Issue 568

Niall Griffiths

Runt

15 Feb 2007

What a courageous writer Niall Griffiths is. In the seven years since his debut Grits - an ambitious and occasionally brilliant study of modern hedonism in West Wales - he has divined, deviated and experimented with a bravery that is only really…

Cate Blanchett interview

Woman of note

31 Jan 2007

‘If I knew that my son’s art teacher was banging his brains out in the art room, I’d be in there with a meat cleaver.’ Cate Blanchett is reflecting on her new film, Notes on a Scandal, in which she plays an art teacher who has an affair with one of her…

Fawlty Towers Experience

The hotel inspectors

31 Jan 2007

A swarthy waiter pursues a hamster beneath a table of dinner guests, chased by a tall, quiveringly angry man with a moustache. The diners erupt with laughter as the waiter re-emerges, accidentally displacing the wig on a female guest’s head. The furious…

Glasgow Film Festival

Best of the fest

31 Jan 2007

GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL Cashback The opening night gala revolves around a heartbroken insomniac and his quest to find new love - through nightshift work. See Sean Biggerstaff interview. GFT, Thu 15 Feb, 7.30pm; Cineworld Renfrew Street, Fri 16…

Glasgow Film Festival - Cashback - Sean Biggerstaff interview

Money talks

31 Jan 2007

GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL Sean Biggerstaff has just returned from the seventh annual British Film Festival in Israel where Cashback was screened simultaneously in Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. But though the film was well received, Biggerstaff wasn’t…

Glasgow Film Festival - Fast Food Nation interview

Food for thought

31 Jan 2007

GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL Eric Schlosser touched a nerve with the public when he exposed the unethical and unhygienic practices of America’s junk food industry in his book Fast Food Nation. It swiftly became an international bestseller and required…

Glasgow Film Festival - Half Nelson - Ryan Gosling interview

School daze

31 Jan 2007

GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL Named after a wrestling hold in which an opponent’s strengths are turned against themselves, the US indie Half Nelson is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the Glasgow Film Festival. The directorial debut of Ryan Fleck, whose…

Glasgow Film Festival - horror movies

Day of the dead

31 Jan 2007

The all-day marathon is a right of passage for any horrorphile; a chance to wallow in the garish glory of the most extreme cinematic genres. For the second year, GFF features FrightFest in association with Zone Horror.

Glasgow Film Festival - John Wayne tribute

Shooting star

31 Jan 2007

GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL Asked towards the end of his life why he had never written an autobiography John Wayne replied, ‘Those who like me already know me, and those who don’t like me wouldn’t want to read about me anyway.’ Modern day celebrities would…

Glasgow Film Festival - Mira Nair interview (The Namesake)

A tale of two cities

31 Jan 2007

GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL After her sojourn into the upper echelons of British society with her adaptation of Vanity Fair, Mira Nair returns to the multicultural themes that established her reputation with The Namesake. It’s a cinematic rendition of…

Guy's Restaurant and Bar

Sweet and mellow

31 Jan 2007

When chef/proprietor Guy Cowan first opened his eponymous restaurant on North Street in December 2005, the basement premises with alcoves provided an intimate space which seemed tailor-made for dining. When he relocated across town last November to a…

Loch Fyne

Love in a cold climate

31 Jan 2007

It’s not always easy doing nothing, but that’s what we’re here to do. Stop, relax, get away. And Loch Fyne, a blue grey landscape cut in two by an opaque, metallic body of water, gives the impression we’re hundreds of miles away from home and not just…

Valentine's Day gift guide

Planning to surprise that special someone on the m

31 Jan 2007

1 Elemis Skin Treatment Voucher £45; Elemis Daily Moisture Boost for Men £25; Elemis Ice Cool Foam Gel £18. All available at Harvey Nichols, 30-34 St Andrew’s Square, Edinburgh, 0131 524 8388

Where to eat on Valentine's Day

Love is in the fayre

31 Jan 2007

The night of 14 February is traditionally one where restaurants are overrun by couples on their lone dining foray of the year. Spare a thought not only for them (and the sustained periods of silence between courses) but also for the restaurant staff who…

