1915. Collection: National Galleries of Scotland

August 2019

Photo: Antonia Reeve. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018

Cut and Paste Modern Two rrrrr

Words: Adam Benmakhlouf

nuanced response to the experience of racism, creating camouflaging body armour. Tramway presents the huge scale project that was originally organised by Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Edinburgh Art Festival brings many high profile exhibitions around the city, and events too. See edinburghartfestival.com for more details of individual events. Every Thursday of the festival, there is Art Late which covers a different area each time, combining some high class drinks with curated performances around the exhibitions each evening. Tickets are £8-10. Also on a weekly basis and to accompany their EAF exhibitions and commissions, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop host Sculpture Saturdays through the entire EAF. The works by artists Lucy Wayman, (The Skinny’s own and writer of this very piece) Adam Benmakhlouf and Caroline Achaintre, are the starting point for workshops through August. See edinburghsculpture.org for more details. Artist Patrick Staff’s exhibition has gained a five-star review on this very page, and if you’re not Dundee-based there are two events this month that might be good to keep in mind for a productive visit. On 26 August from 6-7.30pm, writer and critic Isabel Waidner is the centre of conversation as Waidner has written a new text in response to the exhibition, and will lead the conversation of the themes involved in Staff ’s work. Then on

the last week of the exhibition on Thursday 29 August from 6-7pm, Waidner, Staff and the curator of the show Eoin Dara will present an in-conversation event about the entire show and Waidner’s text. Opportunities Jerwood Bursaries have opened applications, and provide grants for artists one to five years into establishing a professional practice for up to £1250. They are open to the applicant proposing how best to spend the money, provided the suggested budget is oriented to development of their career and artistic practice. Deadline: 9 September, 5pm The Banff Centre in Canada is renowned for its work with artists all around the world. At the moment, they are offering a residence especially for artists that have completed art higher education in the previous five years (preferably). The application fee is $65, and the opportunity is supported by Jarislowsky Foundation. Deadline: 4 September, 5pm One of the main highlights of the emerging artist opportunities in Scotland is the graduate residency at Hospitalfield. Renowned for its support of working artists, this is the entrylevel residence for recent graduates. A two week residency, it asks for applicants to propose a project that is achievable and realistic within this time scale. Deadine: 18 August, midnight.

Patrick Staff, The Prince of Homburg 2019. Installation view at DCA. Co-commissioned by Dundee Contemporary Arts, Scotland, and IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art), Ireland. Supported by Arts Council England, Elephant Trust, UK, and Commonwealth & Council Gallery, USA. Video work produced by Spike Island, UK. Special thanks to producer Ali Roche and Humber Street Gallery, UK.

Patrick Staff Dundee Contemporary Arts rrrrr The exhibition The Prince of Homberg by Patrick Staff, co-commissioned by DCA and IMMA Dublin, comprises an ambitious new video work presented in a red walled space within a black plastic anti-climb perimeter. The viewer is invited to pull up a chair at a cabaret-style table. In a homage to Pina Bausch some chairs are overturned implying some previous unseen action. The 23-minute video pulls on so many rich threads it leaves you wanting footnotes: disorientating, dreamlike and visceral. The making and background research is complex and assertive, drawing on multiple themes. The materiality of the film is striking with the hand of the artist ever-present, from segments of wobbly handheld footage to gestural painted frames. The championing of analogue processes is evident in the adjoining gallery with a series of colour photograms using motifs synonymous with the film.

ART

The 19th Century play The Prince of Homberg by Heinrich von Kleist is the armature on which Staff ’s film is hung in three acts. Staff plays with time, moving back and forth between the first act when the Prince is condemned to possible execution in the third. This crisis haunts the film. Within this in-between space, key characters (Sarah Schulman, Che Gossett, Macy Rodman and Debra Soshoux) engage in conversation about their feelings around contemporary queer and trans identity. In one scene Rodman sits in her bedroom speaking about being nicknamed ‘Lazy Girl’ during her transition, hormone treatment leaving her unable to go out. Layered frames and footage project her bedroom into a club scene, where perhaps she ought to be at ‘night fall’. A spectre among the dancing crowd, briefly two worlds are compressed. Towards the end of the play the narrated Prince wonders what it might be like to remain in the moment just before judgement, blindfolded, occupying a half-life. [Kate McLeod] Until 1 Sep, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Free

Review

In Cinemas Director: Joanna Hogg Starring: Honor Swinton Byrne, Tom Burke, Tilda Swinton, Richard Ayoade

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Joanna Hogg has evolved as an artist with every film she has made, but her fourth feature is a memoir of her first faltering steps as a director and the toxic relationship that almost derailed her. Julie (Swinton Byrne) is a 24-year-old film student in 80s London who is captivated by Anthony (Burke), the older man who saunters into her life and stays there. Anthony is worldly, enigmatic and charismatic, and we can see why she falls for him, but he’s also prone to mysterious disappearances and erratic behaviour. He’s harbouring a destructive secret that Julie is too naïve – or too smitten – to see. That secret is revealed to Julie halfway through the film, shifting the dynamics of the relationship and our perception of it, but our perception of these characters is constantly shifting anyway. The Souvenir is often boldly

elliptical, omitting contextualising information and jumping across temporal gaps, with what’s left unsaid hanging heavily in the atmosphere. As a director, Hogg has always preferred to maintain a discreet distance, shooting long takes from a fixed angle and often grouping her actors in medium shots, but her filmmaking here feels warmer and more intimate; in fact, it’s often painfully intimate, particularly when an unexpected emotional outburst shatters the film’s exquisitely crafted stillness. The Souvenir is in part the story of how Joanna Hogg found her way as an artist and as a person, with Honor Swinton Byrne’s delicately vulnerable performance beautifully capturing the ways Julie is marked and changed by these experiences. Even if you suspect you know how Julie and Anthony’s story will end, nothing can prepare you for the heart-stopping power of the final three scenes. The Souvenir is the kind of film you don’t want to end. Fortunately, The Souvenir: Part II is coming soon. [Philip Concannon] Released by Curzon; certificate 15

The Souvenir

Transit

Director: Christian Petzold Starring: Franz Rogowski, Paula Beer, Godehard Giese, Lilien Batman, Maryam Zaree, Barbara Auer, Matthias Brandt, Sebastian Hülk, Emilie de Preissac

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Past and present collide in Christian Petzold’s inspired adaptation of Anna Seghers’ 1944 novel. At first, the German filmmaker appears to have adopted the book’s original setting of Nazi-occupied France. In Paris we meet Georg (Rogowski), a German refugee who’s fleeing south to avoid the fascist stormtroopers sweeping the city. Anachronisms in fashion, technology and cultural references (George A Romero, Borussia Dortmund’s league success) soon clue us in that this is no straightforward Second World War film. This isn’t the only discombobulating trick up Petzold’s sleeve. When Georg finds himself in possession of the papers belonging to a recently deceased Mexican writer, he adopts his identity as a means of escaping the continent. An encounter with the writer’s wife (Beer) in Marseille only adds to his guilt and confusion. The dreamlike reality is also being commented on by a mysterious third-person narrator, whose voiceover is often at odds with what we’re seeing onscreen. As a result, we feel as unmoored as Transit’s characters, which only enhances the film’s empathy towards Europe’s refugees, both past and present. [Jamie Dunn]

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood Director: Quentin Tarantino Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Dakota Fanning

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Always one for controversy, Tarantino riled up a few critics when he requested journalists at the world premiere in Cannes not spoil any plot details – but frankly, there is nothing to spoil. The director’s ninth film is much of what we’ve come to expect: violent, provocative and full of style. It’s also his greatest departure: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood sees Tarantino at his most emotional and reflective. It’s no secret that Tarantino is as in love with cinema as he is with women’s feet (which are featured prominently) and the film indulges in his biggest cinephilic obsessions. He puts his focus on Hollywood in 1969. Cinema tickets are 75 cents, the hippie movement is encroaching on Los Angeles, and Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a TV star past his prime. He airs his frustrations to his only friend, his stunt double

Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), but sees an opportunity back to the limelight when Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and Roman Polanski move in next door. Even with a Manson plot thrown in for good measure, the film finds Tarantino toning down the chaos of his oeuvre. Up until its climactic finale, much of the film’s runtime is spent on the minutiae of everyday life, such as a five-minute portion devoted to observing Cliff make dinner for himself and his dog. ‘Quentin Tarantino’ and ‘quiet’ are two contradictory terms, yet somehow this combination comes to pleasant fruition. Great attention is paid to recreating the Spaghetti Westerns of the 60s with impressive specificity, but there comes a point where it goes overboard. Prioritising spectacle and celebrity over character, the film is evidently under the eye of a director hypnotised by the magic of movie-making. At over two-and-a-half hours, even when Tarantino shows restraint, the end product is bloated and overwrought. [Iana Murray] Released by Sony Pictures; certificate 18

Photo: Sandro Kopp, Courtesy of Curzon

The Souvenir

Bait

Director: Mark Jenkin Starring: Edward Rowe, Simon Sheperd, Mary Woodvine, Giles King, Isaac Woodvine, Chloe Endean, Jowan Jacobs, Georgia Ellery

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The traditional and the contemporary rub up against one another in Mark Jenkin’s strange and hypnotic Bait. The setting is a Cornwall fishing village, but there’s not a lot of fishing going on. The boat with which the bullish Martin (Edward Rowe) once made his livelihood now ferries tourists on booze cruises and his family home is now run as a B&B by a smug couple from London. Jenkin’s channels Martin’s anger in the filmmaking, building up Sergei Eisenstein-esque juxtapositions of the posh holidayers’ braying faces with rapidly-edited signifiers of their comfortable lifestyles. The whole film, in fact, takes on the film grammar of a Soviet silent movie. Close-ups of clenched fists and squinting eyes tell us what characters are thinking, not that the flinty dialogue is in any way subtle. Shot on black and white 16mm and developed by hand, the film looks battered and decayed, like it could have been dredged up from the depths. The result is a film that’s both a celebration of community traditions and a triumph of old-school filmmaking. [Jamie Dunn]

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

Memory: The Origins of Alien

Director: Alexandre O. Phillippe Starring: Diane O’Bannon, Carmen Schiefele-Giger, Veronica Cartwright, Tom Skerritt

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Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of Ridley Scott’s pop culture phenomenon, Memory: The Origins of Alien looks at the genesis of the iconic monster and franchise. The time spent exploring art that contains early echoes of Alien’s style – including side-by-side comparisons with films from A Clockwork Orange to Dark Star – proves the documentary’s highlight. The talking heads range from cast and crew members to pop culture scholars to Diane O’Bannon, writer Dan O’Bannon’s widow. However, it never feels like the conversation is over. Understandings of Alien and its place in the canon will continue to evolve, and while influences and predecessors are cited, no discussion points are marked as definitive. At the same time, Alien is interrogated on its own merits and themes. Much time is spent analysing how Scott framed the crew’s relationship dynamics and used selective movement to create an eerie lifelessness. And if there was any question whether the highly sexual imagery in the plot and monster design was intentional, Memory... makes clear the answer: yes, it was. [Carmen Paddock]

Animals

Director: Sophie Hyde Starring: Holliday Grainger, Alia Shawkat, Fra Fee, Dermot Murphy

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An adaptation of Emma Jane Unsworth’s book that is, admirably, as slippery as the written word can be, Sophie Hyde’s Animals finds it difficult to live up to how much it undercuts romcom tradition. The central drunken pairing of Alia Shawkat’s Tyler, a disorderly, independentminded singleton, and Holliday Grainger’s Laura, the (slightly) less raucous and more future-conscious of the two, begins to buckle when Laura falls for and becomes engaged to a tall, dark piano player named Jim. The film rarely goes all-in on a difficult, messy fallout between Laura and Tyler, which makes for an enjoyable break from the typical gal pal format. But Laura’s aspirations as a novelist bring out poor, self-defeating stabs at profundity from Hyde, as Tyler incessantly encourages Laura towards ‘truth’ to motivate her to finish her novel. It’s not insincere, but it reads as though it is, which makes its honest, more reliable depiction of friendship as it pertains to rom-coms less easy to swallow. Shawkat’s girl-about-town, with sardonic shades of Bette Davis, is the film’s highlight. [Thomas Atkinson] Released by Picturehouse Entertainment; certificate 15

Released by Dogwoof; certificate 15

Released by BFI; certificate 15

Released by Curzon; certificate 12A

Review

FILM & TV

THE SKINNY

At Home Killing Eve Series 2

Big Little Lies: Season 2

Domino

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Creator: Phoebe Waller-Bridge Starring: Sandra Oh, Jodie Comer, Fiona Shaw

Director: Andrea Arnold Starring: Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep

Director: Brian De Palma Starring: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Carice van Houten

Picking up moments after the first series’ bloody finale, Killing Eve dives into familiarly, hilariously perverse territory throughout its second series. While Villanelle (Jodie Comer) deals with her stab wound and Eve (Sandra Oh) deals with having stabbed her, a new killer is on the loose and Eve’s MI5 boss Carolyn Martens (Fiona Shaw) continues her shadier dealings – which is just the beginning of everyone’s problems. The show’s eight hours waste no time dwelling on revelations or twists; each lands solidly but is then allowed to propel the plot across new – and sometimes unexpected – territory. Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s absence from the writer’s room is felt (this series is not quite as funny as its first) but the characters she created retain the idiosyncratic, subversive, decidedly feminine worldview that made the first season such a hit. Oh, Comer and Shaw remain on top form; Comer dazzles with a virtuosic command of accents and physicality. They clearly have fun exploring the controlled façade that each character presents to the others to hide the mess beneath, with varying levels of success and commitment. When the wordplay and uneasy alliances end, the violence begins; the show does not hold back. The season makes no secret of Eve and Villanelle’s chemistry – last season’s ‘will they won’t they’ is out, and this season does not tiptoe around the pair’s mutual emotional, intellectual and sexual fascination and attraction. Whatever the actresses’ and creative teams’ takes are on this relationship, its overtness is a breath of fresh air in the face of many shows’ wilful ambiguity or default heteronormativity. This illustrates the strongest aspect of Killing Eve in its second season: it is unwilling to reiterate or re-establish motive, instead twisting and growing to a dizzying finale. Let’s hope UK fans get the third series at the same time as American viewers. [Carmen Paddock]

When Big Little Lies was renewed for a second season, it was met with a heaping dollop of skepticism. The first series was a perfectly self-contained narrative – what’s the point in continuing? But any questions and doubts were immediately quashed when the show returned with Meryl Streep in tow as the conniving mother of Perry (Alexander Skarsgård), who finds it hard to believe that her son’s death was merely an accident. With little of the original novel to work with, the story has zero mystery to grapple. If the first season was about the slow discovery of what the eponymous lies were, the second is about the fallout. How are the Monterey Five coping with the trauma and guilt of their shared falsehood? Some seem unfazed, while grief manifests for others in unhealthy ways. If a little disappointing in terms of story, the second season of Big Little Lies was consistently invigorating through the power of its cast. Big Little Lies belongs to Laura Dern – all gif-able rage and outrageous one-liners, she deserves an Emmy for her furrowed brows alone. Then something troubling became more noticeable as the season progressed. Choppy editing meant episodes felt extremely truncated; entire chunks from the narrative seemed to be missing. What happened to the infamous scene where Reese Witherspoon throws an ice cream at Streep? Ultimately, the show was entangled in a lie of its own. After recruiting acclaimed director Andrea Arnold to take over from Jean-Marc Vallée, the disturbing report was released that HBO and Vallée took all creative control. Never mind that Arnold is one of our finest directors, there’s an awful irony to the controversy when Big Little Lies revolves around a group of women forced to deal with reckless, selfish and abusive men. It’s a queasy watch. [Iana Murray]

God bless Brian De Palma. The baroque master of American cinema’s stock may have tumbled compared to his New Hollywood peers like Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, but even though he’s now relegated to working on low-budget Euro-thrillers like 2012’s Passion and this boilerplate cop movie, his filmmaking muscles still look sharp. Domino was reportedly shredded in the editing room, but no amount of mutilation can disguise the fact that this is from the sick, brilliant mind that brought us Carrie and Blow Out. Visually and aurally we have the heart-stopping slow-motion sequences, split-diopter shots and sinuous Pino Donaggio score to clue us in, while the pulpy terrorist plot concerns De Palma’s favourite subjects of voyeurism, government corruption and the evils of digital media. There’s even a Hitchcock homage: a delirious riff on Vertigo’s roof chase. The connective tissue between the virtuosic setpieces doesn’t always sparkle. A trip by Two Danish cops (played by Game of Thrones alumni Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Carice van Houten) from Copenhagen to Almería via Utrecht is so blandly shot and packed with exposition that it seems to be happening in real-time. But De Palma is admirably giving it his all in the film’s handful of feverish scenes, despite obvious budget limitations. Of these scenes that make Domino absolutely worth a rental, the most macabre involves a terrorist attack at the Netherlands’ Film Festival which De Palma shoots as splitscreen point-of-view shots from a camera mounted on the automatic rifle taking out stars on the red carpet (on the left of the screen we see the shooter, on the right her targets). Given De Palma’s twisted sense of humour, it’s hard not to read this as a dark FU to the middle-brow establishment who’ve turned their nose up at his giddy brand of cinema over the years. It’s their loss. [Jamie Dunn]

Available now on BBC iPlayer

Available now on Sky and Now TV

Released on DVD, Blu-Ray and Digital HD 5 Aug by Signature

Weird and Wonderful Tom Schiller’s lost comic gem Nothing Lasts Forever features in the second Weird Weekend from Matchbox Cineclub, as does Joe Dante’s suburban satire The ‘Burbs and Věra Chytilová’s teen horror Wolf’s Hole

eird Weekend is back! Matchbox Cineclub’s festival of cult cinema will return to Glasgow’s CCA at the end of August for another three days of strange and unseen cinema from around the world. The first of the screenings to jump out at us is Weird Weekend’s super-rare 35mm showing of the never released, long unavailable Bill Murray sci-fi comedy Nothing Lasts Forever. Directed by Tom Schiller, best known for the short films he wrote and directed in the early years of Saturday Night Live, the film was shot in 1982 and due for release in 1984, but was unceremoniously pulled by its producers at MGM, despite being invited to the Cannes Film Festival two years in a row. Set in a retro-future New York, the film stars future Gremlins star Zach Galligan as a genius pianist who returns home after a spell abroad to find the Port Authority has taken control of the country, and the new regime forces him to take a job directing traffic after he’s denied a government permit to perform his art. Of course, the only way out of his predicament is to travel to the moon by bus (the conductor is Bill Murray) to spread peace and love. As you can probably guess from the above synopsis, Nothing Lasts Forever isn’t like the other films that emerged from the SNL alumni in the early 1980s. It seems MGM was

August 2019

expecting a knockabout comedy along the lines of Caddyshack and Stripes, but what they got instead was a less than commercial prospect. “There was a test screening in Seattle,” Schiller told the AV Club. “When I finished it, the studio said it was an ‘art film’, and that wasn’t so great... “It was very disappointing. However, in retrospect, I don’t mind that that was my only opus... It was the weird movie I’d always wanted to make, and I don’t think I was the Hollywood type to churn out movies like a Steven Spielberg or John Landis or Harold Ramis. Those were the other kind of Saturday Night Live comedy, director-type people. I was in my own world.” Another rare screening that shouldn’t be missed is the outing of camp-cult sci-fi gem Teknolust, in which Tilda Swinton gives a tour-de-force quadruple-role performance. There’s also a 30th-anniversary screening of Joe Dante’s much-loved satire The ’Burbs, in which a group of curtain-twitching suburbanites get it into their heads that their foreign neighbours are up to something unwholesome in their basement. The festival will be screening the workprint cut, which features extended scenes and an alternate ending. After the screening, Dante will join the audience for a post-screening Q&A via Skype. Also coming up at Weird Weekend you’ll

Words: Jamie Dunn

Nothing Lasts Forever

find a pair of 2K restorations of films by the late Sarah Jacobson aka the “Queen of Underground Film”: I Was a Teenage Serial Killer (1993) and Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore (1997). Czech master Věra Chytilová is also in the programme with 1987 film Wolf ’s Hole, her gonzo take on the 80s teen horror movie. Described as one of the weirdest and most subversive movies of the 80s, we’re also desperate to see Chris Shaw’s 1989 oddity Split, which is screening from a restored 2K extended cut. There’s also the dreamy experimental fantasy film Anti-Clock from 1979, the final work of the writer-director team of Jane Arden and Jack Bond.