Cate Blanchett interview

Woman of note

30 Jan 2007

‘If I knew that my son’s art teacher was banging his brains out in the art room, I’d be in there with a meat cleaver.’ Cate Blanchett is reflecting on her new film, Notes on a Scandal, in which she plays an art teacher who has an affair with one of her…

Glasgow Film Festival - best of the fest

Best of the fest

30 Jan 2007

Cashback The opening night gala revolves around a heartbroken insomniac and his quest to find new love - through nightshift work. See Sean Biggerstaff interview. GFT, Thu 15 Feb, 7.30pm; Cineworld Renfrew Street, Fri 16 Feb, 6.30pm. A Guide to…

Glasgow Film Festival - Cashback - Sean Biggerstaff interview

Money talks

30 Jan 2007

GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL Sean Biggerstaff has just returned from the seventh annual British Film Festival in Israel where Cashback was screened simultaneously in Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. But though the film was well received, Biggerstaff wasn’t…

Glasgow Film Festival - Fast Food Nation interview

Food for thought

30 Jan 2007

GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL Eric Schlosser touched a nerve with the public when he exposed the unethical and unhygienic practices of America’s junk food industry in his book Fast Food Nation. It swiftly became an international bestseller and required…

Glasgow Film Festival - Half Nelson - Ryan Gosling interview

School daze

30 Jan 2007

GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL Named after a wrestling hold in which an opponent’s strengths are turned against themselves, the US indie Half Nelson is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the Glasgow Film Festival. The directorial debut of Ryan Fleck, whose…

Glasgow Film Festival - horror movies

Day of the dead

30 Jan 2007

The all-day marathon is a right of passage for any horrorphile; a chance to wallow in the garish glory of the most extreme cinematic genres. For the second year, GFF features FrightFest in association with Zone Horror.

Glasgow Film Festival - John Wayne tribute

Shooting star

30 Jan 2007

GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL Asked towards the end of his life why he had never written an autobiography John Wayne replied, ‘Those who like me already know me, and those who don’t like me wouldn’t want to read about me anyway.’ Modern day celebrities would…

Glasgow Film Festival - Mira Nair interview (The Namesake)

A tale of two cities

30 Jan 2007

GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL After her sojourn into the upper echelons of British society with her adaptation of Vanity Fair, Mira Nair returns to the multicultural themes that established her reputation with The Namesake. It’s a cinematic rendition of…

Gudgin steps down as Fringe director

30 Jan 2007

Edinburgh Fringe director Paul Gudgin has announced that he is to leave the post in June. Gudgin, who has held the post for eight years, led the annual celebration of theatre, comedy, music and dance to its most successful year in 2006, with ticket…

How MySpace took over my space

30 Jan 2007

I was 19 when I got my first real job and my first mobile phone. The job introduced me to the World Wide Web and my beloved email, where there is always post on a Sunday and the postman comes with hourly treats. The internet opened up so many…

Klaxons interview

Big noise

30 Jan 2007

For the first time the NME tour is splitting into two camps. The Indie Rock strand is headed by The Automatic who share the bill with Dundee’s indie saviours The View, rockabilly goth punks The Horrors and Mumm-Ra. But perhaps it’s the second leg, the…

Leech

Sucking the blood of popular entertainment

30 Jan 2007

It’s Hollywood awards season, meaning a succession of worthy films and actors acting seriously and actorly. Pictures like Babel, Bobby, Last King of Scotland, Blood Diamond and Letters From Iwo Jima represent a grim condemnation of war and political…

News in brief

30 Jan 2007

Al Gore’s climate change film, An Inconvenient Truth, is to be shown in all of Scotland’s secondary schools. Friends of the Earth Scotland’s Chief Executive, Duncan McLaren, said of the Executive initiative: ‘For the sake of future generations we hope…

Radio romance

BBC calls on budding authors to write more than a

30 Jan 2007

The Glasgow-based author Janice Galloway begins her short story ‘Valentine’ with a simple disclosure. ‘I hate February,’ she writes. ‘There is no natural excitement about the second month of the year. Valentine’s Day makes me embarrassed.’