FILM & TV

Other films screening include Mike Paseornek’s Vibrations (1996); Ulrike Ottinger’s Freak Orlando (1981); the UK premiere of AGFA and Bleeding Skull’s The Neon Slime Mixtape; and Grigori Kromanov’s Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel (1979). DeepFake creator Ctrl Shift Face will also attend Weird Weekend for a panel event entitled Weird World of DeepFakes, and The Arrow Video Cult Film Quiz returns for the second year. All films screen with captions for the deaf and hard of hearing, and tickets are priced on a sliding scale. Weird Weekend, CCA, Glasgow, 30 Aug-1 Sep; more info at matchboxcineclub.com

Review

Gods of Jade and Shadow

By Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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to carve out her own life – and she gets her wish during a moment of rebellion, when she accidentally awakens Hun-Kamé, the Mayan God of Death. If she’s to survive, she must accompany him on a quest to restore his power and defeat his brother, Vucub-Kamé. As they travel from city to city, from Mexico to America to the Mayan Underworld – battling ghosts, sorcerers, and even her own cousin – Casiopea learns to spread her wings, even as Hun-Kamé grows increasingly mortal. Silvia Moreno-Garcia beautifully weaves the glamour and possibility of the Jazz Age with Mexican folklore, crafting a lush, enthralling coming of age fairytale. Full of wonder and symbolism, it delves into the power of myths and stories, the choices that make a hero, and what it means to actually live. The relationship between Casiopea and Hun-Kamé develops tenderly and quietly, built on courage and wistful dreams. This is a hopeful and bittersweet tale, with a whip-smart, practical protagonist, and will appeal to fans of S.A. Chakraborty, Naomi Novik, and Katherine Arden. [Sim Bajwa] Jo Fletcher Books, out now, £14.99 jofletcherbooks.com/titles

Rhyme Watch As the world and its dog descends on Edinburgh, this month's poetry column highlights the vital publications and events across the rest of Scotland Words: Beth Cochrane

here’s a chockablock programme of spoken word and poetry events happening at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Go ahead and enjoy rifling through the programme to find out more, but, for now, let’s focus on the high quality work that’s happening elsewhere in the country. Picador release Jericho Brown’s new collection, The Tradition, on 8 August. It’s Brown’s second collection to come out in the UK and has been described as daring in both form and content. A particular point of note is Brown’s inclusion of his newly devised poetic form: the duplex. Brown has combined the sonnet, the ghazal and the blues to create what he calls a ‘mutt’ of form. In a guest blog for the Poetry Foundation, he notes he decided to name it such as to him it felt like ‘a house with two addresses’, and that it’s only now many in this nation are ‘empowered to live fully in all of our identities’. The collection explores fatherhood and queerness, worship and trauma, and much more besides. Kei Miller is launching In Nearby Bushes with Carcanet on 29 August. The poet has won an astonishing number of prizes for his poetry, novels and essays, including the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2017 and the Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, to pluck two from the immense list. In Nearby Bushes is only teasing audiences pre-publication, with little account of its content available before the launch date. It may be a collection whose joy lies in its strangeness; set in a placeless place, the landscape is ‘as much marked by magic as it is by murder’. Moving away from the placeless place and into a community which is very much flourishing, the Govanhill International Festival and Carnival is back for its third year from 1-11 Aug. The programme is vibrant with all sorts of

Review

events, from the Transylvanian Ceilidh to Play in a Day, a workshop where, you guessed it, the group will devise a play in a day. The Govanhill Book Festival will be taking place across the final three days of the festival, with an impressive range of events in its programme. In what promises to be an absolute highlight of the festival, Category Is, Scotland’s only LGBT bookshop, will present an unmissable line-up of Glasgow’s up-and-coming queer writers. Taking place on 10 Aug, 1-2.30pm in The Deep End, there will be a mix of short fiction and poetry readings. With this being a free event (although donations welcome) you really have no excuse not to go. In Aberdeen, monthly event Hysteria is back with its eclectic blend of spoken word, comedy and music from women and non-binary artists. This month Hysteria will take place on 29 Aug from 7.30pm in Spin Aberdeen, however its line-up is yet to be announced (head over to the Hysteria Facebook page, @hysteriaABDN). Heading west, Skye Festival has a massive line-up of theatre, traditional Scottish music, jazz, and so much more. Joining the programme this year, amidst two days of book-centric events, is renowned poet and NTS Scriver in Residence at Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Rab Wilson. He will be appearing (16 Aug) alongside his co-author, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland John C. Brown. The event launches Wilson and Brown’s new book Oor Big Braw Cosmos, published by Luath. The book is a unique artwork-cumguide to the stars, featuring space-inspired poetry and haiku from Wilson and hundreds of cosmic images revealing the beauty and vastness of space as you’ve never seen before. theskinny.co.uk/books

Sarong Party Girls By Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

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Idiot Wind By Peter Kaldheim

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Sarong Party Girls follows chic and hardheaded Jazzy, who makes a plan with her girlfriends to marry rich ang moh (white) men so they can have ‘Chanel babies’ and lead a glamourous life full of Louis Vuitton bags and dinner at the Shang. Her desire to be ‘happening’, seen at the right clubs and wearing (knock-off) designer gear, leads her to constantly reform herself, with the goal of appeasing the right people and landing herself in the upper rich circles of Singapore. But a scratch beneath the surface proves these circles aren’t everything Jazzy hoped for. Sarong Party Girls is told in Singlish – a distinctive patois that blends the languages and dialects of Singapore’s multi-ethnic population. Delectably vulgar, it perfectly captures Jazzy’s world and is joyous to read (more Singlish please, publishers). The book’s brilliance lies in its reflection of the racism, sexism and classism in Jazzy’s society, and her growing awareness and ability to handle it. A remarkable fleshedout character, Jazzy represents anxieties and hardships that women globally should be able to relate to. Lu-Lien Tan has done a fantastic job of bringing Jazzy to life and of balancing the juxtaposition of traditional and contemporary values in Singapore. An absolute summer must-read. [Rebecca Wojturska]

On paper, Peter Kaldheim appears to be the perfect measure of success: a Dartmouth graduate, editor at a prestigious academic publisher, happily married and has no end of friends. But, as his spiralling cocaine addiction wears away the façade, he loses it all. Selling drugs in the local bars gets him by until he ends up owing his dealer a lot of money and must go on the run. But he can’t run away from his addiction or past, and while tramping on the roads, must come to terms with his mistakes, all the while seeking personal redemption. Kaldheim’s subsequent wanderings reveal the disheartening circumstances of the vagrant community in America. Of people let down by their government who must rely on food stamps, money from blood donations, and flop houses. Yet, ever the optimist, Kaldheim hopes that his uncertain journey may provide some ‘Kerouacian adventures’ and thinks ‘there might even be a book in it’. Idiot Wind is that book, served 30 years later. Kaldheim’s time on the road is littered with literary musings and his honesty and optimistic persistence in each circumstance make for a powerful and compelling narrative. Overall, Idiot Wind provides a unique and important insight into homelessness in the US. [Rebecca Wojturska]

Atlantic Books, 1 Aug, £8.99

Canongate, 1 Aug, £14.99

atlantic-books.co.uk/book/sarong-party-girls

canongate.co.uk/books

Lot By Bryan Washington

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The Unmaking of Ellie Rook By Sandra Ireland

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In Houston, the son of a black mother and Latino father comes of age in Bryan Washington’s Lot. Here, readers follow trials of family, fatherhood, poverty, community, and sexuality, as well as a strong sense of Houston as its own character, one you’ll come to know well in these pages. Washington explores the intersections and tumult of those living in the margins, resulting in a fantastic collection. A story doesn’t need to be long to captivate; it’s a strength that leaps from these pages. Unlike many collections, a thread running through his stories means we’re never truly forced to leave the characters behind until the end. Alief, on an affair in the neighbourhood witnessed by all those around and its subsequent unravelling, is a standout, while Waugh is a devastating and powerful punch to the gut, and Elgin ends the collection without fault. Empathetic and honest, tender and brutal at once, Lot quips with humour and explores grief and each stop in between. Lot feels like a living, breathing book. It sparks with life as readers follow a young man discovering himself, and the world around him, in a place that never quite feels fully like home. As debuts go, these characters and prose leap from the page. [Heather McDaid]

When Ellie Rook left her scrapyard life in Scotland behind, she never thought she’d return – her shiny new gap year lifestyle didn’t fit with the tangled childhood she’d left behind. But when Ellie’s mother is reported missing, presumed drowned, suddenly she’s plunged back into her darkly twisted childhood; when events begin to unravel, she discovers there are even murkier truths lurking beneath the surface. Fast-paced and well written, The Unmaking of Ellie Rook sets out to do a lot in its slim 200 pages. The intertwining of Scottish folklore lends a mythical nature to the very serious domestic abuse storyline. It’s an engaging and different way to approach the subject matter, craftily placing this very real, 21st century story in a Scottish cultural context. Yet, while the controlling and abusive behaviour of Ellie’s father leaves a powerful impact, in many ways the story’s length is to its detriment. Ireland weaves a complex and gripping plot, but in this short space it simply feels rushed at times; some of the twists the story takes seem unconvincing with the speed in which they happen. A lovingly crafted narrative where folklore and domestic reality meet, but one which seems somewhat lacking. [Emily Hay]

Atlantic Books, 1 Aug, £12.99

Polygon, one now, £8.99

atlantic-books.co.uk/book/lot

birlinn.co.uk/Unmaking-of-Ellie-Rook-The.html

BOOKS

THE SKINNY

ICYMI BBC New Comedy Award Winner Stephen Buchanan dives headfirst into the wonderful world of Partridge. Jurassic Park! Illustration: Emer Kiely

t feels like everyone involved in comedy loves Alan Partridge and it’s easy to see why. Meticulously honed over 28 years, Partridge has graced every platform: from radio shows, to sitcoms, to fictional memoirs and even the silver-screen. Critically, he’s held in high regard, usually found near the top of greatestcomedy-creations-of-all-time lists. Comedians become giddy with excitement whenever the incompetent presenter makes a return (or there’s a Partridge-esque gaffe elsewhere). But sometimes this can get irritating. Don’t get me wrong, I love butchering classic comedy lines as much as the next person. But there’s nothing more annoying than being left on the sidelines because you haven’t seen the thing your mates are talking about. Throughout my comedy career, green rooms and car-shares have been peppered with absurd quotes and impressions of Steve Coogan’s iconic character. It’s almost an unspoken rule that you must know some Partridge quotes to be a stand-up. Therefore, this felt like the perfect opportunity to catch up. As I sat down to watch the first episode of I’m Alan Partridge, the initial five minutes felt very familiar. Maybe it was because I’d heard it being quoted a million times before. All the mediocre impersonations I’d endured had been drilled into my subconscious. But then it hit me. I’d actually watched it about ten years ago – well, tried to. A friend recommended it, assuring me if I liked The Office then I’d LOVE Partridge. I turned it off after about 15 minutes. Not because it wasn’t funny, but because I was annoyed at how similar Alan was

August 2019

to David Brent. Nowadays, I’m well aware that Partridge was created years before the Brentmeister General, but at the time I just didn’t care. I couldn’t get over the parallels. Both tactless, socially-inept narcissists, desperately seeking acceptance, while trying (and failing) to cling on to the tiny bit of power they have left. If I already had The Office, then why would I need this? Ten years on and by the end of the first episode, I finally realised why. It’s just a very funny sitcom. It’s daft and over-the-top but without it I don’t think The Office would exist. For those who haven’t seen I’m Alan Partridge, it’s essentially about a shameless, egotistical broadcaster’s fall from grace. Following his dismissal as a BBC presenter, Partridge is now living in a shoddy roadside hotel; his wife has left him and he has been reduced to working the graveyard shift on a local radio station. It’s no hot-take for me to say the way it’s shot and edited, along with a laughter track, feels quite dated now. The fact you forget about this quickly is testament to the sharp writing and Coogan’s flawless performance. It’s laced with inane comments, condescending remarks and nightmarish visions of Alan trying to seduce a BBC commissioner. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to watch it. I’m away to shoehorn some classic quotes into unsuspecting conversations with people – back of the net! Stephen Buchanan: Baby Dove, Pleasance Courtyard (The Cellar), 31 July-25 Aug (not 14), 8.30pm, £6-£10

COMEDY

Review

THE SKINNY

Glasgow Music Tue 30 Jul PELTS (ARTMAGIC)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £9

Glasgow six-piece Pelts have a dream-pop vibe with brooding undertones.

Wed 31 Jul HAIKU HANDS

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

An unlikely but brilliant mix of dance party and performance art. BABY STRANGE

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £10

Glaswegian three-piece punk band (with a dash of grunge) veering between drones and dirges, wearing their art and world views on their sleeve.

THE AVENGERS (THE RAPTORS)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £13

Seminal San Francisco punk unit led by Penelope Houston.

Thu 01 Aug

WHATEVER WEATHER (VELVET + SPEAK EASY CIRCUS + A MONTH OF SUNDAYS)

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £11.25

Pop-punk band from Glasgow, formed in early 2019.

TAKE TODAY (LOST IN STEREO + DETER + VOLKA)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

Described as “one of the hardest working new bands to break onto the Glasgow scene.” BABY STRANGE

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £10

Glaswegian three-piece punk band (with a dash of grunge) veering between drones and dirges, wearing their art and world views on their sleeve. CROW MOON (JACK RABBIT SLAMS + RYSE)

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £7

Glasgow-based rock band, and the brainchild of frontman Max Murphy. GRUESOME

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £15

Old school death metal band, featuring members of Exhumed and Possessed, making their Scottish debut.

POCKET KNIFE (STOCK MANAGER + CHARRETTE) THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £5

Lo-fi pop duo. MUSE-IC

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

Talented singer-songwriters Nicola Evans and Olivia Ennemoser invite local singers and songwriters to join them every week. GILES THORNTON SEPTET

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £5 - £8

Composer/arranger based in London who has recently worked as an arranger and musical supervisor for Adventures In The American Songbook.

Fri 02 Aug WADE BOWEN

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £12.50

Country singer from Waco, Texas.

CHEAP TEETH (DAS PLASTIXX + MEDICINE CABINET + WEATHERSTON) KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

T-Break winners Cheap Teeth are a boisterous garage rock outfit that harbours enough hooks and catchy refrains to accrue the love of anyone who comes into contact with their diverse sound. QUICHE

MONO, FROM 21:00, FREE

Rising local soft pop slingers.

THE KUNDALINI GENIE (MIDNIGHT ALLEYS + THE MOODY CHANTS + SNOUT)

ANIMALS AS LEADERS (ROLO TOMASSI + CRYPTODIRA) THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 18:00, £23

Instrumental progressive metal band from Washington, D.C. FLIPPER

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, FROM 19:30, £18.50 - £20

The noise legends who influenced Nirvana and Melvins celebrate their 40th anniversary. MAMA’S BROKE (BURD ELLEN)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £10

A powerful folk duo that deliver a compelling performance with heart and raw energy. ORGANIC GROOVES

PIE & BREW, FROM 18:00, FREE

A fusion of Glasgow’s finest DJs collaborate with talented vocalists and exceptional musicians to offer something fresh and exciting to the city’s vibrant music scene. ANDREW BAKER: ESPIRITU

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 21:30, £5 - £8

Espiritu is Andrew Baker’s first world jazz release and reflects on his time spent in Europe and South America. FROGBEATS

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 23:00, £5

The Frogbeats crew pump out the jungle and D’n’B beats aplenty, as per.

Sat 03 Aug DEAN FRIEDMAN

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:30, £29.50

Singer-songwriter Dean Friedman, known for chart-topping 70s hits Ariel, Lucky Stars, Lydia and Woman of Mine, performs songs from throughout his three-decade career. NOTION (VERSACE SMILE + SECRET PUBLIC)

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £11.25

Dumbarton rock band Notion celebrate a year in existence at this headline show.

COLD YEARS (CRASHES + WRTHLSS + PAINTING ROCKETS)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

Rock band from Aberdeen formed in late 2014 by frontman Ross Gordon. SLOMATICS (HEADLESS KROSS + DEAD OTTER)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £8

Slabs of heavy and lots of fuzz from this Belfast band. FLY BY MIRRORS (HUMAN RENEGADE + DIRTY MIKE)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £5 - £7

The band awarded Top Electronicore act of 2019 take to the stage in spectacular style on their home territory in Glasgow. DEAD KENNEDYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £25

Caustic 70s punk rockers now with Ron Greer on vocal duties.

MO KENNEY (MEGAN D + CAITLIN BUCHANAN)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £7

The Canadian singer/songwriter plays a set of hits.

Mon 05 Aug TEENAGE BOTTLEROCKET

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £12

Punk rockers from Wyoming formed in 2001 and signed to Rise Records. JUNIOR (MISPLACED)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £7

South Wales pop-punk trio.

Tue 06 Aug SITHU AYE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 18:30, £10

Scottish-Burmese guitarist, musician and producer based in Glasgow.

Wed 07 Aug

GLASGOW GLAM BANGERS (MIDDLE CLASS GUILT + LES JOHNSON AND ME) NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 20:00, £5

Glam-styled Glasgow trio made up of Paxton Andrews, Piano Reeves and Reginald Shite – all their actual birth names. Probably. SKEGSS

ST LUKE’S, FROM 19:00, £13.50

Australian surf and garage rock trio from Byron Bay. A BURIAL AT SEA (COLDBONES)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £8

Experimental post-rock band from Liverpool, blending together complex instrumentals with pensive and emotional songwriting.

Thu 08 Aug

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £6

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £3

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 23:00, £5

DEAD RETINAS (CARTILAGE + DOM JOLLY + INTRUSIVE THOUGHT)

Manchester hardcore punk.

IN:TIDES (TRANSIENT SUNS + GREATER THE DIVIDE)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £5

Post-rock band from Glasgow. ORGANIC GROOVES

PIE & BREW, FROM 18:00, FREE

A fusion of Glasgow’s finest DJs collaborate with talented vocalists and exceptional musicians to offer something fresh and exciting to the city’s vibrant music scene. SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN ARE EPIC BEARD MEN

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £14

The American alt hip-hop icons perform a spoken word set. PELICAN TUSK

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 23:00, £5

Glasgow psych troupe launch their new single, Creature With Wings.

Sat 10 Aug DECEMBER

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £15

December are a band influenced by the likes of Springsteen and The Jesus and Mary Chain. MAN OF MOON (EDWIN ORGAN + SAHARA)

SPINNING COIN (SNOUT + TARANTULA + STUART MCINTOSH (DJ)) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, FROM 20:00, £7 - £10

Glasgow’s Spinning Coin make beautifully rough-hewn guitar pop that takes in frustration and escapism, but also gracefulness and splendour, in equal measure. SQUIGGLES (LIVING BODY + PUPPY FAT)

Rising duo fusing electronica, R&B and folk. They have left music lovers and critics floored at every turn.

BRUTALLIGATORS (INDOORSMAN)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £6

Shoutalong indie-punk from Hertfordshire. THE RIVERMAN COLLECTIVE

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, FROM 19:30, £5.80

Solo project from The Spook School’s drummer Niall McCamley.

Three-piece from rural Perthsire mixing electric and acoustic sounds to produce something unique.

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £7

BLACK SNAKE ROOTS

Glasgow guitarist Fraser John Lindsay and Australian born vocalist and bassist Charlotte Marshall deliver an exciting blend of blues music in their own harmoniously relaxed fashion. PARIS_MONSTER

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £10

PICK A PIPER (RAZA)

Pick a Piper’s last release, 2017’s travelogue dancetopia Distance, was forged across years of country-hopping both as a touring member of Caribou and in his personal time.

FLORAL (INVALIDS + FRANTIC)

Intricate, experimental and instrumental mathrock. This gig will be a banquet for yer lugs. MUSE-IC

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

Talented singer-songwriters Nicola Evans and Olivia Ennemoser invite local singers and songwriters to join them every week.

Fri 09 Aug

THE KATE BUSH SONG BOOK WITH DEL PALMER

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £18

Mon 12 Aug GIODYNAMICS

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 20:00, FREE

Improvised open mic with Jer Reid. SLEAZYOKE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:00, FREE

The big sleazy karaoke sesh with Gerry Lyons.

Tue 13 Aug

ALEX REX (DRAGGED UP + KITCHEN CYNICS)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £8.50

Alex Neilson’s new solo project is a more stripped down and folk orientated endeavour than his band Trembling Bells.

Wed 14 Aug MIDAS FALL

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £8

Alt-rock four piece from Manchester.

CLUB SOTN (CAEZIUM + THE FRONTIERS + LAZY EYE + THE LONERS)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £7

STEREO, FROM 19:30, £5

LOVE GLASGOW HATE RACISM

LAUREN SARAH HAYES (KUBOV + ZOMING FLAKES)

Bands come together to raise money for Scottish Refugee Council and United Glasgow FC.

Scottish musician and sound artist who builds and performs with hybrid analogue/digital instruments.

SWG3, FROM 18:00, £15

Thu 15 Aug

MICHALE GRAVES

The former Misfits frontman will play Misfits classics and solo material with a full band. CHAPTER 13

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £15

Young boyband who appeared on Britain’s Got Talent; and by young, we mean young (all members are aged between 13-15).

SAINT LUKE’S ALL DAYER 2019 (TIJUANA BIBLES + STRANGE BONES + INDIGO VELVET) ST LUKE’S, FROM 14:00, £13.50

13 bands, two stages, one all day party at Saint Luke’s. APOSTILLE (LADY NEPTUNE)

THE RUM SHACK, FROM 20:00, £4

Live music from Night School Records label boss Michael Kasparis under his Apostille guise and Sacred Paws touring bassist Lady Neptune.

Made up of current and ex-members of Thin Privilege, Black International and Joanna Gruesome, Damn Teeth produce a synth-heavy sound.

VANIVES (THE WOUND REVIEW)

The Monocasters are a young four-piece band from Glasgow.

QUEEN MARGARET UNION, FROM 17:00, £15

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £11

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £8

Glasgow indie-pop duo.

HIT THE ROAD: THE MONOCASTERS (ANGRY MAN CARPARK + PYRO)

Psychedelic duo from Edinburgh.

DAMN TEETH (CAT APOSTROPHE + IDEAL)

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £18

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £9

Manchester promotions team Scruff of the Neck present four live bands.

A tribute to Kate Bush.

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 23:00, £8

August 2019

I AEMÖN (KYBER + THROUGH THE SCATTERED LIGHTS)

TECH N9NE SWG3, FROM 19:00, £19.50

Lights Out By Nine play powerhouse rhythm and blues, and have developed a collection of their own original songs, which is commanding a growing amount of media attention.

ONE NINE

Scottish indie five-piece.

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £10

Glaswegian three-piece punk band (with a dash of grunge) veering between drones and dirges, wearing their art and world views on their sleeve.

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

Young Glasgow singer/songwriter straddling the line somewhere between folk, pop and country.

LIGHTS OUT BY NINE THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £5 - £8

Sydney-born musician who began her musical career while on a football scholarship in New York.

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

THE KATE BUSH SONG BOOK WITH DEL PALMER

A night of modern psychedelia at Sleazys. BABY STRANGE

ANNA SWEENEY (ASTER + MEGAN BLACK + GO TO GIRL)

ALEX THE ASTRONAUT (CHLOE ROBERTSON)

The Luke La Volpe band bring together a mixture of blues and rock and roll to form a unique live sound.

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £8

Employing heavy elements of funk and soul, paris_monster closes the gaps between synthpop and garage.

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £5

Sun 04 Aug

LUKE LA VOLPE (CARLY CONNOR + BILLY MITCHELL + THE LUTRAS)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £5

MIC CLARK ACOUSTIC BUTTERFLY

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

Mic Clark is a well-known popular performer on the live music scene in Scotland, joined by his band Acoustic Butterfly.

SHREDD (SOBRIETY + GELATINE + MESSED UP YOUTH)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

Glasgow band dishing out fuzzy garage and pop.

ROTHWELL (DENI SMITH + EMIAH + REBEKAH KIRK) SWG3, FROM 19:00, £8

The Bristolian singer plays a Scottish date.

THE ALLEGED (RESTRICTED CODE + SAVAGE DINK) THE RUM SHACK, FROM 19:30, £5

Reformed punk band The Alleged perform live alongside Restricted Code and Savage Dink. MUSE-IC

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

Talented singer-songwriters Nicola Evans and Olivia Ennemoser invite local singers and songwriters to join them every week. 8BIT: VIDEO GAMES

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £5 - £8

8BIT is a pop-up collaboration featuring members of Fat Suit, Animal Society and Tom Mcguire and the Brassholes.

Fri 16 Aug

PLEASURE HEADS (BLUEBIRDS + LAST LIGHT + NEW REBEL CULT)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £8

Falkirk indie band, who take their name from The Birthday Party’s song Sometimes Pleasure Heads Must Burn.

SWAY

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £7

JAMES MICHAEL RODGERS

Songwriter from Ayrshire.

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 23:00, £3.30

SWAY return to Glasgow following a string of gigs and festival appearances across the UK.

Sun 11 Aug

TAMZENE (RILEY + HANNAH SLAVIN + CORTNE)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

Young artist and multiinstrumentalist from the coastal town of Cromarty in the Scottish Highlands. JIGS & REELZY

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 18:00, FREE

Trad/folk open floor with Neil McDermott.

A tribute to Kate Bush.

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

SUGARSPUN

Carlisle five-piece pushing that alternative/indie music we’ve been hearing so much about. PEARL JAMM

CATHOUSE, FROM 19:00, £12

Pearl Jam tribute.

DOMICILES

From sneering garage rock and throbbing motorik to blissed out space rock via experimental noise music, you’ll see it all with this band.

Strange Music co-founder Tech N9ne stops by on his debut UK tour. TIM PRESLEY’S WHITE FENCE

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £12.50

Tim Presley’s White Fence, informed by the extreme polarities of punk rock and psych, brings forth songs like no others.

Tue 20 Aug VAMPILLIA (VMO)

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £10

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:30, £12

Wed 21 Aug

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £7

Led Zeppelin tribute.

THE 101 (ECHO MACHINE + AMY LOU & THE MONDAY CLUB + SWIM SCHOOL)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

Indie pop band from Aberdeen, influenced by the likes of Two Door Cinema Club and Passion Pit. MADAFAKA (BRATAKUS + JOROGUMO)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £6

Experimental tech metal, or ‘stuff that’s awesome to make your ears sad and your soul happy’, so say they.

PETE WAY BAND (KILLING FROM A DISTANCE)

CATHOUSE, FROM 19:00, £17

Legendary bass player, best known for his work in UFO and as a founding member of Waysted and Fastway. BEAFETS (THE RITZ + THE RIOT VANS)

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £7

The debut headline show from the East Kilbride four-piece. AFTER THE END

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £5

Black Sabbath tribute.

VELVETEEN RIOT (NOT ROBOTS? + MOSKOW MULE + THE SHAN)

13TH NOTE, FROM 20:00, £5

Indie punk rockers Velveteen Riot headline 13th Note. JJ GILMOUR

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, FROM 19:30, £14 - £17

Scottish-born, Irish-living singer/songwriter, well kent as lead vocalist with Scottish Celtic rockers the Silencers. NIGHT SCHOOL: J. MCFARLANE’S REALITY GUEST (OTHERWORLD + TARANTULA)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £6 - £8

The solo music of Australian artist, and member of the group Twerps, Julia McFarlane. THE POACHERS

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

The Poachers are a folk pop duo consisting of Neil Donaldson and Seb Jonsen, who previously played together in psychedelic favourites The Beetroots. RORY AND THE ISLAND

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £10

Donegal-based musician, with a revolving door of collaborators.

Sun 18 Aug

MT. DOUBT (STATIC FUTURE + FAIRFOLLIES + MEGAN AIRLIE)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

An evening of live music as Edinburgh-based musician Mt Doubt brings his dark-pop sound our way. DAMN SMOOTH JAZZ

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 18:00, FREE

Jazz night at Sleazys brought to you by Sybren Renema. MICK FLANNERY

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £12.50

Irish singer-songwriter who honed his craft in Boston and Nashville, lending a stateside twang to his body of work.

THE NIGHT WITH... DUO VAN VLIET

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £6 - £10

Duo van Vliet present a programme for viola, accordion and electronics combining Scottish and Polish composers along with arrangements of Captain Beefheart.

Thu 22 Aug

THE VIGNETTES (CONOR HEAFEY + KUBITARU + LEMON DRINK)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

Up-and-coming band in the heart of Glasgow, intent on delivering high-energy performances. RYAN WYNESS (MARTIN MACDONALD)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £4

Singer-songwriter whose folk/ punk songs cover the topics of alcohol, love, heartbreak, loneliness and constantly being tired. THE OTHER FAVORITES (REINA DEL CID)

STEREO, FROM 20:00, £18

Now based in Brooklyn, The Other Favorites is the project of Carson McKee and Josh Turner, who made their name on YouTube. MUSE-IC

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

Talented singer-songwriters Nicola Evans and Olivia Ennemoser invite local singers and songwriters to join them every week. 59:60 – FERGUS MCCREADIE

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £5 - £8

The 59:60 series at The Blue Arrow pays tribute to a selection of era-defining albums from the year 1959: the year that changed jazz.

Fri 23 Aug

ORGANIC GROOVES

PIE & BREW, FROM 18:00, FREE

A fusion of Glasgow’s finest DJs collaborate with talented vocalists and exceptional musicians to offer something fresh and exciting to the city’s vibrant music scene.

ACOUSTIC OPEN MIC W/ GERRY LYONS

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 20:00, FREE

Come and see some of the best unsigned artists in the country for free.

A blend of Americana and Scottish roots music, with influences like Shania Twain and The Corrs. Intriguing. EMMA MURDOCH

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

Emma is a singer/songwriter based in Glasgow. MACGEEJAZZ

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £5 - £10

The MacgeeJazz trio – Paula Macgee, Joe Williamson and Mark Hendry – invite you to join them in a celebration of love songs.

Sun 25 Aug

THE EVES (NOAH & THE WEST RIVER BAND + ANDREW DICKSON + QUICK) KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

The Eves are country pop duo Caroline Gilmour and Marissa Keltie. TACOCAT (TWEN)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £9.50

Surf-pop quartet from Seattle made up of four best friends. Hanging out with Tacocat and listening to Tacocat are remarkably similar experiences – like the best party you’ll ever be invited to.

TOM MCGUIRE & THE BRASSHOLES

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £12

Eight-piece funk/soul powerhouse from Glasgow, making moves in the Scottish scene.

Mon 26 Aug ISRAEL NASH

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £17

Singer-songwriter based in Texas who can count Midlake and The Fieros among his pals. ACOUSTIC OPEN MIC W/ GERRY LYONS

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 20:00, FREE

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £10

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £12

LYLO (DARIA + POST IRONIC STATE)

Glasgow’s purveyors of wonky pop magic.

STATUS QUOING (BLOCKBUSTARZ)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:00, £10

Glasgow-based Status Quo tribute act.

HELM (OTHERWORLD + LETITIA PLEIADES + MARIAM REZAEI)

STEREO, FROM 20:00, £10

London-based sound artist and experimental musician Luke Younger (aka Helm), adept at working with a vast array of revolving instrumentation and abstract sound sources. ORGANIC GROOVES

PIE & BREW, FROM 18:00, FREE

A fusion of Glasgow’s finest DJs collaborate with talented vocalists and exceptional musicians to offer something fresh and exciting to the city’s vibrant music scene. YACHT ROCK CREW

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £5 - £8

Sat 24 Aug

Post punk purveyors Patent Pending stop by as part of their mammoth UK tour.

POSSIL MOR

Marillion tribute act.

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £16.50

PATENT PENDING

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £6

Come and see some of the best unsigned artists in the country for free.

STILL MARILLION

Mon 19 Aug

Mod-influenced indie band from Glasgow.

STATIC SUNS (REFUGE ISLAND + UP THE KILL + THE PROJECTION)

The Ayrshire indie-rock four man hits Stereo.

PETTY CASSETTES (HONEYGRIP + THE PONTANGZ + DROP THE BABY)

STEREO, FROM 18:30, £6

THE MILLION DOLLAR ORCHESTRA

SWG3, FROM 20:00, £25 - £32

Al Kent and his Million Dollar Orchestra play all your favourite disco classics with a live orchestra.

10-piece from Osaka describing their style as “brutal orchestra”, which sounds appealing.

THE LED ZEPPELIN STORY: UNLEDDED

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £8

Psych rock duo based in Berlin.

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 16:45, TBC

Delightfully describing themselves as “crusty punk metal”, so FFO crust really.

Sat 17 Aug

LA-based band performing 70s and early 80s soft rock, aka ‘yacht rock’.

MEDICINE BOY

EXTINCTION OF MANKIND (BRAIN ANGUISH + THE DISTURBED + CONSTANT FEAR + SUBVISION + REALITY ASYLUM)

BLACK DOVE (HAZEYDAYS + SHOALS + THE CAPOLLOS)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

PINK SWEAT$

Philly-born singer-songwriter who previously produced tracks for the likes of Tierra Whack and Florida Georgia Line. LAURA JANE GRACE AND THE DEVOURING MOTHERS (FRANK IERO AND THE FUTURE VIOLENTS)

ST LUKE’S, FROM 19:00, £22.50

The latest project from Laura Jane Grace, best known as the founder of punk rock band Against Me!

SLOW CRUSH (FREDDIE QUELL + THE CHERRY WAVE)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £7.50

A compelling abrasive shoegaze band, dealing with the aesthetics of contrasting sounds.

Tue 27 Aug

GEOFF TATE’S OPERATION MINDCRIME (GIN ANNIE)

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £17.50

Geoff Tate and his band play the Operation Mindcrime album in its entirety, plus a set of his hit songs.

Wed 28 Aug OCEAN ALLEY

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:00, £13.20

Australian rock band from the Northern beaches of Sydney.

Four-piece hard rock outfit from Greenock.

JACK RICHARDSON (STUART NEIL + MEGAN AIRLIE + FAIRWEATHER FRIENDS)

MONO, FROM 20:00, £14

Debut EP launch from Jack Richardson, with support.

WAND

Los Angeles-based psych-rock outfit.

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £5

Listings

EDWYN COLLINS

CARSON MCHONE

QUEEN MARGARET UNION, FROM 19:00, £24.75

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £8

The former Orange Juice frontman returns with his ninth solo album. STEVE GUNN

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £12.50

New York-based guitarist and songwriter.

FALLEN ANGELS CLUB: CHARLIE PARR & JD WILKES

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, FROM 19:30, £13.50 - £16

Eccentrics Charlie Parr and JD Wilkes hit the road this summer and tour Europe together performing separate solo sets.