The Horrors interview

Smoke & mirrors

30 Jan 2007

The Horrors are in need of a fag. Having had their ch ance for a nicotine fix disrupted by fans who are loitering outside The Caves in Edinburgh hoping for a glimpse of the band, they now find themselves upstairs experiencing first hand the realities of…

Venice Biennale

Six of the best

30 Jan 2007

Congratulations to Charles Avery, Henry Coombes, Louise Hopkins, Rosalind Nashashibi, Lucy Skaer and Tony Swain, who have been selected to represent Scotland at the 52nd Venice Biennale of Art, after months of deliberation. The Scottish show, which will…

Venice Biennale - who's going

Six of the best

30 Jan 2007

Congratulations to Charles Avery, Henry Coombes, Louise Hopkins, Rosalind Nashashibi, Lucy Skaer and Tony Swain, who have been selected to represent Scotland at the 52nd Venice Biennale of Art, after months of deliberation. The Scottish show, which will…

* Hitlist

Hitlist

29 Jan 2007

Belle de Jour Spanish surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel’s brilliant 1964 satire of bourgeois sexual mores gets a brief outing in a new print. Witness the birth of arthouse porn. Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 9 Feb-Wed 14 Feb only. Read review

* Hitlist

Hitlist

29 Jan 2007

Denise Mina & Leonardo Manco The queen of Tartan Noir (as Mina probably hates being dubbed) makes her debut trip into graphic novels with Hellblazer: Empathy is the Enemy, which features the chain-smoking Constantine relocating to Glasgow.

* Hitlist

Hitlist

29 Jan 2007

Club NME The indie club finds a new home featuring a variety of live acts including Pop Levi (1 Feb), Ratatat (8 Feb) and Jakobinarina and The Whip (15 Feb). The Arches, Glasgow, weekly Thu.

* Hitlist

Hitlist

29 Jan 2007

All My Sons Arthur Miller’s early classic is given a high quality revival at the Lyceum under the direction of John Dove. The story of an ostensibly ordinary American bourgeois family with a secret connected to the tragic loss of their son, this piece…

* Hitlist

Hitlist

29 Jan 2007

Stephen K Amos The genial and talented wag will be on Channel 4 soon talking about being both black and gay. Catch him now before he’s far too famous for the likes of us. The Stand, Glasgow, Thu 1-Sat 3 Feb.

* Hitlist

Hitlist

29 Jan 2007

NME Indie Rock The View, The Automatic (pictured), Mumm-Ra and The Horrors are this year’s would-be contenders for global rock stardom. Or a toddle back to indie obscurity. The choice is yours. Carling Academy, Glasgow, Thu 1 & Fri 2 Feb. (Rock & Pop…

* Hitlist

Hitlist

29 Jan 2007

Goya - Monsters and Matadors Three famous folios of etchings by the Spanish Master are dragged up from the bowels of the NGS for our delectation. ‘The Tauromaquia’, ‘The Horrors of War’ and ‘The Proverbios or Follies’ drip with muck scraped from the…

* Hitlist - LGBT History Month

Hitlist

29 Jan 2007

The Celluloid Closet A history of homo Hollywood, as told in this 1995 film based on Vito Russo’s book. From secretly gay actors like Rock Hudson (pictured, in Pillow Talk, where he played a straight man pretending to be gay to charm Doris Day’s…

2000AD 30-year anniversary

Thrill seeker

29 Jan 2007

Those of us at a certain age might remember the tooth-gnashing wait every Wednesday morning for 2000AD to drop through the letter box. The boys’ adventure comic was first published in February 1977, and the particular pool of creative genius and…

Ads, The

The Ads

29 Jan 2007

INDIE If Glasgow’s Ads want to make it they’ll have to strike while the iron is both hot, and unsplattered by the remains of every unwelcome Fratellis and View clone that will inevitably crawl from the woodwork during the next year. They’re both good…

Aereogramme

The Classic Grand, Glasgow, Mon 12 Feb

29 Jan 2007

EPIC ROCK If you’ve ever sniffed around the Scottish post-rock underground, you might be familiar with the work of Aereogramme, but, trust me, you won’t be familiar with this Aereogramme. Because, after two years out of the limelight, the band are…

Alan Grant & Cam Kennedy - comic review

Alan Grant & Cam Kennedy

29 Jan 2007

LITERARY ADAPTATION Robert Louis Stevenson’s celebrated historical adventure doesn’t need pictures to enhance its power. But this graphic novel adaptation, produced as part of the One Book ?" One Edinburgh reading campaign, successfully captures the…