Thu 29 Aug

HYYTS (KENDAMA + RUSSELL STEWART + SCARLETT RANDLE)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

Much-hyped new Glasgow duo, who simply “play pop music”. CRYPTIC CULTURE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £6

A guitar-focused band bringing guitar back into the limelight. Hope you like guitars! INDIAN SUMMER 001

SWG3, FROM 16:00, £35

Courtney Barnett and Baxter Dury are joined by even more exciting acts for the first of three Indian Summer events taking place across Glasgow. NADJA

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £12

Duo of Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff creating heavy atmospheric music which combines noise and electronics, ambient and shoegaze, and metal and industrial sounds. FALLEN ANGELS CLUB: AMYTHYST KIAH

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, FROM 19:30, £13.50 - £16

Amythyst Kiah describes herself as a Southern Gothic, altcountry blues singer-songwriter whose influences span decades and diverse styles. BANDITTI CLUB RUM PRESENTS HOLY SMOKE RECORDS

THE RUM SHACK, FROM 19:30, TBC

Banditti Club Rum’s second Rum Shack Session, this time featuring acts from the Holy Smokes Records stable. SAM EVIAN (HANNAH COHEN)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £8.50

The project of New York-based musician, songwriter and producer, Sam Owens. MUSE-IC

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

Rule-breaking roots musician and Austin, Texas native who went from playing weeknights in local bars to gaining praise from Rolling Stone. ORGANIC GROOVES

PIE & BREW, FROM 18:00, FREE

A fusion of Glasgow’s finest DJs collaborate with talented vocalists and exceptional musicians to offer something fresh and exciting to the city’s vibrant music scene. ELLYN OLIVER

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £10

Aberdeenshire-born, Glasgowbased vocalist fresh from releasing her debut EP, Arms Wide Open.

Sat 31 Aug

THE JIMI HENDRIX REEXPERIENCE

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £20

Jimi Hendrix tribute act.

SKUNK ANANSIE (QUEEN ZEE)

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £31.70

Hailed as one of the most exciting and greatest live acts across the world, Skunk Anansie return to Glasgow. JOESEF (MAGNUM HAUS + CARA ROSE + RORY JAMES)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £11

Joesef writes and produces from the bedroom of his east end Glasgow flat. OUR LADY OF THE STARS

MONO, FROM 21:00, FREE

Local newbies featuring Members of The Yummy Fur, 1990’s and Fat Black Cats.

HAGGUS (BOAK + COFFIN MULCH + INSUFFERABLE + WHEELCHAIR X 4)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £7

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £23.25 - £28.90

A tribute to Roy Orbison and The Traveling Wilburys, duh. GALLUS (THE ROLY MO + VANDAL PALACE + LO RAYS)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

Five-piece punk/indie rockers from Glasgow. LAS ACUARELAS

MONO, FROM 21:00, FREE

Local garage rockers.

BAD BOOGALOO (THE BIG UP)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £8

Alternative bluegrass and rockabilly soundsmiths. PRESS CLUB

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £9

Hard-hitting Aussie garage-rock receiving praise from BBC Radio 1 and Kerrang! THE DIRTY BEGGARS

STEREO, FROM 19:30, £10

Bluegrass/Americana fused with traditional Celtic sounds. CLOSET ORGAN (EX WIVES)

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, FROM 19:30, £5

A noisy Glaswegian four-piece specialising in the finest melodic grunge money can buy.

Listings

Wed 31 Jul

Former McFly member gone solo, in an absolutely shocking turn of events!

FUNDRAISING CONCERT FOR ALZHEIMER SCOTLAND (FLEW THE ARROW + RAGING TWILIGHT + NICOL & ELLIOT + TENEMENT & TEMPLE) STEREO, FROM 19:00, £8

Four bands play this fundraising gig in aid of Alzheimer Scotland.

TERRITORIES (NOTHING>UNIVERSE + THE KUNDALINI GENIES + A SEA OF DEAD TREES)

Five-piece from Glasgow who aim to take listeners on a meditative journey with their music. LATIN RHYTHMS

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

Sun 01 Sep

JOESEF (MAGNUM HAUS + CARA ROSE + RORY JAMES)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £11

Joesef writes and produces from the bedroom of his east end Glasgow flat. HARRISON WHITFORD

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £8

Phoebe Bridgers’ guitarist and frequent collaborator paving a solo trail.

MIDDLE CLASS GUILT (GRAVELLE + THE STEVEN THOMAS BAND)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £5

Like Shame if they were from Shetland. AMY PAPIRANSKY

Wed 07 Aug

LOS FASTDIOS (OI POLLOI + TRIPWIRE DC + THE OVERBITES)

BANNERMANS, FROM 15:00, £8 - £10

An evening of Punk and Ska. KIEFER SUTHERLAND

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 19:00, £33.75

The Bullets & Octane man brings his solo outfit to Bannermans.

The man you might know from The Lost Boys and Flatliners has turned his attention to music of late – see the fruits of his efforts.

WEE RED BAR, FROM 19:00, £5

SUMMERHALL, FROM 19:00, £14

ZACHARY KIBEE

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £7 - £9

JIMI GET YOUR FUNK ON

Edinburgh based nine-piece funk band.

Thu 01 Aug 6 AM SAINT

BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, TBC

Punk rock band from Cambridge.

SIOBHAN WILSON

Following the critical success of her 2017 album There Are No Saints, Edinburgh songwriter Siobhan Wilson plays a hometown show, bringing songs from her new record The Departure.

BODEGA

SUMMERHALL, FROM 19:30, £13 - £16

New York’s art rockers Bodega revitalize the rock and roll vocabulary under the influence of post punk, hip-hop, krautrock and folk-derived narrative songwriting. AS YOU WERE

BANNERMANS, FROM 17:00, FREE

Brighton-based pirate-style band.

THE KENNEDY DETAIL (LAIDBACK)

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, FROM 19:00, TBC

The Kennedy Detail perform a mixture of old and new songs along with their mix of covers. ELISA

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 19:00, £22.50

Multi-platinum Italian singer touring a new batch of songs. ECHO MACHINE

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £7

RYSE

BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, £5

Three-piece alt-rock band. AKALA

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 19:00, £22.50

Award-winning hip-hop artist and younger brother of rapper Ms. Dynamite, currently carving out his own path with his rap, rock and electro influences. BRIGHDE CHAIMBEUL & AIDAN O-ROURKE

SUMMERHALL, FROM 19:00, £14

Winner of the 2016 BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award, Skye musician and piper Brìghde Chaimbeul is one of Scotland’s fastest rising stars.

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, FROM 20:00, £5 - £6

PYGMY TWYLYTE

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £10

Experimental post-rock band from Liverpool, blending together complex instrumentals with pensive and emotional songwriting.

A tribute to the legend Frank Zappa.

SUMMERHALL, FROM 19:00, £14

Wed 14 Aug

EMMA POLLOCK

Emma Pollock made her name in indie-pop outfit The Delgados and is known for her unique brand of lavishly lyrical songwriting, all elevated by the honeyed liquid clarity of her voice. FLOODED (BARBE ROUSSE + JIMI GET YOUR FUNK ON)

LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, TBC

OVERLAPS

LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, TBC

Experimental jam sessions with special guests. PYGMY TWYLYTE

BANNERMANS, FROM 15:00, £10

A tribute to the legend Frank Zappa. THE JAW-LINE OF JULIANNE MOORE (THE BIG BOOM BANGERANG BAND)

LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, £5

A night of indie/alt rock at the Depot.

Experimental band with countless members.

Fri 09 Aug

Thu 15 Aug

BANNERMANS, FROM 15:00, FREE

JOHN MCLAIN BAND (ARCHANGEL)

NITEWORKS

Jazz guitarist whose career spans over 25 years.

MORAS OF MOLASSES

Reading-based stoner/blues/ doom band. SUMMERHALL, FROM 19:00, £16 - £19

Niteworks blur the lines between Scottish traditional, folk and Gaelic music with contemporary electronica, creating a unique and exhilarating sound.

Sat 10 Aug

THE IDOL DEAD (ROCKETFLAIRE)

BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, £7 - £9

Traditional Flamenco numbers, jazz fusion and Flamenturco.

Tue 20 Aug

PRESSURE VALVE UNPLUGGED

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, FREE

Local artists play stripped back sets, before the public get to be the stars at karaoke. PETER BRODERICK SINGS THE SONGS OF ARTHUR RUSSELL

SUMMERHALL, FROM 19:00, £14

A celebration of the music of the great experimental cellist and songwriter Arthur Russell. LEAVE ON A LIGHT

LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, £20

Wed 21 Aug

QUEER FAITH AND THEMANY

Tue 13 Aug

THE CAPTAIN’S BEARD

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 19:00, £12

LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, TBC

A BURIAL AT SEA (COLDBONES)

Fri 02 Aug

Frontwoman of Sydney-based rock band The Mis-Made.

LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, TBC

The UK’s best Oasis tribute, Definitely Oasis, presents As You Were, a tribute to Liam Gallagher and Oasis.

BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, TBC

Monthly folk night and open session.

Sun 25 Aug

AYLIN ELEONORA (RAUL MANNOLA + TAYLAN POLAT)

An evening to celebrate the life and music of late Scots singer-songwriter Karl Broadie, featuring friends from Australia and special guests.

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 19:00, £10

LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, £5

BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, £6 - £8

KARMA FOR VANDALS

BANNERMANS, FROM 15:00, FREE

Groovy post-rock heroes Karma For Vandals entertain us with their harmonically beautiful and texturally delicious brand of instrumental music.

ROCK AT EDINBURGH FRINGE (RICHY NEILL AND THE REINFORCEMENTS + EBB + JEANICE LEE + BETTER HALVES) WEE RED BAR, FROM 19:00, £8 - £10

Four bands from Edinburgh come together to bring some rock action to the Fringe. ASH

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 19:00, £20

With access to archival master recordings, images and videos from the vaults of the major record labels, Grandmaster Flash’s live show is a celebration of hiphop’s most formative decade.

Thu 22 Aug BICYCLE DAY

BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, TBC

Dylan Carlson’s musical explorations can be traced back to his pioneering work with the minimalist ensemble Earth.

DIRTY HARRY (STOP THE CLOCKS)

DYLAN CARLSON

SUMMERHALL, FROM 19:00, £15

FUTURE SOUNDS PRESENTS (TESLA COILS + REGRETTA GARBO) LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, TBC

Rock laced with punk attitude. JESSICA LYNN

A definitive homage to punk and new wave’s best, Blondie.

Some of Scotland’s best undiscovered talent at Leith Depot.

BANNERMANS, FROM 15:00, FREE

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 19:00, £10 - £15.40

SUMMERHALL, FROM 19:00, £13 - £16

Fri 23 Aug

OPEN MIC

Free music all day from acoustic to blues and rock. CRANACHAN

BANNERMANS, FROM 21:00, FREE

Classic rock covers from the 60s to present day.

HOCICO (HARBINGERS DRUM CREW + NIGHTMARE FREQUENCY)

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 18:30, £18

Mexican duo formed in 1003 by Erk Aicrag and Racso Agroyamlassic rock covers from the 60s to present day.

Mon 05 Aug CARRINGTON MACDUFFIE

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £7 - £9

New York native splitting her time between Austin and Seattle.

BURDS OF PARADISE (JAMES THE CREATURE + MISS RONYA)

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 22:00, FREE

Country singer from New York, hailed as “Shania’s successor”, who is also an advocate for transgender issues. RACHEL SERMANNI (JAMIE SUTHERLAND)

SUMMERHALL, FROM 19:00, £15

Rachel Sermanni is a dynamic singer and songwriter whose performance and lyrics draw from a deep well of mystic lore, dreams, nature and the experience of being human.

Sun 11 Aug OPEN MIC

BANNERMANS, FROM 15:00, FREE

Free music all day from acoustic to blues and rock. JED POTTS & THE HILLMAN HUNTERS

BANNERMANS, FROM 21:00, FREE

Tue 06 Aug

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £16.50

Punk legends hit Bannermans for an outstanding show

An improv jam for all female and non-binary performers organised by Edinburgh’s allfemale improv comedy group, Tinderellas.

DWARVES (UNION 13 + THE JACKHAMMERS + THE SHAN)

BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, £15

EWAN MACINTYRE BAND (TOBY MOTTERSHEAD)

LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, £8 - £10

Cowboy campfire sounds immersed in soulful attire. Celtic grooves meets jazz bar crooning.

TINDERELLAS PRESENT: WOMEN’S IMPROV COMEDY JAM

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, FROM 22:00, TBC

FUZZ BAT PRESENTS (DAMN TEETH + DR. VZX MOIST + CAT APOSTROPHE ON SAFARI)

THE SAFARI LOUNGE, FROM 19:30, £0 - £5

Fuzz Bat presents Damn Teeth, touring in support of their new album, with support from Dr. VZX Moist and Cat Apostrophe.

TOM MCGUIRE & THE BRASSHOLES

Eight-piece funk/soul powerhouse from Glasgow, making moves in the Scottish scene.

START TO END PERFORM TAYLOR SWIFT’S 1989

SUMMERHALL, FROM 23:00, £12

Some of Scotland’s leading young musicians come together as Start to End. Experience a live band’s interpretation of Taylor Swift’s 2014 breakthrough album 1989.

Sat 17 Aug

TYLA’S DOGS D’AMOUR

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £15 - £18

Celebrating 30 years of A Graveyard Of Empty Bottles and the main man's birthday. BOMBSKARE

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 19:00, £18.56

Scotland’s best part-time band bring a ska cavalcade. FEDERICO PUPPI (WOLFNOTE)

LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, £5 - £7

A concert that combines technology and tribal sounds. The result is a mix of world music, electronics, rock attitude and avant-garde jazz.

Sun 18 Aug OPEN MIC

BANNERMANS, FROM 15:00, FREE

Free music all day from acoustic to blues and rock. CRANACHAN

BANNERMANS, FROM 21:00, FREE

Classic rock covers from the 60s to present day.

JUPITER RISING

JUPITER ARTLAND, FROM 17:00, £65 - £100

A festival of cutting-edge music and performance set in the iconic Jupiter Artland sculpture park. THE KIOSK CLUB

LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, TBC

The Kiosk Club is a non-profit gig night for bands to meet, exchange ideas and network.

Sat 24 Aug AFTER THE END

BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, TBC

Black Sabbath tribute. OPEN MIC

BANNERMANS, FROM 15:00, FREE

Sat 03 Aug

BANNERMANS, FROM 21:00, FREE

CLARKS ON LINDSAY STREET, FROM 15:00, £5

CRANACHAN

Classic rock covers from the 60s to present day. FUZZ BAT PRESENTS (HOWIE REEVE + STUFRASM)

LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, TBC

Fuzz Bat presents Damn Teeth, touring in support of their new album, with support from Dr. VZX Moist and Cat Apostrophe.

Tue 27 Aug

CHANTEL MCGREGOR (STONEY BROKE)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £15 - £17

Yorkshire singer/songwriter working her virtuoso guitar magic on the blues genre.

LAURA JANE GRACE AND THE DEVOURING MOTHERS (FRANK IERO AND THE FUTURE VIOLENTS)

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 19:00, £22

The latest project from Laura Jane Grace, best known as the founder of punk rock band Against Me! GLORIA’S BASTARDS AND THE FREQUENCY (SALT)

LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, TBC

An intimate night featuring two epic bands. THE CRUEL INTENTIONS (KNOCK OUT KAINE + OHNOVA)

Edinburgh band, who use their different musical backgrounds and a wide variety of instrumentation to compliment the eclectic sound they create. REGGAE GOT SOUL

Thu 08 Aug MARTIN STEPHENSON

CLARKS ON LINDSAY STREET, FROM 19:00, £10

The Daintees’ frontman plays a solo show.

Sat 10 Aug HEADLAND

CHURCH, FROM 19:00, £10

Headland take to the stage this summer for their debut official tour.

Sun 11 Aug OUT ON THE FLOOR

CLARKS ON LINDSAY STREET, FROM 15:00, £6

Classic Northern Soul and Motown anthems featuring local band The Messarounds.

Thu 15 Aug STAN URBAN

CLARKS ON LINDSAY STREET, FROM 19:00, £10

The rock’n’roll fella stops by with his piano smarts for a night of 50s bangers.

CLARKS ON LINDSAY STREET, FROM 15:00, £10

LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, TBC

LOVE DISTRACTION

A folk night in aid of the Save Leith Walk campaign.

A tribute to The Human League

Thu 29 Aug

HEXIS (ZATOKREV + GAY PANIC DEFENCE)

TOMMY CONCRETE & THE WEREWOLVES (MASTIFF)

Wed 21 Aug

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £5

CONROY’S BASEMENT, FROM 19:30, £7 - £10

THE FAIM

Thu 29 Aug

Intense metal from the former Man Of The Hour frontman and all-round Edinburgh metal legend Tommy Concrete. SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £13

Current Rock Sound Breakout band, whose debut single was co-written by Pete Wentz. Remember him?

RYAN WYNESS (GREEN BEERS)

LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, TBC

The Copenhagen-based black metal outfit bring the noise Scotland’s way. ECHO MACHINE (DRAINPIPE + OTHER HUMANS)

CLARKS ON LINDSAY STREET, FROM 19:00, £8

Dundee quartet, made up of former members of The Mirror Trap.

Singer-songwriter whose folk/ punk songs cover the topics of alcohol, love, heartbreak, loneliness and constantly being tired.

Sat 31 Aug

Fri 30 Aug

Sun 01 Sep

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £7 - £10

CLARKS ON LINDSAY STREET, FROM 15:00, £5

MACMUSE

Scotland’s two great tributes to Muse and Rage Against the Machine join forces.

MULL HISTORICAL SOCIETY FEAT. BERNARD BUTLER

RATTLED AND HUMMIN’

CHURCH, FROM 19:00, £10

U2 tribute. HARD RAIN

The songs of Bob Dylan, live at Clarks.

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 19:00, £18.70

Tue 30 Jul

REFUGEE BENEFIT GIG

Funk, disco, boogie and house.

MHS returns to Edinburgh with special guest and legendary producer Bernard Butler. LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, TBC

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £5 - £10

BROKEN RECORDS

Break on through to the other side of that authentic 60s sound with Dundee band The Sixties.

LOUIS RIVE

JUPITER RISING

SUMMERHALL, FROM 19:00, £14

MODROPHENIA

Sun 18 Aug

Sat 31 Aug

A festival of cutting-edge music and performance set in the iconic Jupiter Artland sculpture park.