Angel-A - DVD review

Angel-A

29 Jan 2007

FANTASY DRAMA For Berlin, read Paris. For Wings of Desire, transpose Angel-A. But while Wim Wenders’ 80s classic still sparkles, this occasionally charming Luc Besson effort instantly pales by comparison. The problems are several fold, but the jovial…

Another Little Piece of My Heart

Oran Mor, Glasgow, Mon 5-Sat 10 Feb

29 Jan 2007

NEW WRITING ‘Long live Janis Joplin.’ With this declaration, Suzy, one of the two central characters in Liz Lochhead’s new piece nails her colours to the mast. Now, before we go into the various clichés about flowers in hair, or untimely ends, bear…

Anthony Swofford

Exit A (Simon & Schuster)

29 Jan 2007

MILITARY DRAMA It comes as no surprise that Anthony Swofford, a military base kid raised in the US and Japan, should set his debut work of fiction in that very same environment. After the success of the bestselling and critically acclaimed memoir…

Aquasky

29 Jan 2007

Three-headed breaks machine Dave Wallace, Kieron Bailey and Brent Newitt (better know as Aquasky) join Bass Syndicate this month. Originally releasing on Moving Shadow they now run their own label, Passenger, and sister label, 777, specialising in heavy…

Arthur and the Invisibles

(U) 93min

29 Jan 2007

ANIMATION/ADVENTURE If Luc Besson (The Big Blue, Leon) is to be believed, this, his tenth film, will also be his last as director. In adapting his own children’s book, Besson mixes live-action and CGI animation with decidedly patchy results. It’s…

Avenge But One of My Two Eyes - DVD review

Avenge But One of My Two Eyes

29 Jan 2007

DOCUMENTARY Avi Mograbi’s tough-minded documentary on the horrors of today’s Israeli-Palestine conflict looks at events not from the point of view of Palestinian fanaticism and Israeli brutality, but chiefly from the long established fanaticism…

Baby Balloon

Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Tue 6-Sat 10 Feb; North Edi

29 Jan 2007

TODDLER THEATRE Parents sneaking out the door with a crying baby is a familiar sight at children’s theatre shows. Dragged along with an older sibling to a show too scary, confusing or just downright dull for tiny tots to endure, toddlers aren’t…

Belle de Jour

(18) 99min

29 Jan 2007

RE-ISSUE The very great Spanish filmmaker and surrealist Luis Buñuel wrote in his fantastic autobiography My Last Breath that Belle de Jour was ‘my biggest commercial success, which I attribute more to the marvellous whores than to my direction.…

Bevellers, The

The Bevellers

29 Jan 2007

REVIVAL No amount of ‘City of Culture’ or ‘Glasgow Smiles Better’ labels can conceal the stereotypical view of Scotland’s largest city. This less than perfect reputation runs deeper than sovereign-wearing bams swallying Buckie. As a follow up to…

Birchville Cat Motel

Tremors@Stills Gallery, Edinburgh, Wed 10 Jan

29 Jan 2007

EXPERIMENTAL Last time Stills Gallery white-not-quite-cubed space played host to live music was in 1998, when Quebeçois baroque apocalypsists Godspeed You! Black Emperor marked their low-key live UK debut before a phone box capacity audience (ignore…

Bloc Party - album review

Bloc Party

29 Jan 2007

INDIE It would seem that all is not well in the Bloc Party camp. On this rather disappointing second effort their lyrics are infinitely bleaker, melodies more melancholy and the riffs leaner and meaner than ever before. ‘Song For Clay (Disappear…

Caucasion Chalk Circle

Dundee Rep, until Sat 3 Feb

29 Jan 2007

CLASSIC We’ve got so wrapped up with having our own National Theatre in Scotland that we’ve been apt to forget of recent times that there’s also a pretty formidable one south of the border, still obliged by its remit to visit us once in a while. The…

Charley's Aunt

Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Mon 12-Sat 17 Feb, then to

29 Jan 2007

WEST END TOUR It’s probably to the detriment of Brandon Thomas’ Charley’s Aunt that, a couple of years after its premiere in 1892, another play featuring two young men willing to engage in a bit of deception and disguise in order to gull elderly…