CHURCH, FROM 19:00, £15

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, TBC

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 19:00, £19.25

JUPITER ARTLAND, FROM 11:00, £65 - £100

THE TOTAL STONE ROSES

Stone Roses tribute.

Several bands and artists play a gig to raise funds for refugees and people in need.

Emo rockers hit the road, strained vocals all well and in place.

Fri 02 Aug

Mon 26 Aug

Free music all day from acoustic to blues and rock. MAYDAY PARADE

Dundee Music

A celebration of up-and-coming acoustic artists.

A night of killer sleaze and rock’n’roll.

GRANDMASTER FLASH

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £17 - £20

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 19:00, £12

ADAM WALLACE (OWEN-JACK SEMLEY + CAL BROWN)

LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, TBC

SUMMERHALL, FROM 19:30, £25

Fri 16 Aug PETE WAY BAND

A definitive homage to punk and new wave’s best, Blondie.

Wed 28 Aug

Alt trio from Edinburgh.

Legendary bass player, best known for his work in UFO and as a founding member of Waysted and Fastway.

DIRTY HARRY (PRETENDERS BY TALK OF THE TOWN)

The Irish Britpopsters play all the hits and live favourites of a 20+ year career.

Sun 04 Aug

Mon 02 Sep

The Tearaways have been a long time California staple, from their simple origins in the Santa Barbara indie scene back in 1981 to their current status as a touring and recording act.

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 19:00, £15

The New Zealand reggae-funk heavyweights return to the Northern Hemisphere.

Non-binary genderqueer collection of creatures in one blue body.

JESSAMINE

More intimate and electric blues from Potts and his merry band.

THE TEARAWAYS (RYAN HAMILTON AND THE HARLEQUIN GHOSTS)

THE BLACK SEEDS

Thu 08 Aug

Outrageous queer cabaret, drag and DJs playing everything from Grace Jones to ESG to The Waitresses to Razz.

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £7 - £11

North East singer-songwriter carving her name on the Scottish folk scene.

Mon 12 Aug

FOLK NIGHT (RYCHRAGGAN + WEIRD COUSINS + DOWALLY)

Sat 03 Aug

Acoustic Latin rhythms hosted by Portugese musicians, Sergio Prazeres and Mariana Moreira.

ROY ORIBSON AND THE TRAVELING WILBURYS TRIBUTE

BANNERMANS, FROM 15:00, FREE

Local artists play stripped back sets, before the public get to be the stars at karaoke.

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £20

DANNY JONES

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £5 - £8

Fri 30 Aug

PRESSURE VALVE UNPLUGGED

Dundee quartet, made up of former members of The Mirror Trap.

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, FROM 19:00, £7.50

Olly is without doubt one of the most gifted players of his generation.

Tue 30 Jul

Three-piece “mincecore” band from Oakland, California. Whatever next?!

Talented singer-songwriters Nicola Evans and Olivia Ennemoser invite local singers and songwriters to join them every week. OLLY CHALK TRIO

Edinburgh Music

Mon 19 Aug

FACE UP (SUCKERPUNCH)

Punk rock all the way.

THE FNORDS (SURF MUSCLE)

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, FROM 19:30, TBC

Edinburgh and Glasgow-born female-fronted trio, doing lovely things with the genres of garage and punk.

THE TROPICANAS (BARBE ROUSSE + MOONRUNNERS) LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, TBC

The Tropicanas are back to sooth all your troubles and worries away.

CRATER COVE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

#TAG TUESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

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

Wed 31 Jul

CATHOUSE WEDNESDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £4

DJ Jonny soundtracks your Wednesday with all the best pop-punk, rock and hip-hop. GLITTERED! WEDNESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

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

LEITH DEPOT, FROM 19:30, TBC

A night of dub, reggae and ska bangers.

THE SKINNY

Glasgow Clubs EUTONY SOUNDS OF THE 90S (JOHNNY5 + MAIN INGREDIENT + DNZ) LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £0 - £5

Sounds from the 90s, from gabber to techno and everything in between.

Thu 01 Aug STAR SIGNZ

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

Flamboyant disco dream weavers. UNHOLY

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £2 - £4

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, TBC

Ross MacMillan plays chart, house and anthems with giveaways, bouncy castles and, most importantly, air hockey. FOUNDRY (TORRENT + SOUTH HEIGHTS + CHANNEL SPUD)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £5

Foundry welcome Vis-A-Vis, with a live show from Torrent and DJ sets from South Heights and Channel Spud.

Fri 02 Aug GLITTERBANG

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

Disco divas and Euro-pop anthems for those ready to sweat. CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 22:30, £5 - £6

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £6

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

WE SHOULD HANG OUT MORE (SOUL CLAP) SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £10

The disco-styled night celebrate their fifth birthday with a string of special guests. MAGIC CITY: THIRD BIRTHDAY

THE BERKELEY SUITE, FROM 23:00, £6 - £8

SUBCULTURE (FORT ROMEAU)

UNHOLY

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, TBC

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £2 - £4

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic, oft’ joined by a carousel of super fresh guests. OR:LA (BRAIN DANCING)

THE BERKELEY SUITE, FROM 23:00, £6 - £10

Derry-born Or:la is a DJ with an all round killer sound that leans towards the broken beat techno side of the spectrum. GOVANHILL CARNIVAL AFTER PARTY

THE RUM SHACK, FROM 20:00, TBC

After all the excitement of carnival day at the Govanhill International Festival, get down to some tunes from around the world at The Rum Shack. I AM LOCO (DARMANI CORTEZ + SIE WALSH + TREV)

ROST, FROM 23:00, £4 - £6

I Am Loco returns to Glasgow at its new home of Rost, with a night full of the usual house and techno from resident DJs and special guests.

Sun 04 Aug NULL / VOID

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

Industrial goth rock disco. HELLBENT

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, TBC

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

Twister, beer pong and DJ Ciar McKinley on the ones and twos, serving up chart and remixes through the night. SUB CLUB PRESENTS (ANDREW WEATHERALL + TIMOTHY J. FAIRPLAY (LIVE) + TELFORD)

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £11

The Guv’nor Andrew Weatherall returns to the Sub Club alongside a live set from man-machine Timothy J. DABJ X JEROME HILL X POSTHUMAN

THE BERKELEY SUITE, FROM 23:00, £10

The hip-hop head’s haven celebrate their third birthday.

DABJ welcome Posthuman and Jerome Hill along to shake the Berkeley foundations on bank holiday Sunday.

THE RUM SHACK, FROM 21:00, £5

Mon 05 Aug

SKAKARA 002 (CRAMMOND + MAVEEN)

African, disco, soul, Brazilian funk and more from Crammond and Maveen.

Sat 03 Aug REALLY GREAT PEOPLE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

Dank hip-hop, pop and nu-metal bangers.

SHOOT YOUR SHOT: 5TH BIRTHDAY (CORMAC) SWG3, FROM 23:00, £7

Discotheque provocateurs SYS celebrate five years of taking you higher with a line-up of local and international guests. CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £6

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

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

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £5 - £8

Lezure welcome one of the UK’s most exciting up-and-comers, Danielle, to the La Cheetah Club basement bringing a bag of Bristol and Phonica-influenced fire.

BARE MONDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

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

Tue 06 Aug #TAG TUESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

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

Wed 07 Aug IT’S NOT A PHASE, MOM!

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

Nu-metal, pop-punk, emo and early 00s tunes. CATHOUSE WEDNESDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £4

DJ Jonny soundtracks your Wednesday with all the best pop-punk, rock and hip-hop. GLITTERED! WEDNESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

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

SUNNY SIDE UP (STRING THEORY)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £3

A charity club night focused on developing a more sustainable world and delivering quality music to dancefloors.

Thu 08 Aug SCIENCE FICTION

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

The Queens of the Glasgow disco scene, FKA Drugstore Glamour.

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, TBC

Ross MacMillan plays chart, house and anthems with giveaways, bouncy castles and, most importantly, air hockey. AFLOAT (SOUTHSIDE SOLIDARITY + AFLOAT RESIDENTS) LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £3

Afloat join forces with the Southside Solidarity residents.

Fri 09 Aug

ANNA & HOLLY’S DANCE PARTY

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

Rock’n’roll, garage and soul. CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 22:30, £5 - £6

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £6

Dance, chart and remixes in the main hall with Craig Guild, while DJ Nicola Walker keeps things nostalgic in G2 with flashback bangers galore. SOLID STATE (THE BURRELL CONNECTION B2B PARTS UNKNOWN)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £0 - £5

The Solid State bosses battle it out B2B all night long. Expect to be treated to forthcoming label cuts and unearthed gems all night long. RETURN TO MONO (HEADLESS HORSEMAN + SLAM)

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £10

Monthly night from Soma Records, often with special guests.

HEALTHY W/ AWESOME TAPES FROM AFRICA (TASH LC)

THE BERKELEY SUITE, FROM 23:00, £6

HEALTHY bring back Awesome Tapes from Africa for the third time, this time with BBC Radio 1Xtra’s Tash LC. POW PRESENTS (REBECCA VASMANT)

THE RUM SHACK, FROM 22:00, £5

Disco, Latin and jazz selections from Rebecca Vasmant and special guests.

Sat 10 Aug SHAKA LOVES YOU

Sun 11 Aug

MELTING POT WITH DETROIT SWINDLE & TIM SWEENEY (MELTING POT + WE SHOULD HANG OUT MORE + ALI OOFT!) QUEEN’S PARK, FROM 16:00, £15 - £20

Melting Pot and Heverlee Beer team up for a season of parties in Glasgow’s Queen’s Park Arena, this time with Detroit Swindle and Tim Sweeney. SESH

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

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

Mon 12 Aug BARE MONDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

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

Tue 13 Aug

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

LUNACY CREW (GORBALS NEBULA + JAMIE GILLESPIE + SEBASTIAN SWARM) LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £0 - £5

The Lunacy residents assemble for four hours of power.

SUBCULTURE (CONVEXTION (LIVE)) SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, TBC

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

Objekt continues his Wormhole residency, this time joined by DEBONAIR.

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £6

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

Sat 24 Aug GROG

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

Join Glasgow’s notorious drag monster Puke for their newest and queerest party in town. SONGS YA BASS XXV

BUFF CLUB, FROM 19:00, FREE

Wed 14 Aug

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

Rock’n’roll, and 50s and 60s bangers.

Monthly soul party playing Motown, ska, Northern Soul and more.

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £4

Sun 18 Aug

RETRONIC W/ FRANKIE ELYSE

CATHOUSE WEDNESDAYS

DJ Jonny soundtracks your Wednesday with all the best pop-punk, rock and hip-hop. GLITTERED! WEDNESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

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

Thu 15 Aug PRAY 4 LOVE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

All love songs + all bangers. UNHOLY

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £2 - £4

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, TBC

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

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £0 - £5

SUBCULTURE

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic, oft’ joined by a carousel of super fresh guests. THE RUM SHACK, FROM 21:00, £3

CHEERS FOR THIRD SUNDAY

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, TBC

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

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

Mon 19 Aug BARE MONDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

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

Tue 20 Aug #TAG TUESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

Fri 16 Aug

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

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

Wed 21 Aug

Beans + Divine explore the hits on 7” vinyl. CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 22:30, £5 - £6

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £6

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

PARTIAL X 12TH ISLE (ROBERT BERGMAN + 12TH ISLE + PARTIAL RESIDENTS)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £5 - £8

Partial and 12th Isle join forces to bring Rush Hour affiliate Robert Bergman to the club.

WE SHOULD HANG OUT MORE (LATE NITE TUFF GUY) SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £9 - £15

The disco-styled night celebrate their fifth birthday with a string of special guests.

Sat 17 Aug

THE LANCE VANCE DANCE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

Exotic dreamy disco.

LOOSEN UP (FERGUS CLARK + CHARLIE MCCANN + DAVID BARBAROSSA) THE RUM SHACK, FROM 22:00, £4

Afro, disco and fun times.

August 2019

I LOVE GARAGE

CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 22:30, £5 - £6

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £6

SINGLES NIGHT

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £6

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

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

Bangers ripe and ready for your enjoyment.

MOJO WORKIN’ (FELONIOUS MUNK)

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

QUEEN’S PARK, FROM 16:00, £20

Melting Pot and Heverlee Beer team up for a season of parties in Glasgow’s Queen’s Park Arena, this time with Mr Scruff.

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

EASY PEELERS

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, TBC

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

Hip-hop and live percussion flanked by wicked visuals.

MELTING POT WITH MR SCRUFF (ANDREW DIVINE + MELTING POT)

Pretty Ugly and Spirit In The Dark DJs assemble to bring you a night filled with their ultimate disco, pop and electro heroes.

Fri 23 Aug

Marketed as ‘the club night for people who don’t really go clubbing anymore’, Songs Ya Bass takes in punter-generated requests before finishing at the beauty-sleep-friendly hour of 11pm.

#TAG TUESDAYS

The Pala residents takeover La Cheetah Club for the full four hours.

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

OBSESSION: SUPERLOVE SWG3, FROM 23:00, £4 - £5

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

DON’T BE GUTTED

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

All-out decadence in the name of euphoria. CATHOUSE WEDNESDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £4

DJ Jonny soundtracks your Wednesday with all the best pop-punk, rock and hip-hop. GLITTERED! WEDNESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

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

ATTENTION//PLEASE X HECTORS (HANDMADE + ATTENTION// PLEASE RESIDENTS) LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £3 - £5

A//P team up with close Edinburgh pals and Cab Vol royalty Hectors for a summer showdown with their resident’s Handmade.

Thu 22 Aug BREAKFAST CLUB

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

An 80s mega-mix party. UNHOLY

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £2 - £4

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, TBC

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

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £5 - £8

Electric Salsa invites good friends and local heavyweights Schematic GLA to the booth! SUB CLUB SOUNDSYSTEM 2019

BARRAS ART AND DESIGN, FROM 14:00, £35 - £70

Sub Club bring their annual alldayer back to BAaD. Party vibes right through. SUBCULTURE: SUB CLUB SOUNDSYSTEM AFTERPARTY

CATHOUSE WEDNESDAYS

SESH

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £4

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

DJ Jonny soundtracks your Wednesday with all the best pop-punk, rock and hip-hop. GLITTERED! WEDNESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

DJ Garry Garry Garry in G2 with chart remixes, along with beer pong competitions all night. EUTONY (KAI + EUTONY RESIDENTS)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £0 - £3

Eutony residents bring along upcoming local KAI for a four hour techno takeover. UNHOLY

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £2 - £4

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, TBC

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

RUSH (WRISK + BASH MAN + MI$$ CO$MIX + JOHNNY5)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £0 - £5

RUSH welcome Overground boss Wrisk to take you to a world beyond with furious acid, techno and breaks.

Fri 30 Aug

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £6

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

LA CHEETAH RESIDENTS (WARDY + DOM D’SYLVA) LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £0 - £5

Wardy & Dom D’Sylva complete the trilogy of the La Cheetah residency.

Sat 31 Aug SHAKA LOVES YOU

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

Hip-hop and live percussion flanked by wicked visuals.

SESH

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

SUB CLUB SOUNDSYSTEM 2019

BARRAS ART AND DESIGN, FROM 14:00, £35 - £70

Sub Club bring their annual alldayer back to BAaD. Party vibes right through. SUBCULTURE: SUB CLUB SOUNDSYSTEM AFTERPARTY

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, TBC

Keep the party going after Subbie’s annual all-dayer at BAaD.

Mon 26 Aug BARE MONDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

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

Tue 27 Aug #TAG TUESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

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

Wed 28 Aug FREAK LIKE ME

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

Soul, hip-hop and funk.

HECTOR’S HOUSE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £6

Since May 2012, Hector’s House (known affectionately to many as Hector’s) has become Edinburgh’s stalwart midweek shindig, drawing in capacity crowds each and every Tuesday. TRASH

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

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

Wed 31 Jul WILD ONES

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, TBC

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

Tue 30 Jul

CATHOUSE, FROM 22:30, £5 - £6

Sun 25 Aug

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

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

Perfect blend of modern club chart, and 90s and 00s guilty pleasures.

CLUB TROPICANA

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

Classic rock through the ages from DJ Nicola Walker.

BARE MONDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

80s Miami Vice worship party.

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

SLIDE IT IN

Mon 02 Sep

Thu 29 Aug

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, TBC

Keep the party going after Subbie’s annual all-dayer at BAaD.

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

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £6

I LOVE GARAGE

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, TBC

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic, oft’ joined by a carousel of super fresh guests. MARSHALL JEFFERSON (OOFT!)

THE BERKELEY SUITE, FROM 23:00, £6 - £8

One of house music’s earliest hitmakers Marshall Jefferson is in town to lay out the sound of Chicago. RUMSHACK STEVE PRESENTS JAKE MILLER

THE RUM SHACK, FROM 20:00, £5

Rumshack Steve invites Flashback Recs / Balamii’s Jake Miller for a night of reggae, dub, dancehall, ska, rocksteady and other Jamaican bass transmissions.

Sun 01 Sep HELLBENT

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, TBC

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

HEATERS (RAMZI + 12TH ISLE)

Heaters resident C-Shaman presents a month of ambiguous local showdowns, purveying the multifarious mischief that characterises Sneaky’s midweek party haven.

Thu 01 Aug

TASTY: INDEPENDENCE DAY

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Go red, white and blue for our friends across the pond. Two rooms of club and student anthems. POPULAR MUSIC

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £1 - £3

DJs playing music by bands to make you dance: Grace Jones to Neu!, Parquet Courts to Brian Eno, The Clash to Janelle Monae. THE OTHER GUY PRESENTS

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 22:00, FREE

The Other Guy host an evening of earthly delights playing other people’s music and drinking other people’s drinks.

Fri 02 Aug

FLY: MITCHELL STREET (JASPER JAMES + GIDEON)

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, £10 - £14

A Mitchell Street record label showcase from Jasper James. FLIP: HIVE TIL FIVE BEGINS

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, £0 - £4

An Edinburgh Festival institution returns for another year. TWEAK_ (CARL CRAIG + JAMIE 3:26 + NSA)

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 22:00, £10 - £25

Festival opening party from the Tweak_ lot. MISS WORLD: ALL STARS

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5

This month’s Miss World is a bumper edition: pan-genre, patriarchy-defying and packed with pageantry. SHOOT YOUR SHOT (CORMAC + LEZZER QUEST)

SUMMERHALL, FROM 23:00, £10 - £12

Discotheque provocateurs SYS take you higher with Djs spinning Italo and more alongside queer cabaret and performance. SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER: BOOGIE WONDERLAND

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 23:00, £6 - £10

Step into an audio-visual disco experience, transforming La Belle Angele into the Night Club ‘2001 Odyssey’ in the year 1979. HEADSET (RIBEKA + MOTHER + PERKO + PARTIAL)

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, £5 - £8

Headset takes over the entire Mash House every Friday of the festival with special guests and local talent across four rooms.

Listings

Edinburgh Clubs JACUZZI GENERAL PRESENTS… BEAT LAUNDRY PARADISE PALMS, FROM 22:00, FREE

The General brings Beat Laundry to the party to help him fill the dancefloor and wash all his towels.

Sat 03 Aug PLEASURE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £8

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

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, FROM 23:00, TBC

DJs Russ, Steven and Lee select a rich pallete of sounds, all spun from wax. BUBBLEGUM

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, £0 - £4

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

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 22:30, £4 - £5

MIDNIGHT BASS THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, TBC

Edinburgh’s dedicated midweek drum’n’bass night.

Wed 07 Aug WILD ONES

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Perfect blend of modern club chart, and 90s and 00s guilty pleasures. HEATERS (C-SHAMAN)

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £3 - £5

Heaters resident C-Shaman presents a month of ambiguous local showdowns, purveying the multifarious mischief that characterises Sneaky’s midweek party haven. FRESH AIR: BO$$Y

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, £4 - £5

BO$$Y is back with a night of all female/non-binary DJs playing all female/non-binary artists. SHOOT YOUR SHOT

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 22:00, FREE

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

Discotheque provocateurs SYS take you higher with Djs spinning Italo and more alongside queer cabaret and performance.

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 23:30, £11.25

Thu 08 Aug

TASTE 25

Taste celebrates its 25th anniversary with the original 1994 DJ line up of Fisher & Price and Martin Valentine playing an eclectic mix of tunes from 1994 to 2019. HEAL YOURSELF AND MOVE

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5

Travel into the outer with a night curated by Firecracker Recordings. RHYTHM MACHINE

SUMMERHALL, FROM 23:00, £6

TASTY

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Delicious start to the weekend with a chart, R’n’B and club anthem flavour. DJ YODA

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 00:00, £11 - £13.20

The sampler extraordinaire returns to Edinburgh. POPULAR MUSIC

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £1 - £3

JACUZZI GENERAL PRESENTS… FREDDIE PARADISE PALMS, FROM 22:00, FREE

Jacuzzi General is joined by Freddie to keep everyone dancing into the early hours. Bucky Daiquiri’s on tap.

Sat 10 Aug PLEASURE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £8

Regular Saturday night at Cab Vol, with residents and occasional special guests. THE HIVE’S 12TH BIRTHDAY

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, £0 - £4

Happy Birthday to The Hive! Free cake, balloons and presents, soundtracked by chart, R’n’B and pop. CITRUS

WEE RED BAR, FROM 23:00, £5

RIVIERA PARADISO (ANDREA MONTALTO + ICED GEM)

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 22:00, FREE

Beatroots resident Iced Gem joins Riviera resident Andrea Montalto for a night of world grooves.

Sun 04 Aug SUNDAY CLUB

THE OTHER GUY PRESENTS

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 22:00, FREE

The Other Guy host an evening of earthly delights playing other people’s music and drinking other people’s drinks.

Fri 09 Aug

FLY FRINGE (LA LA + LIAM DOC)

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, £10 - £12

SUMMERHALL, FROM 23:00, £6

Rhythm Machine is a night of dance music and performance art, with DJs Yves, William Francis and guests playing dance music from around the world.

LET’S GO BACK TO ACID HOUSE (YOGI HOUGHTON + BOSCO + ACID ULTRAS (LIVE))

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 23:00, £6 - £10

Playing house, acid, techno and hip-hop from 1986-1990. DISTRACTION

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, TBC

FIRST EDITION: KORNÉL KOVÁCS

DJ, producer and one third of Stockholm’s Studio Barnhus crew, Kornél Kovács returns to Edinburgh. C-SHAMAN

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 22:00, FREE

Local up-and-comer C-Shaman brings his mischevious style to the party oasis. Classics, groovers and straight up party heaters all night long.

Sun 11 Aug SUNDAY CLUB

THE HIVE, FROM 22:30, FREE

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

The Edinburgh and Glasgowstraddling night throw a Fringe party with residents La La and Liam Doc.

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

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, FREE

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, £0 - £4

Believe presents the best in bass DJs from Edinburgh at his weekly Sunday communion.

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

COALITION

Believe presents the best in bass DJs from Edinburgh at his weekly Sunday communion.

Mon 05 Aug MIXED UP

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Monday-brightening mix of hip-hop, R’n’B and chart classics, with requests in the back room. HEADSET’S GAY GARAGE

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5

Headset bring their Gay Garage party to Sneaky’s for a monthlong residency, playing garage, house and UK funky.

Tue 06 Aug HECTOR’S HOUSE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, TBC

Since May 2012, Hector’s House (known affectionately to many as Hector’s) has become Edinburgh’s stalwart midweek shindig, drawing in capacity crowds each and every Tuesday. TRASH

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

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

Listings

FLIP

Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and novelty-stuffed. Perrrfect. PLEASUREDOME

WEE RED BAR, FROM 23:00, £5

Funk, disco and oh-so-soulful house. HOT MESS

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £6

Hot Mess is a hot and messy queer rave. Non-stop bangers and mash, selected and sequenced with love by Simonotron. OPTIMO (ESPACIO)

SUMMERHALL, FROM 23:00, £10 - £12

Renowned for their visionary and exploratory musical approach during DJ sets, the legendary duo of JD Twitch and JG Wilkes return to Summerhall. SHOOT YOUR SHOT

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

Discotheque provocateurs SYS take you higher with Djs spinning Italo and more alongside queer cabaret and performance. HEADSET (ROSKA + MESSENGER SOUND SYSTEM + HOTLINE)

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, £5 - £8

Headset takes over the entire Mash House every Friday of the festival with special guests and local talent across four rooms.

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £3 - £5

Heaters resident C-Shaman presents a month of ambiguous local showdowns, purveying the multifarious mischief that characterises Sneaky’s midweek party haven. FRESH AIR: NIGHT FEVER

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, £4 - £5

Night Fever is back for another night of classic 70s grooves and a celebration of queerness.

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, £0 - £4

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

WEE RED BAR, FROM 23:00, £5

Edinburgh’s finest LGBT+ club night, playing the best synthpop, electro-pop and Hi-NRG from the 80s to the present day. Nothing is too cheesy, nothing is too camp, nothing is too queer. MAGIC NOSTALGIC

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 23:00, TBC

RHYTHM MACHINE

SAMEDIA SHEBEEN

As always Samedia play music spanning Afrobeat, Latin, kuduru, dancehall, samba, soca, cumbia and beyond.

HEATERS (CAP’N GOODTIMES)

BUBBLEGUM

Delicious start to the weekend with a chart, R’n’B and club anthem flavour.

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, £10 - £14

Shapework returns for a weekly residency throughout the festival, showcasing the sound of Edinburgh’s underground.

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Perfect blend of modern club chart, and 90s and 00s guilty pleasures.

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £8

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

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, £3 - £5

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, £5 - £7

WILD ONES

PLEASURE

Thu 15 Aug

TEESH

Trance and electronic dance music night.

SHAPEWORK (PALIDRONE + CALUM ARCHIBALD)

Wed 14 Aug

The first in a series of cosmic parties, with My Own Jupiter founder Nicolas Lutz.

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £6

An all you can eat mind buffet of cosmic sounds and visuals with DJ Cheers.

Eclectic underground bass music.

A chunk of the next wave of Scottish talent in dance music.

Edinburgh’s dedicated midweek drum’n’bass night.

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £8

Discotheque provocateurs SYS take you higher with Djs spinning Italo and more alongside queer cabaret and performance.

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 23:00, £3 - £9

CTRL Z

MIDNIGHT BASS

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, TBC

AC #1 (NICOLAS LUTZ + ALIEN COMMUNICATIONS)

Shit gets nostalgic at The Liquid Room, with noughties, nineties and throwbacks galore.

BRING IT ALL BACK

DJs playing music by bands to make you dance: Grace Jones to Neu!, Parquet Courts to Brian Eno, The Clash to Janelle Monae. THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, TBC

Get in the mood for summer festivals before setting off, or make up for not going. Rock, pop-punk, metal and indie.

Sat 17 Aug

At Magic Nostalgic every half an hour a crowd member is invited up on stage to spin a wheel. Wherever it lands determines what kind of music gets played for the next 30 mins, be it Brit pop, power ballads or Prince vs MJ. Oh, the delicious spontaneity.

A legendary night of indie tunes, 60s beat and soul and a little bit of whatever else.

Rhythm Machine is a night of dance music and performance art, with DJs Yves, William Francis and guests playing dance music from around the world. CAROUSE: PURE SCOTTISH VA

TRASH: SUMMER FESTS PREPARTY THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

COALITION

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, FREE

Mon 12 Aug MIXED UP

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Monday-brightening mix of hip-hop, R’n’B and chart classics, with requests in the back room. HEADSET’S GAY GARAGE

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5

Headset bring their Gay Garage party to Sneaky’s for a monthlong residency, playing garage, house and UK funky. PETER BAECKER LIVE

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 22:00, FREE

SHOOT YOUR SHOT

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 22:00, FREE

TASTY

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

POPULAR MUSIC

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £1 - £3

DJs playing music by bands to make you dance: Grace Jones to Neu!, Parquet Courts to Brian Eno, The Clash to Janelle Monae. SHAPEWORK

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, £3 - £5

Shapework returns for a weekly residency throughout the festival, showcasing the sound of Edinburgh’s underground. THE OTHER GUY PRESENTS

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 22:00, FREE

Rhythm Machine is a night of dance music and performance art, with DJs Yves, William Francis and guests playing dance music from around the world. ALL NIGHT PASSION

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, FREE

A journey through disco, love and magic, inspired by the classic sounds of pioneers from America, Germany and Italy. OVERGROUND

Fri 16 Aug

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 22:00, FREE

BOILER ROOM EDINBURGH: FRINGE SPECIAL (PEACH + PERCY MAIN + KIERAN APTER)

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, £10 - £16

Boiler Room return to Cab Vol for another live-streamed party in the basement. FLIP

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, £0 - £4

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

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, TBC

DOUBLE IMPACT W/ KIPP$ AND PICA$$O

Nearly 25 years after seeing their fathers records stolen by a Hong Kong crime boss these brothers are reunited to do what they do best – play music from USBs. AMBIDECKSTROUS

LEITH DEPOT, FROM 20:30, TBC

Funky house DJs back at Leith Depot.

Sun 18 Aug SUNDAY CLUB

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

HECTOR’S HOUSE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, TBC

Since May 2012, Hector’s House (known affectionately to many as Hector’s) has become Edinburgh’s stalwart midweek shindig, drawing in capacity crowds each and every Tuesday. TRASH

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Alternative Tuesday anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more. MIDNIGHT BASS

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, TBC

Edinburgh’s dedicated midweek drum’n’bass night.

Wed 21 Aug WILD ONES

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Perfect blend of modern club chart, and 90s and 00s guilty pleasures. HEATERS (PERCY MAIN)

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £3 - £5

Heaters resident C-Shaman presents a month of ambiguous local showdowns, purveying the multifarious mischief that characterises Sneaky’s midweek party haven. FRESH AIR: DANCE WIV ME

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, £4 - £5

Dance Wiv Me is back with a night of unapologetic 00s classics from genres across the decade. SHOOT YOUR SHOT

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 22:00, FREE

Discotheque provocateurs SYS take you higher with Djs spinning Italo and more alongside queer cabaret and performance.

Thu 22 Aug TASTY

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Delicious start to the weekend with a chart, R’n’B and club anthem flavour. POPULAR MUSIC

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £1 - £3

DJs playing music by bands to make you dance: Grace Jones to Neu!, Parquet Courts to Brian Eno, The Clash to Janelle Monae. SHAPEWORK

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, £3 - £5

JACUZZI GENERAL PRESENTS… BEAT LAUNDRY (JACUZZI GENERAL AND BEAT LAUNDRY) PARADISE PALMS, FROM 22:00, FREE

The General brings Beat Laundry to the party to help him fill the dancefloor and wash all his towels.

Sat 24 Aug PLEASURE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £8

Regular Saturday night at Cab Vol, with residents and occasional special guests. DES WAS A BOWIE FAN

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, FROM 22:00, £4 - £6

The London club night makes its Edinburgh debut – expect indiepop, new wave, post-punk, 60s Pop and Northern Soul. BUBBLEGUM

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, £0 - £4

Saturday mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics thrown in for good measure. NIGHTVISION X KÖLSCH PRESENTS IPSO

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 23:00, £18.56 - £27.56

The Kompakt regular and producer behind 2014 hit anthem Cassiopeia plays a headline set. DEFINITION

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £0 - £5

Underground house and techno inspired by the likes of Sonar, Berghain, Fabric and Pressure from our residents Mark Balneaves and Marty Lightbody. RHYTHM MACHINE

SUMMERHALL, FROM 23:00, £6

Rhythm Machine is a night of dance music and performance art, with DJs Yves, William Francis and guests playing dance music from around the world. PALIDRONE: JOSEY REBELLE (96 BACK + SKILLIS)

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £12

Palidrone bring Rinse FM resident and in-demand DJ Josey Rebelle to The Mash House for their Edinburgh festival debut. METROPOLIS SCOTLAND’S DNB SOUNDCLASH

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:00, £3.50 - £5

Metropolis bring you the finest in Scottish D’n’B and jungle for the the soundclash of the century. MAYHEM

Shapework returns for a weekly residency throughout the festival, showcasing the sound of Edinburgh’s underground.

A night of unrelenting hardcore, hard techno and gabber.

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 22:00, FREE

THE OTHER GUY PRESENTS

The Other Guy host an evening of earthly delights playing other people’s music and drinking other people’s drinks.

Fri 23 Aug

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, £5 - £8

THE OTHER GUY PRESENTS... LINKWOOD

Firecracker Recordings’ Linkwood joins Palms resident femme duo The Other Guy for a night of jacking house and oddball techno.

FLY: BEAUTIFUL STRANGERS (THEO KOTTIS + DAN SHAKE)

Sun 25 Aug

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, £10 - £12

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

SUNDAY CLUB

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

WEE RED BAR, FROM 23:00, £5

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

Hometown hero Theo Kottis invites Dan Shake to join him at his Beautiful Strangers party.

ATHENS OF THE NORTH DISCO CLUB

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, FREE

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, £0 - £4

Believe presents the best in bass DJs from Edinburgh at his weekly Sunday communion.

PLEASUREDOME

Mon 26 Aug

PLEASUREDOME

Funk, disco and oh-so-soulful house. SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5

Edinburgh’s finest gem-digging, discogs destroying re-issue label goes real world once again. Rare records that’ll make you dance, guaranteed. DISCO. MAKOSSA (AROOP ROY)

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 23:00, £6 - £10

Samedia Shebeen’s occasional returns for a one-off Edinburgh Fringe 5am session featuring a guest set from Aroop Roy (Kampana Classics / GAMM). DECADE: DISNEY PARTY

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 23:00, £6 - £10

Pop-punk, emo and party anthems. HEADSET (HODGE + DEBONAIR + LEFT HAND PATH)

Tue 13 Aug

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 22:00, FREE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, TBC

RHYTHM MACHINE

SUMMERHALL, FROM 23:00, £6

Lo-fi raw house and techno.

Headset takes over the entire Mash House every Friday of the festival with special guests and local talent across four rooms.

Since May 2012, Hector’s House (known affectionately to many as Hector’s) has become Edinburgh’s stalwart midweek shindig, drawing in capacity crowds each and every Tuesday.

Step into Luxury Italian Holiday Resort Club Mediterraneo, a new luxury cruise package at Sneaky Pete’s designed to sweat your troubles out.

The Other Guy host an evening of earthly delights playing other people’s music and drinking other people’s drinks.

The Germanic 80s lovechild wears a silver leotard whilst playing music from his childhood and whipping the audience first into awkward unease and then into an ecstatic frenzy. HECTOR’S HOUSE

CLUB MEDITERRANEO (JOSEPH RUSSELL)

Tue 20 Aug

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, £5 - £8

JACUZZI GENERAL PRESENTS…

A mystical night of electronic goodness. Jacuzzi General will provide the guests, the beats and the bubbles. Factor 50 advised.

COALITION

FLIP

Believe presents the best in bass DJs from Edinburgh at his weekly Sunday communion.

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

SUMMERHALL, FROM 23:00, £5

Funk, disco and oh-so-soulful house.

INCINERATOR ARTIST PARTY (MISS WORLD + THE ROYAL DICK + GNOMATRON + DOZEN DRAFT)

Heat will rise for one night only to ignite The Dissection Room with fed-after-midnight electro disco, homegrown in Summerhall’s last industrial graveyard.

Mon 19 Aug MIXED UP

WEE RED BAR, FROM 23:00, £5

EH-FM: 1ST BIRTHDAY!

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

Your favourite local community station is turning one! Celebrate with presenters and EH-FM family all night long, with all proceeds going to community radio.

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

BALKANARAMA

HEADSET’S GAY GARAGE

All singing, all dancing Balkan orgy, plus belly dancing and free brandy. As in, we’re sold.

Monday-brightening mix of hip-hop, R’n’B and chart classics, with requests in the back room. SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5

Headset bring their Gay Garage party to Sneaky’s for a monthlong residency, playing garage, house and UK funky.

SUMMERHALL, FROM 22:30, £12

JACKHAMMER (BEN SIMS + DJ DEEON + KEYTE + WOLFJAZZ)

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 23:00, £10 - £15

Jackhammer’s annual summer festival Dance Mania special. HEADSET (SLOAN + DCLN B2B SKILLIS + APHID + WECHT)

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:30, £5 - £8

Headset takes over the entire Mash House every Friday of the festival with special guests and local talent across four rooms.

COALITION

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, FREE

Wed 28 Aug WILD ONES

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Perfect blend of modern club chart, and 90s and 00s guilty pleasures.

HEATERS (PEAKY BLINDRUNK)

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £3 - £5

Heaters resident C-Shaman presents a month of ambiguous local showdowns, purveying the multifarious mischief that characterises Sneaky’s midweek party haven.