Charlotte's Web

(U) 96min

29 Jan 2007

As a farmyard community story, EB White’s much loved kids story fits somewhere between cutesy fantasy Babe and Orwell’s bleak political parable Animal Farm, with cheery talking animals sugar-coating a bittersweet finale that touches on practical matters…

Child Genius

Channel 4, Thu 8 Feb, 9pm

29 Jan 2007

DOCUMENTARY Most of us would like to have a few more brain cells than we currently have at our disposal. But who would really want an IQ of 170, putting us into the top 0.002% of the population? And what if we had that mental ability and were around…

Chris Ware - comic review

Chris Ware

29 Jan 2007

WARPED HUMOUR The 17th volume of Chris Ware’s now self-published irregular comic continues the sad tale of Rusty Brown, a pre-pubescent dork who lives in a snowbound small town in America’s mid-west, where he stubbornly clings to his best friend, a…

Cold War Kids

Robbers & Cowards (V2)

29 Jan 2007

INDIE Cold War Kids Since we all live in a deathly dull, post-post modern society where we’ve heard it all before and nothing is new, it is nice to hear something that can fill your belly with a warm glow anyway. Lead single ‘We Used To Vacation…

David Diamante at Club Noir

Diamond geezer

29 Jan 2007

David Diamante is to modern British burlesque what Charlie Chaplin was to comedy - its Godfather, its energy and its salesman, but definitely not in a pushy double-glazing type way. The ‘product’ speaks for itself: ‘glamour’ is priceless and affordable…

Denise Mina & Leonardo Manco - comic review

Denise Mina & Leonardo Manco

29 Jan 2007

HORROR Bitter mage John Constantine makes his way to Scotland, as crime writer Denise Mina (Field of Blood/The Dead Hour) makes her first foray into comics, bringing Constantine onto her home territory, Glasgow, the setting for most of her mystery…

Desert Hearts - album review

Desert Hearts

29 Jan 2007

INDIE ROCK Once upon a time indie-bands had ideas and balls. But the current trend for nadger-crushingly tight jeans seems to have put a stop to that. Giving a slap to stage school rockers and banning the keyboards from the rehearsal rooms are…

Dirty Dancing: 20th Anniversary Edition

(15) 100min

29 Jan 2007

RE-issue For the few who don’t know the plot of Emile Ardolino’s 1987 romantic musical: it’s the summer of 1963 at Kellerman’s Holiday Resort. Misunderstood, frustrated in-house dance teacher, Johnny (an unconvincingly teenage Patrick Swayze), meets…

Dreamgirls

(12A) 130min

29 Jan 2007

DRAMA/MUSICAL Dreamgirls has made Oscar history and the ceremony hasn’t even taken place yet. It is, allegedly, the first picture to have the most Academy Award nominations in a given year and still not be nominated for Best Picture. And, for once…

DVD Round-up

29 Jan 2007

Shy, prone to stage sickness, deep depression and melancholia the British comedian Frankie Howerd was still the funniest man ever tp have been born in the city of York, England. A brilliant, stammering pontificate of a stand-up comedian, Howerd’s talent…

Eddi Reader - album review

Eddi Reader

29 Jan 2007

FOLK After her triumphant homecoming with the best-selling Sings the Songs of Robert Burns, this new collection finds one of Scotland’s best voices continuing to mine the traditional vein in the company of folk heroes like John McCusker, Phil…

For Your Consideration

(12A) 86min

29 Jan 2007

COMEDY The law of diminishing returns finally hits Christopher Guest and the team who have worked together since This Is Spinal Tap reconfigured the rockumentary back in 1984. Encouraged by the success of that film, which, despite being directed by…

Future Pilot AKA - album review

Future Pilot AKA

29 Jan 2007

INDIE It’s a mystery why Sushil K Dade doesn’t enjoy more than the modicum of Glasgow-centred respect he currently holds. This is possibly because the amount of A-list names he attracts to contribute to his records might overshadow his own…

Goya - Monsters and Matadors

National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, until Sun

29 Jan 2007

ETCHING There is something unsettlingly contemporary about the etchings on display in this exhibition; they are vivid and raw. Goya’s ‘Disasters of War’ is the centrepiece to this modest collection, and rightly so. The important series, not published…

Grand Illusion, La - DVD review

La Grand Illusion

29 Jan 2007

WAR After La Grande Illusion won a prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1937, the Nazis declared it ‘cinematic enemy number one’, and when Germany invaded France a couple of years later Goebbels had prints of the film destroyed. Jean Renoir’s…

Hedrons, The - album review

The Hedrons

29 Jan 2007

ROCK Impressive influences do not a great band make . . . Towers of London alone are proof of that. This lot could teach them a thing or two, however, as, although they clearly worship at the alters of Hole, Blondie, Joan Jett and Ramones, the…

Hitlist - The best events, talk and sport

29 Jan 2007

Your Sound Networking event for unsigned bands. King Tuts, Glasgow. Sun 4 Feb.