Thu 29 Aug TASTY

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Delicious start to the weekend with a chart, R’n’B and club anthem flavour. POPULAR MUSIC

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £1 - £3

DJs playing music by bands to make you dance: Grace Jones to Neu!, Parquet Courts to Brian Eno, The Clash to Janelle Monae.

Fri 30 Aug FLY X TONTO

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, £10

FLY welcome popular Edinburgh party crew Tonto for a Cab Vol takeover. FLIP

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, £0 - £4

Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and novelty-stuffed. Perrrfect. SKOOP

WEE RED BAR, FROM 23:00, £5

Skoop is an Edinburgh-based collective focused around experimental hip-hop and electronic music in all shapes and sizes. LIONOIL (PERCY MAIN)

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

Label boss Percy Main takes control of Sneaks all night for the first time in five years of Lionoil. GREENHOUSE (ZALTAN + DJ SUNDAE + MR TC)

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 23:00, £10 - £15

Greenhouse welcome super selectors Zaltan and DJ Sundae alongside Glasgow’s best kept secret, MR TC.

LF X OUTLOOK FESTIVAL (ARIES + MC FOX)

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:00, £8 - £10

Liquid Funktion host the official Outlook Festival Edinburgh Launch Party for the final year at Fort Punta Christo.

Sat 31 Aug PLEASURE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £8

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

BUBBLEGUM: PRIDE EDINBURGH

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, £0 - £4

Everyone is welcome! Rainbows and dancing. Chart, R’n’B and pop. RIDE

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5

Live fast die yung, Ride gals do it well. Teacha El and Checkyer Strides play 00s R'n'B and 90s hip -hop and put their lighters up. METROPOLIS

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:00, TBC

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Metropolis deliver the best in house, techno, disco, garage, D’n’B, bass and jungle.

HEADSET’S GAY GARAGE

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:00, TBC

MIXED UP: HIVE TIL FIVE ENDS

The last chance to survive Hive Til Five. SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5

Headset bring their Gay Garage party to Sneaky’s for a monthlong residency, playing garage, house and UK funky.

Tue 27 Aug HECTOR’S HOUSE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, TBC

Since May 2012, Hector’s House (known affectionately to many as Hector’s) has become Edinburgh’s stalwart midweek shindig, drawing in capacity crowds each and every Tuesday. TRASH

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

PULSE

Slamming techno from guests and Pulse residents Darrell Harding and Sean Laird.

Sun 01 Sep SUNDAY CLUB

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

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

Mon 02 Sep MIXED UP

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

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

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

THE SKINNY

Theatre

Comedy

Art

Glasgow Theatre

Dundee Rep

Oran Mor

ANDREW BLACK: ETERNITY KNOCKER

14-17 AUG, 7:30PM, £10 - £15

25 AUG, 4:00PM, £12

The King’s Theatre GREASE

27-31 AUG, TIMES VARY, £13 - £55

Frothy musical favourite featuring leather clad limbs and hopelessly devoted high schoolers. THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW

12-17 AUG, TIMES VARY, £13 - £67.50

EVITA

The creative lovechild of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber which tells the story of Eva Peron, wife of former Argentine dictator Juan Peron. 27 AUG-21 SEP, TIMES VARY, £12 - £25

The King’s Theatre

TAY BRIDGE

Tay Bridge is a heartfelt and moving portrait of an era, and of a group of people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The latest incarnation of the favourited rock’n’roll musical heads our way.

The Gardyne Theatre

7-10 AUG, TIMES VARY, £13 - £50

21-24 AUG, 7:30PM, £10 - £15

HAIR THE MUSICAL

A bunch of hippies celebrating peace and love in late 1960s New York, in the shadow of the Vietnam War. MADAGASCAR THE MUSICAL

1-4 AUG, TIMES VARY, £13 - £57.90

This smash hit musical features all of your favourite crack-alackin’ friends as they escape from their home in New York’s Central Park Zoo.

CATS

One of many musical sensations from Andrew Lloyd-Webber.

Whitehall Theatre 42ND STREET

28-31 AUG, 7:30PM, £10 - £15

Retelling of the timeless tale of small town Peggy Sawyer’s rise from chorine to Broadway star.

SOME GUYS HAVE ALL THE LUCK

25 AUG, 7:30PM, £20.50 - £25.50

Brand new theatrical production celebrating the career of one of rock’s greatest icons, Rod Stewart. AMÉLIE THE MUSICAL

Glasgow Comedy

19-24 AUG, TIMES VARY, £13 - £48.90

A new musical based on the much loved five-time Oscarnominated film.

Theatre Royal ABBA MANIA

4 AUG, 7:30PM, £13 - £42

Internationally touring celebration of Sweden’s most famous export. STAGE EXPERIENCE: GUYS AND DOLLS JR.

2-3 AUG, TIMES VARY, £13 - £33.90

Expect sequins, New Yawkers and sit-down-you’re-rockingthe-boat galore in this amateur production of Guys and Dolls.

Dundee Theatre Caird Hall

RHYTHM OF THE DANCE

10 AUG, 7:30PM, £24 - £26

A fully live show that celebrates Irish culture through music and dance.

NEWS HACKS

Writer of the long-running hit topical radio show Watson’s Wind Up, Rikki Brown presents a fresh take on the news and those making the news.

Drygate Brewing Co. BREW HAHA!

4 AUG, 8:00PM, £4 - £5

Spend your Sunday enjoying some of Scotland’s finest comic talent.

Glee Club

FRIDAY NIGHT COMEDY

2-30 AUG, 7:00PM, £8 - £20

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

3-31 AUG, 7:00PM, PRICES VARY

An evening of award-winning comedy, with four superb standup comedians that will keep you laughing until Monday. LOL (LADIES OF LAUGHTER)

18 AUG, 7:00PM, £15

Join Noreen Khan as she hosts a night of comedy with some of the UK and Edinburgh Fringe’s favourite female acts.

O2 Academy Glasgow NICK OFFERMAN: ALL RISE AMERICAN HUMORIST

28 AUG, TIMES VARY, £31.70

The Parks & Recreation star will deliver an evening of talking and light dance that will have you laughing all the way home.

PAUL SMITH

11 AUG, 8:00PM, £23.65

From circuit act to one of the biggest selling names in UK stand up in less than a year, Paul Smith returns with his second national tour show.

The Rum Shack GREATER SHAWLANDS REPUBLIC COMEDY SHOW

8 AUG, 7:30PM, TBC

Bruce Morton and Jim Monaghan host another GSR Comedy night featuring special comedy guests.

The Stand Glasgow RED RAW

6-27 AUG, 8:30PM, £3

Legendary new material night with up to 10 acts. Every Monday in Edinburgh and Tuesday in Glasgow. THE THURSDAY SHOW

29 AUG, 8:30PM, £5 - £10

Start the weekend early with five comedians.

RAYMOND MEARNS: CONFESSIONS OF A CONTROL FREAK 31 JUL, 8:30PM, £5

Just another day in the life of Raymond Mearns, an argumentative, raging, judgmental, grammar Nazi. MR FIBBERS: BACK IN TUNE

4 AUG, 3:00PM, £5

Mr Fibbers is back and funnier than ever with a show packed with jokes, games and comedy songs that kids just love. FRANKIE BOYLE: WORK IN PROGESS

4-12 AUG, 6:00PM, £12 - £15

Leading Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle tries out some new material. MANDY KNIGHT’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

15-17 AUG, 9:00PM, PRICES VARY

Fed up missing out on all the Fringe action in Edinburgh? The Stand bring the best of the Fringe to the west coast.

GILL SIMS: WHY MUMMY DOESN’T GIVE A ****!

21 AUG, 7:30PM, £15

Author of online sensation Peter and Jane, Gill Sims is the number one best-selling author behind the ‘Why Mummy...’ series.

Tron Theatre

RACHEL JACKSON AND FRIENDS

31 JUL, 8:30PM, £8.50

A brand new comedy show hosted by Rachel Jackson, with a changing line-up of comedians.

THE FRIDAY SHOW

30 AUG, 8:30PM, £6 - £12

The big weekend show with five comedians. THE SATURDAY SHOW

31 AUG, 9:00PM, £17.50

The big weekend show with five comedians. MICHAEL REDMOND’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

4-25 AUG, 9:00PM, £5 - £6

Fed up missing out on all the Fringe action in Edinburgh? The Stand bring the best of the Fringe to the west coast. BILLY KIRKWOOD’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

7-24 AUG, 9:00PM, PRICES VARY

Fed up missing out on all the Fringe action in Edinburgh? The Stand bring the best of the Fringe to the west coast. JOJO SUTHERLAND’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

9 AUG-8 SEP, 9:00PM, PRICES VARY

Fed up missing out on all the Fringe action in Edinburgh? The Stand bring the best of the Fringe to the west coast. JAY LAFFERTY’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

1-3 AUG, 9:00PM, PRICES VARY

Glasgow Art

9 AUG-1 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

A film-portrait of a remote Yorkshire valley, exploring the art and writing of social historian Marie Hartley and her partners Ella Pontefract and Joan Ingillby, whose work subjectively describes a depopulated landscape saturated by memory.

Glasgow Print Studio TOM HAMMICK

2 AUG-29 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

A retrospective exhibition of prints by the renowned British artist Tom Hammick, who has described landscape in his work as a metaphor to explore an “imaginary and mythological dreamscape.” FEATURED ARTIST: NADIA LUCCHESI

2 AUG-1 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Nadia Lucchesi explores her Scottish/Italian heritage via works with linocut.

GoMA

FIONA TAN: DISORIENT

1 AUG-26 JAN 20, TIMES VARY, FREE

A two-screen video installation combining a fictional scene, documentary footage and spoken word to explore complex historical identities, cultural perceptions and truths about the world we live in. MARK-MARKING: PERSPECTIVES ON DRAWING

1 AUG-20 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

A group show featuring work by six contemporary artists who place drawing as central to their practice and challenge this assumption.

CCA: Centre for Hunterian Contemporary Museum & Art Art Gallery CARRIE SKINNER: LET THE MUSIC PLAY ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON

1-18 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

A variable, ongoing event that plays with the experience of attending a gallery space, bringing together a series of non-actors, objects and choreographies.

CHTO DELAT: TIMES, LINES, 1989S

9 AUG-8 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Times, Lines, 1989s explores alternative histories and the different forces of transformation that Glasgow has faced, aiming to build a more complex understanding of what has shaped the city.

Fed up missing out on all the Fringe action in Edinburgh? The Stand bring the best of the Fringe to the west coast.

ILANA HALPERIN: MINERALS OF NEW YORK

1 AUG-13 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

This latest project from Ilana Halperin takes her back to her childhood home of New York through a ‘mineral biography of the city’, which takes shape across a range of media, including drawings, photographs, objects and a 35mm slideshow.

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum THE LINDA MCCARTNEY RETROSPECTIVE

1 AUG-12 JAN 20, TIMES VARY, FREE

A major retrospective of photography by Linda McCartney will be shown in the UK for the first time, curated by Paul, Mary and Stella McCartney. It features iconic names and moments in music from the 1960s along with more intimate and emotional later work.

New Glasgow Society GRAVEN IMAGES

24-25 AUG, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

A group exhibition of eight painters and sculptors at New Glasgow Society.

Platform

SOGOL MABADI AND BIRTHE JORGENSEN: HOME WHERE HOME IS NOT

1-3 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

An ambitious exhibition by Glasgow-based artists Sogol Mabadi and Birthe Jorgensen, focusing on reimagining fixed notions of home, and what it means to be of more than one place.

FIELDS OF COLOUR 1-25 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

Project Ability’s annual exhibition, exhibiting large paintings on canvas by many of the artists that work in Project Ability’s Aspire studios.

Project Ability YOUNG TALENT 2019

17 AUG-14 SEP, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Annual showcase of artwork created by children and young people from Project Ability’s Create programme, bringing together a diverse assortment of painting, drawing, printmaking, ceramics, banners and figurines.

SWG3 HEAD GIRL

1-30 AUG, 12:00PM – 6:00PM, FREE

Initiated by Architecture and Design Scotland, and supported by The Scottish Government, this programme uses ‘space hacks’ to quickly allow pupils and teachers to explore possibilities for their schools.

The Modern Institute

NICOLAS PARTY: POLYCHROME

1-24 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

New York-based artist Nicolas Party’s exhibition will divide the gallery’s space into three uniquely crafted interiors linked by arched doorways of incremental height.

The Modern Institute @ Airds Lane

Six Foot Gallery

1 AUG-7 SEP, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

ADAM BOYD: SYNTHESPIANS

1-9 AUG, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Adam Boyd’s current exhibition refers to a rapidly evolving form of cinematic performance, where human traits can be translated through data capture. Boyd’s close-cropped paintings revel in the description of the body reduced to a geometric formula.

Street Level Photoworks

ROBERT JOHN HENDERSON: IN PRAISE OF DARKNESS AND LIGHT

1 AUG-8 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

This work explores the experience of darkness and light. Its focus is the city, the streets, lanes, canals, rivers, the open places of the public sphere, the edges of private life. DORO ZINN: SAVE IT FOR A RAINY DAY

1 AUG-8 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Doro Zinn showcases his encounter with the Gorbals, the place and the people, providing an intimate portrait and story of its resilience.

The Glasgow Art Club

GAVIN MACQUEEN: JOURNEY TO THE EDGE

1-26 AUG, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

A photographic road trip of otherworldly landscape and fashion imagery across Scotland by acclaimed photographer Gavin Macqueen. ART & OTHER OBJECTS OF INTEREST

3-31 AUG, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

An exhibition of artworks and other items of interest from the personal collections of various members of the Glasgow Art Club.

The Lighthouse ARCHITECTURE FRINGE

1-31 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

Architecture Fringe takes over The Lighthouse with a series of exhibitions and installations exploring the theme of ‘In Real Life’. CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF THE LIGHTHOUSE

1 AUG-29 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

In celebration of The Lighthouse’s 20th birthday this year, the exhibitions team display a collection of of archive material, reflections on past exhibitions and a look back to the city as it was in 1999. SOCIAL ALCHEMY

1 AUG-29 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Social Alchemy presents a set of ceramic furniture made of handsculpted tiles imprinted by the layers of actions and convivial rituals within the specific space of the living room. CIRCULAR ELABORATION

An installation by fragrance designer Clara Weale, inspired by The Lighthouse in its 20th anniversary year.

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

16 AUG-14 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Gary Rough is the artist behind the brand identity of Head Girl, an artist-led printmaking project, focusing on the production of limited edition, hand printed T-shirts and posters.

1 AUG-29 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

August 2019

TESTS OF CHANGE AND SPACE PIONEERS

MONIKA SOSNOWSKA @ THE MODERN INSTITUTE

Warsaw-based artist Monika Sosnowska’s large-scale sculptures will occupy both the gallery’s Aird’s Lane location and outside green space.

Tramway PRINTSHOP!

1-11 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

A part-exhibition, partparticipatory experience, this Printshop! features a collaborative artwork by Edwin Pickstone and Claire Barclay exploring the changing streetscapes and uses of the Tramway building. JONATHAN BALDOCK: FACECRIME

31 AUG-6 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Inspired by the discovery, in 1974, of more than a thousand perfectly preserved inscribed clay tablets in the ancient city of Ebia, Syria, Jonathan Baldock has created a new installation of work comprising of precariously stacked ceramic columns. NICK CAVE: UNTIL

3 AUG-24 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

American artist Nick Cave addresses issues of gun violence, gun control policy, race relations and gender politics in America, and its resonance across the world.

iota @ Unlimited Studios

RUARIDH FRASER: STREET SHAPES

23-31 AUG, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

Street Shapes presents the emerging talent of born and raised photography student Ruaridh Fraser, who uses an old Pentax to produce carefully composed images.

City Art Centre VICTORIA CROWE: 50 YEARS OF PAINTING

1 AUG-13 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Embracing every aspect of her practice, this exhibition of Victoria Crowe’s work will feature over 150 paintings, stemming from youthful student works to the assured, timeless landscapes and portraits of recent years.

Collective Gallery

JAMES RICHARDS: MIGRATORY MOTOR COMPLEX

1 AUG-20 OCT, 10:00AM – 4:00PM, FREE

James Richards’ exhibition features a six-channel electroacoustic installation that explores the capacity of sound to render artificial spaces and locate sonic and melodic events within them. IF PLAY IS NEITHER INSIDE NOR OUTSIDE, WHERE IS IT?

1 AUG-6 OCT, 10:00AM – 4:00PM, FREE

A new film by Perthshire-based artist Helen McCrorie, showing as part of Edinburgh Art Festival 2019, which centres on a childled outdoor playgroup that meets in the grounds of a former military camp in Scotland.

Dovecot Studios

JULIE COPE’S GRAND TOUR: THE STORY OF A LIFE BY GRAYSON PERRY

1 AUG-2 NOV, 10:30AM – 5:30PM, £0 - £9

An exhibition showcasing the complete set of tapestries designed by Grayson Perry for A House for Essex and exploring the creation of the house.

Edinburgh College of Art SONIKEBANA

1-17 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

A long-form sound composition by Martin Parker that is transformed and performed by listeners as it happens, with nine custom-built speakers on wheels, set within a series of images by Anna Chapman Parker. CORIN SWORN: HABITS OF ASSEMBLY

1-24 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

Corin Sworn looks at the ways in which the increasing entanglement of technology with the human body is profoundly affecting the way we navigate the world around us. FULLY AWAKE 4.6

1-24 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

Thirteen artists currently teaching at UK art institutions show their work alongside that of two guest artists, one of whom they have taught, and the other who has taught them. PLATFORM 2019

Edinburgh Art Arusha Gallery ALL THAT THE RAIN PROMISES AND MORE...

1 AUG-14 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

This group exhibition takes the mushroom and its symbolism of hope, renewal and reproduction as a starting point, with 18 selected artists sharing a preoccupation with the symbiotic connection we each have with our environment.

Bonhams BEST OF BONHAMS

14-24 AUG, 10:00AM – 4:00PM, FREE

The annual Best of Bonhams exhibition offers the chance to take in some wonderful and fascinating works of art in the relaxed and elegant surroundings of Bonhams.