Hold Steady, The

How swoon is now

29 Jan 2007

As timely dates go, The Hold Steady stomping their way through their set on Valentine’s Day is about as apposite as you can get.

Indigitous

Studio 24, Edinburgh, Fri 2 Feb

29 Jan 2007

TRANCE Although trance is more of a niche market these days, in contrast to its Goan heyday in the mid-90s, there’s still a dedicated audience for it out there. Those who live in Edinburgh will have been disappointed of late, however, because the…

Jamie T - album review

Jamie T

29 Jan 2007

INDIE Instantly labelled as a ‘troubadour’, seemingly this year’s music journalism cliché de rigeur, Jamie T and his bass guitar pop has enjoyed a year of steadily conscripting devotees to his cause. Striking a lyrical balance between mockney…

Jazz from Sweden

Various venues, Scotland-wide, Thu 8 Feb-Mon 19 Ma

29 Jan 2007

JAZZ The Swedes are finally coming, and if this five-week extravaganza of Swedish jazz is a little later than originally envisaged, it promises to be a memorable one. Assembly Direct and the Stockholm-based Rikskonserter first started to plot an…

Jenny Turner

Brainstorm (Jonathan Cape)

29 Jan 2007

COMEDY DRAMA Set in the booming London of the 1990s, Jenny Turner’s debut novel is already a period piece. Her astringent comedy of manners captures ‘media chicks’ and their men, swearing and scheming, cocooned in Canary Wharf, unaware of the cracks…

Joe Zawinul - album review

Joe Zawinul

29 Jan 2007

JAZZ A feast for Weather Report devotees, and a treat for anyone who just likes top quality big band playing. Joe Zawinul celebrated the 25th anniversary of the break-up of Weather Report in glorious style in this concert with the excellent WDR Big…

John Huston retrospective

A drunken god

29 Jan 2007

The prolific, gifted and deeply eccentric writer/director John Huston preferred to think that ‘God is not dead, just drunk.’ It’s a cute quote, which fits in with the air of Irish whimsy that Huston attempted to generate around himself and his uprooted…

Kaput!

This month: Kaput!

29 Jan 2007

INTRODUCING ... Residents Colin (AKA Kid Twist) Duncan from Dananananaykroyd and Tom of 50pbadges.com. Guests Regular live guests from the Scottish music scene and beyond will be a feature. Music policy 50s rockabilly, rock’n’roll, 60s…

Lady Sovereign - album review

Lady Sovereign

29 Jan 2007

GRIME POP When people first began getting their pantaloons in a twist about London’s Grime scene, much of the media rumpus was concentrated around mini MC Lady Sovereign. After a year of set backs and a chance meeting with Jay Z (he signed her to his…

LGBT History Month

Back to the future

29 Jan 2007

Love and life for LGBT people in the UK is looking a particularly rosy shade of pink in 2007. Civil partnerships have failed to wreck the institution of marriage, same-sex couples have the legal right to adopt children jointly, and the Equality Bill…

Little Barrie - album review

Little Barrie

29 Jan 2007

GARAGE BLUES Little Barrie’s Edwyn Collins-produced debut We Are Little Barrie proved a low-key, cult album, better received outside the scene fetish of the British Isles. Here, the three-piece returns with a change in line-up, a noticeably higher…

Living in the Modern World

City Art Centre, Edinburgh, until Sun 4 Mar

29 Jan 2007

PAINTING, FILM, PHOTOGRAPHY and INSTALLATION The spaces we inhabit and the buildings that surround us shape much of modern life as we know it. This is the basic premise for this densely packed exhibition, which spills out over two floors of the City…

Lorna Macintyre

Mary Mary, Glasgow, until Fri 23 Feb

29 Jan 2007

DRAWING, SCULPTURE AND PHOTOGRAPHY When the natural and unnatural are understood to be artificial concepts, the art object that takes this bleak state of affairs at its word is equally bleak. Lorna MacIntyre’s sculptures, photographs and drawings…

Make Your Own Kind of Music

29 Jan 2007

Last year, the Your Sound networking event (aimed at local unsigned bands who want to get in touch with the media and music industry) produced we are the PHYSICS (pictured) and The Dykeenies. It’s quickly become an essential date in the industry…

Malcolm Ross

Ego, Edinburgh, Wed 13 Dec

29 Jan 2007

INDIE The sad but true fact of Edinburgh’s current music scene is that, unless you have local knowledge of the great bands bubbling under the radar, there is no major scene which might burst forth and capture the imagination of the nation. It wasn’t…

Marissa Nadler - album review

Marissa Nadler

29 Jan 2007

AMERICAN GOTHIC To the uninitiated Nadler’s faraway, gothic sensibilities and haunted, sirenic voice can be off-putting to say the least. As in previous outings morose balladry, velvety vocals and intricate guitar work are the order of the day here…

Mika - album review

Mika

29 Jan 2007

POP Let’s play Spot the Influence. Queen! The Communards! Frankie Goes To Hollywood! Just when you’ve got Mika pinned as a retro-glam Hi NRG soundalike, he whaps the horns out for a Blur-ry knockabout caper on ‘Billy Brown’. Which sounds a bit like…

Molly McGrann

Exurbia (Picador)

29 Jan 2007

TEEN DRAMA The 80s may have been the decade that taste forgot (unless you reckon that was the 70s or 90s), but it’s been wildly in vogue for writers looking to pick on an even meaner, reckless period than the one we are currently dragging ourselves…

National Review of Live Art

Inner visions

29 Jan 2007

Now in its 27th year, the NRLA is taking over Glasgow’s Tramway for four days of live art, performance and installation from an international cast of established and emerging artists.

National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland - album review

National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland

29 Jan 2007

JAZZ The National Youth Orchestra of Scotland’s associated Jazz Orchestra has been around now for a decade, and issued a CD featuring the music of pianist Nikki Yeoh seven years ago. This second disc features two suites by Scottish composers at…

Natsuo Kirino

Grotesque (Harvill Secker)

29 Jan 2007

PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA The title of this book alone should have you assuming the brace position, particularly in light of award-winning Japanese author Natsuo Kirino’s reputation for driving right to the slippery limits of the human psyche. Long and…

Niall Griffiths

Runt (Jonathan Cape)

29 Jan 2007

SOCIAL DRAMA What a courageous writer Niall Griffiths is. In the seven years since his debut Grits - an ambitious and occasionally brilliant study of modern hedonism in West Wales - he has divined, deviated and experimented with a bravery that is…

Noisettes, The

King Tut’s, Glasgow, Thu 8 Feb

29 Jan 2007

ROCK The Noisettes Mishaps in rock music are hardly a rarity. However, if we are to believe the far-fetched tales of The Noisettes’ Shingai Shoniwa, good can often come of them. ‘One stormy night in 2003, Dan (Smith, guitar) went up the ale soaked…

Notes on a Scandal

(15) 91min

29 Jan 2007

DRAMA Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) - note that grasping surname - is not a popular figure at the North London comprehensive where she teaches history. To the staff and the students she is, in her own words, ‘a battleaxe’, and to the headmaster, she is…

Out to Lunch - Live!

Profile

29 Jan 2007

What’s that then? Lunch and 50 minutes of improv comedy for five shiny pounds.

Passenger (Pasazerka) - DVD review

Passenger (Pasazerka)

29 Jan 2007

DRAMA Passenger is one of the great, overlooked films to deal with the Holocaust. Andrzej Munk’s film stands alongside Night and Fog and Shoah as a seminal examination of this crater in 20th century life and thought. Unlike those films, however, this…

Play

(12A) 105min

29 Jan 2007

ROMANCE/DRAMA ‘Times were hard but they were modern’ runs the unattributed Italian proverb at the beginning of this vibrant debut feature from young Chilean writer-director Alicia Scherson, which provides a real tonic for jaded cinematic palates.