1-24 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

Edinburgh Art Festival’s annual Platform exhibition is a dedicated showcase for artists based in Scotland, this year featuring Anna Danielewicz, Joanne Dawson, Harry Maberly and Suds McKenna. GREY TO BLUE: ECOLOGICAL ENTANGLEMENTS

1-24 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

An investigation of ecological interactions from artist and filmmaker Yulia Kovanova. DOUBLE DISASTER (CLOSING DOWN)

1-17 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

A video pilgrimage to the site of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1969 car crash in Durness, alongside key works by Yokollection. DATA PLAY: DESIGN INFORMATICS PAVILION

2-26 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

An interactive exhibition which aims to provoke discussions on what it means to “design with data”. ECA FESTIVAL EXHIBITION

10-17 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

An exhibition of work by some of ECA’s postgraduate students.

Listings

Edinburgh Printmakers

HANNA TUULIKKI: DEER DANCER

1 AUG-5 OCT, 10:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

A new cross-artform project by artist, composer and performer Hanna Tuulikki, investigating the mimesis of deer, specifically representations within dance from across cultures.

Embassy Gallery

BLESS YOUR HEART

1-4 AUG, 12:00PM – 6:00PM, FREE

EMBASSY presents a summer full of performances and workshops; learn to fall in love with yourself and learn to acknowledge what you like, as these artists will bring something that you may be missing.

Ingleby Gallery DAVID BATCHELOR: MY OWN PRIVATE BAUHAUS

1 AUG-28 SEP, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

DAVID MACH HRSA: THE PAPER TO PROVE IT 3 AUG-8 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

An exhibition of collages and sculptures by world-renowned artist David Mach HRSA.

Scottish National Gallery BRIDGET RILEY

1 AUG-22 SEP, TIMES VARY, TBC

A comprehensive exhibition, and the first museum survey of Bridget Riley’s work to be held in the UK for 16 years, spanning over 70 years of the artist’s work.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

NOW: ANYA GALLACCIO, CHARLES AVERY, AURÉLIEN FROMENT, ROGER HIORNS AND OTHERS

1 AUG-22 SEP, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

An exhibition by David Batchelor that marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus by Walter Gropius in 1919.

The fifth instalment in the NOW series will be centred on a major survey of work by Anya Gallaccio.

Jupiter Artland

1 AUG-27 OCT, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, TBC

TRISHA BROWN: TIME, SPACE, GRAVITY

1 AUG-29 SEP, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, £4.50 - £9

The first retrospective of the artist’s moving-image archive, traversing her 40+ year career, from early site-specific pieces performed across New York streets to her later large-scale collaborative productions.

CUT AND PASTE: 400 YEARS OF COLLAGE

The first survey exhibition of collage ever to take place anywhere in the world, with a huge range of approaches on show, from sixteenth-century anatomical ‘flap prints’ to computer-based images.

JOANA VASCONCELOS: GATEWAY

Scottish National Portrait Gallery

1 AUG-29 SEP, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, £4.50 - £9

1 AUG-27 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos unveils her highly anticipated new permanent commission for Jupiter Artland, Gateway: an intricately designed pool set within a landscaped formal garden.

Museum of Childhood BRINGING UP BABY

1 AUG-29 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

A new exhibition exploring the choices and challenges faced by parents, featuring a range of objects from the museum’s collection.

National Museum of Scotland

BODY BEAUTIFUL: DIVERSITY ON THE CATWALK

1 AUG-20 OCT, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Discover how today’s fashion industry is challenging perceptions and championing alternative ideals of beauty on the catwalk, in advertising, editorial and behind the camera.

Open Eye Gallery

JOHN BUSBY: SILENT LANDSCAPE

1 AUG-2 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

In conjunction with the Edinburgh Art Festival, the Open Eye Gallery presents a large-scale exhibition centring on the distinctive landscape paintings by celebrated avian artist John Busby RSA RSW SWLA (1928-2015). JOHN BUSBY: REMEMBERED

1 AUG-2 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

To coincide with Silent Landscape, the Open Eye Gallery will mount an exhibition of invited artists who worked alongside, and who were acquainted with, John Busby during his prolific career.

Royal Scottish Academy RSA

PHILIP REEVES RSA: FRAGMENTS OF FORM

1 AUG-13 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

A retrospective exhibition of the pioneering printmaker and collagist Philip Reeves RSA.

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Listings

THE MODERN PORTRAIT

A display collating paintings, sculptures and works from the Portrait Gallery’s twentiethcentury collection, feat. a variety of well-known faces, from Ramsay Macdonald to Alan Cumming, Tilda Swinton to Danny McGrain. ART AND ANALYSIS: TWO NETHERLANDISH PAINTERS WORKING IN JACOBEAN SCOTLAND

1 AUG-26 JAN 20, TIMES VARY, FREE

A small exhibition focusing on two 17th century artists, Adrian Vanson and Adam de Colone, showcasing a group of paintings which have been examined by paintings conservator Dr Caroline Rae, along with the findings from her research. IN FOCUS: THE EXECUTION OF CHARLES I

1 AUG-26 JAN 20, TIMES VARY, FREE

An exhibition centred around a painting of the execution of Charles I – based on eye-witness accounts and contemporary engravings – by an unknown Dutch artist.

THE REMAKING OF SCOTLAND | NATION, MIGRATION, GLOBALISATION 1760-1860

1 AUG-21 JUN 20, TIMES VARY, FREE

An exhibition exploring the lives and careers of the Scots behind the period of dramatic change between 1760 and 1860, when Scotland rapidly attained a central role in European cultural life and in Britain’s industrial and imperial expansion. It documents the material and artistic benefits of their achievements, while also confronting the darker shadows they cast. ARTIST ROOMS: WOODMAN, ARBUS AND MAPPLETHORPE

1 AUG-20 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Celebrating the work of three of the twentieth century’s most influential photographers, with a particular focus on selfportraiture and representation. THE LONG LOOK

1 AUG-27 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

The Long Look is a collaboration between the painter Audrey Grant and the photographer and printmaker Norman McBeath.

Scottish Storytelling Centre

Dundee Art

SCOTLAND’S VOICES

1-27 AUG, 10:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Alexander Moffat’s painting Scotland’s Voices imagines some of the influential singers and tradition bearers of the Scottish Folk Revival assembled around Hamish Henderson.

DCA: Dundee Contemporary Arts

Stills

1 AUG-1 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

CINDY SHERMAN: EARLY WORKS, 1975-80 1 AUG-6 OCT, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

An exhibition showcasing seminal early works by Cindy Sherman, one of the most influential artists of the last 40 years.

Summerhall EXTINCTION REBELLION

1-25 AUG, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Extinction Rebellion (XR) will be exhibiting at Summerhall during this year’s Festival Fringe, curating a month of visual art, films, documentaries and performances. ALAN SMITH: THE NEW WORLD – RETROSPECTIVE

1 AUG-27 OCT, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

After a life threatening illness, Alan Smith found the need to return again to the language of art and has completed a new body of work, prompted by Tiepolo’s Il Mondo Nuovo. ANDREW SIM: NEW SODOM WILL BE A SHINING CITY ON A HILL

1 AUG-27 OCT, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Andrew Sim’s pastel drawings express the strains of a community being pulled between a forward-facing radicalism and the unresolved traumas of the past; a personal account of learning what it means to be a queer person in 2019. JANE FRERE: EXIT - 100 DAYS OF KHAOS!

1 AUG-27 OCT, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Continuing to create pastel murals, and with other forms of media, Jane Frere used the Instagram hashtag #Exitkhaos as a novel means of daily documentation, charting her personal response during the 100 day countdown to the initial Brexit date. JOSH HANER: THE NEW YORK TIMES - CARBON’S CASUALTIES

1 AUG-27 OCT, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

In dramatic drone footage coupled with still photography on the ground, Josh Haner captures diverse environments as they are reshaped around the world while highlighting the intimate stories unfolding within them. JOSEPH BEUYS / LEONARDO DA VINCI

1 AUG-27 OCT, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Robert McDowell curates an installation of art, prints, photographs, publications and objects of and about Joseph Beuys who remains a major inspiration of Summerhall.

Talbot Rice Gallery

SAMSON YOUNG: REAL MUSIC

1 AUG-5 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

The first major UK solo exhibition of Hong Kong artist and composer Samson Young, featuring an ambitious collaboration with the University of Edinburgh’s Next Generation Sound Synthesis research group.

The Queen’s Gallery RUSSIA: ROYALTY & THE ROMANOVS

1 AUG-3 NOV, 9:30AM – 6:00PM, £7.20

An exhibition exploring the relationship between Britain and Russia and their royal families, through more than 170 works of art in the Royal Collection.

PATRICK STAFF: THE PRINCE OF HOMBURG

This exhibition by British artist Patrick Staff will debut a major video installation and series of sculptural works reinterpreting 19th century German writer Heinrich Von Kleist’s play The Prince of Homburg.

Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design DJCAD MASTERS SHOW 2019

17-25 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design’s Masters Show celebrates transformative design and visually stunning art from seven of the UK’s most innovative and exciting postgraduate courses.

LifeSpace

PARA-SITE-SEEING: DEPARTURE LOUNGE

3-31 AUG, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

An art/science collaboration between Rod Dillon and Jen Southern, inviting you to imagine life from the perspective of the Leishmania parasite.

The McManus AS WE SEE IT: TWENTIETH CENTURY SCOTTISH ART

1 AUG-22 DEC, TIMES VARY, FREE

Exploring the innovative and diverse approaches artists have taken in their creative practice. Whether representing the real world, abstracting elements from it or depicting a realm from the imagination, each artwork is unique and individual.

We know how to push your buttons… #MakeYourFringe this summer

WISE WAYS: TRAVELS OF A DUNDEE DOCTOR

1-25 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

Thanks to a loan from the British Library, this exhibition reunites the maps and objects collected by physician and surgeon Dr Thomas Alexander Wise.

V&A Dundee MAEVE REDMOND

1 AUG-15 SEP 20, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

A compelling piece of graphic design that unpacks the wider context around a 19th century trade catalogue by cast iron manufacturers Walter MacFarlane & Co. CIARA PHILLIPS

1 AUG-15 SEP 20, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

A new commission, championing the often-unseen process of making by evoking a moment suspended in time where vital decisions about materials and their composition are made. SCOTTISH DESIGN GALLERIES

1 AUG-15 SEP 20, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Explore the everyday relevance of design and how it improves our lives, experience the processes that underpin it and discover little-known stories of Scottish design with international impact. VIDEOGAMES: DESIGN/PLAY/ DISRUPT

1 AUG-8 SEP, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, TBC

Gain a unique insight into the design process behind a selection of groundbreaking contemporary videogames. HANDS OF X: DESIGN MEETS DISABILITY

1 AUG-1 SEP, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

A collection, designed by Graham Pullin, Andrew Cook, Corinne Hutton and Eddie Small, that encourages wearers to choose from a range of materials and create a hand that feels their own.

Book tickets now @ edfringe.com

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Best of the Fests If you only look at one page of collated art, comedy, theatre, books and music tips from across Edinburgh’s festivals, make it this one...

COMEDY David Callaghan: Dance Like No One’s David Callaghan

At the almost unthinkably early timeslot of BEFORE MIDDAY, make sure to catch the Mat Ewins-cumSimon Munnery of Glasgow gaggle Chunks. Ferociously inventive. Just the Tonic (The Mash House), 1-25 Aug (not 12), 11.55am

Lucy Beaumont: Space Mam

It’s lift off for Lucy Beaumont’s first show at the Fringe since 2014. Expect a show as warm and inviting as a cuppa and some buttery toast, and as weird as making a Marmite and marmalade toast sandwich with it *chef kiss*. Pleasance Courtyard (Upstairs), 31 Jul-25 Aug (not 12), 4.45pm

Spencer Jones: The Things We Leave Behind

The maestro of absurd mumbling returns to Edinburgh. Prepare to grin ear-to-ear from Spencer Jones’ trademark brand of innocent idiocy. This may well be your last opportunity to see Jones before he’s a household name. Pleasance Courtyard (Beneath), 31 Jul-25 Aug (not 12), 5.45pm

Fern Brady: Power and Chaos

Brash and ballsy Fern Brady is back in town. Tackling identity in all shapes and forms, it’ll be another firecracker of an hour from the Scottish stand-up. Monkey Barrel (Monkey Barrel 1), 1-25 Aug (not 12), 6pm

Yuriko Kotani: Somosomo

Kotani’s debut show has been hugely anticipated since she won the BBC New Comedy Award in 2015. Other than Somosomo exploring cultural idiosyncrasies, we’re sure it’ll be a tightly written hour of deadpan observation. Pleasance Courtyard (Attic), 31 Jul-26 Aug (not 12), 7pm [Polly Glynn]

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Listings

THEATRE Traumboy / Traumgirl

Exploring the sex work industry from different perspectives, Traumboy is a solo-show by performer Daniel Hellman, and Traumgirl is a brand new response by performance artist Anna Welenc. Both shows explore the relationship between sex, money, shame and identity. Summerhall (Old Lab), 31 Jul-25 Aug (not 1 & 19), times vary

Solitary

An intense and thought-provoking look at the reintegration of America’s most harshly treated prisoners into society, this wordless piece of physical theatre examines the impact of solitary confinement on one man. Assembly Rooms (Powder Room), 1-24 Aug (not 12), 9.35pm

Until the Flood

Based on interviews with dozens of people in the aftermath of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Dael Orlandersmith has created eight characters who embody a community in shock in the aftermath of an event that forced us to face America’s dark history. Traverse Theatre (Traverse 2), 1-25 Aug (not 5, 12 or 19), times vary

Cat Hepburn: #GIRLHOOD Cat Hepburn debuts the stage adaption of her poetry collection, assessing the pressures that young women face in what promises to be a hilarious, touching and authentic show. Gilded Balloon (Rose Theatre), 31 Jul-25 Aug (not 12, 19), 4.45pm [Eliza Gearty]

BOOKS DeRay Mckesson

Festival Guest Selector DeRay Mckesson will be discussing his book On the Other Side of Freedom, his work within the Black Lives Matter movement, and his continued activism for a more equal world. The New York Times Main Theatre, 11 Aug, 5pm, £10-12

Sofie Hagen

Sofie Hagen will talk about her new book Happy Fat, where she tackles the (false!) idea that being fat is wrong in a world that’s obsessed with people taking up as little space as possible with wit and humour. The New York Times Main Theatre, 17 Aug, 3.15pm, pay what you can (£0-25)

Charly Cox, Theresa Lola & Tayi Tibble The chance to see three excellent new talents in poetry in one go seems too good to pass up. Charly Cox, Theresa Lola and Tayi Tibble join forces to share the wonder of their debuts at this year’s Book Festival. Charlotte Square Gardens Spiegeltent, 17 Aug, 4pm, pay what you can (£0-25)

Raymond Antrobus & Joe Dunthorne Raymond Antrobus has basically been sweeping the award circuit with his debut The Perseverance, and he’ll be teaming up with Joe Dunthorne who has made the move from novels to poetry in O Positive. Baillie Gifford Corner Theatre, 18 Aug, 8.30pm, £6-8

Arundhati Roy with Nicola Sturgeon

Each year Scotland’s First Minister sits down with an author she adores; this time, it’s Arundhati Roy. She will be discussing her new book of essays, her Booker-winning debut The God of Small Things, and her career to date. The New York Times Main Theatre, 19 Aug, 6.45pm, £10-12 [Heather McDaid]

MUSIC Free Love

We can’t think of a better way to start August than with this absolute stoater of a gig. Free Love are one of the most exciting live acts to have come out of Scotland in recent years, joined by the angular hooks of Glasgow sextet Kaputt, and the exceptional beats and vocals of Edinburgh duo Maranta. Summerhall (The Dissection Room), 2 Aug, 7pm, £10

Akala

Following a sold out appearance at the 2018 Edinburgh International Book Festival, BAFTA and MOBO award-winning hip-hop artist and activist Akala is back in Edinburgh this August. With various opportunities to catch Akala in conversation, tonight he’s dropping his evening show for a live performance. The Liquid Room, 3 Aug, 7pm, £22.50

Vic Galloway Brings the Ruckus!

Vic Galloway is joined by Will Ashon, author of Chamber Music: About the Wu-Tang (in 36 Pieces). Joseph Malik, Callum Easter and Heir of the Cursed will provide the music, while Saskia Vogel and Dean Atta give guest readings. Charlotte Square Gardens Spiegeltent, 13 Aug, 9pm, free

From When I Wake

Kathryn Joseph brings the acclaimed theatrical version of From When I Wake the Want Is to Summerhall. Joseph’s stunning songcraft and hair-raising vocals will be further heightened by Czech body architect Markéta Kratochvílová, staging from James Johnson and lighting by Nich Smith. Summerhall (The Dissection Room), 13-15 Aug, 8pm, £16.50

Sharon Van Etten

Sharon Van Etten earned praise for her shift to a more electronic feel on her latest record Remind Me Tomorrow, telling the story of her life since 2014’s Are We There. While the medium may be slightly different, one thing that remains happily unchanged is her ability to capture a room. Leith Theatre, 21 Aug, 7pm, £25 [Tallah Brash]

ART Sriwhana Spong

In the new film castle-crystal, Sriwhana Spong brings together the writings of 16th century mystic, St Teresa of Avila. Spong employs the Saint’s idea of an imaginary castle to think about the spaces where women can write and feel free to create. Institut français d’Ecosse, until 25 Aug, 10am-5pm

Nathan Coley

The Future is Inside Us, It’s not Somewhere Else is worth a visit just to see the normally-closed Parliament Hall. Nathan Coley has installed stunning new works that combine his trademark neon text with bespoke handmade French wallpaper. Parliament Hall, until 25 Aug, 10am-5pm

Samson Young

Real Music is the product of Young’s collaboration with University of Edinburgh researchers to create a virtual instrument that pushes the limits of composition and performance. Samson Young also includes a work showing musicians playing a classical composition with muted instruments. Talbot Rice Gallery, until 5 Oct, Mon-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat-Sun 12-5pm

Platform

Each year, Platform centres emerging artists in the Festival’s programme. This year, Harry Maberly, Suds McKenna, Anna Danielewicz and Joanne Dawson present their practices, which extend across environmental issues, writing, garment pattern making, fandom, performance and cartooning. The Fire Station @ ECA, until 25 Aug, 10am-5pm

Hanna Tuulikki

For Deer Dancer, Hanna Tuulikki works across music, costume, choreography, film and print to consider the deer, its cultural connotations of hetero-masculinity and the implications of this symbolism. Edinburgh Printmakers, until 5 Oct, 10am-5pm (not Mon) [Adam Benmakhlouf]

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