Issue 586

Chuck Prophet

20 Sep 2007

AMERICANA King Tut’s, Glasgow, Thu, 27 Sep Not to be confused with the current trend for trucker-chic and check shirts, Americana in the musical sense magics up the sound of smoky bars, whisky-soaked nights in the desert and heartbroken farm boys.

Clubland

20 Sep 2007

COMEDY/DRAMA (15) 107min Brenda Blethyn is on Little Voice form in this touching, bittersweet Australian comedy. She plays Jean, an ageing stand-up comedienne whose best days are behind her. She’s also a control freak who refuses to accept that her…

Colombiafrica

20 Sep 2007

WORLD Voodoo Love Inna Champeta Land (Riverboat Records) The title and artwork evoke early Dr John, but this exuberant album was brewed in a much bigger melting-pot than New Orleans. Like the original bluesmen travelling to London to record with their…

Crazy P

20 Sep 2007

DISCO HOUSE Ultragroove at Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, Sat 22 Sep With a new album recorded and all-but mixed, the artists formerly known as Crazy Penis have toned down to appeal to the popular market. ‘Yeah, the Penis has gone,’ says singer…

Dàimh

20 Sep 2007

FOLK Crossing Point (Greentrax) The addition of Lewis-born Gaelic singer Calum Alex MacMillan to their well-established instrumental line-up has added a new dimension to the music of Dàimh, a band with roots in the West Highlands, but a personnel that…

Dan Dare Rogue Planet

Frank Hampson & Don Harley

20 Sep 2007

Purists might be shocked by the news that Dan Dare is to return in a new series written by Preacher’s iconoclastic author Garth Ennis, yet no update could surely go further than Grant Morrison and Rian Hughes’ Dare , which saw our despairing hero…

Dan Miller: Stockade

20 Sep 2007

DRAWING, SCULPTURE AND PAINTING Studio Warehouse, Glasgow, until 24 Sep One has to wade through the familiar sophomoric references to modernist architecture, ‘dazzle’ camouflage and death to arrive at the germ of what is an interesting talent, in the…

Divisadero

Michael Ondaatje

20 Sep 2007

Best known for The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje provides another trademark non-linear narrative, attempting to create a whole out of disparate story strands, but with rather limited success. On a Californian farm, Anna, adopted sister Claire and…

DJ IQ

20 Sep 2007

HIP HOP Live from the Sofa (Man Can) Don’t worry, the Sofa isn’t some tragically hip underground club you’ve never heard of – it’s in the living room of DJ IQ, one of the UK’s most tenacious new beatsmiths. With the help of a whole bus-load of UK hip…

DVD Round-Up

20 Sep 2007

On hearing of Marilyn Monroe’s death, the filmmaker and actor John Huston said: ‘It’s a terrible pity that so much beauty has been lost to us.’ Forty-five years on, the first of two definitive DVD collections dedicated to her are coming out. Marilyn…

Ecoute Le Temps

20 Sep 2007

MYSTERY/CRIME (15) 87min There are echoes of Brian de Palma’s superb 1981 thriller Blow Out in this low-budget, high-concept drama from writer/director Alanté Kavaïté. A documentary sound engineer Charlotte (Émilie Dequenne, best known for her debut…

Elf Analysis - theatre preview

20 Sep 2007

Few young writers of recent years can have had quite so rapid a rise to prominence as Morna Pearson. Before November of last year, few beyond a handful of mentors would have heard of the Elgin born writer, but after her Critics’ Awards for Theatre in…

Exposure - Foals

20 Sep 2007

Tomorrow’s music today. This issue: Foals Mixing a love of techno, Timbaland and loud guitars really is no rarity these days but what sets Foals apart from the rest is the Brighton-based quintet’s musical prowess, math rock tendencies and fierce…

Feist

20 Sep 2007

FOLK POP Oran Mor, Glasgow, Wed 26 Oct If Leslie Feist has done one thing in her varied career that deserves to make her a star, it’s the day she spent shooting the video to her recent, mesmerisingly cheerful single ‘1234’. Google it or find it on…

Foo Fighters

20 Sep 2007

ROCK Echos, Silence, Patience and Grace (Roswell/RCA) A wave of post-Nirvana excitement propelled Foo Fighters through their first few albums with ease and just as they were going to running out of steam a whole new generation of rock kids came along…

Georgie James

20 Sep 2007

POP Places (Saddle Creek) Imagine The White Stripes raised on summer sunshine and vintage Beach Boys instead of Detroit rain and Delta blues, and you’ll get some idea of the genius of boy-girl duo Georgie James. This is pure, driven pop music with…

Hamlet - preview

20 Sep 2007

If I had a Kroner for every time someone reinvented Hamlet, I could afford a cruise to Denmark. If it’s not being set in Nazi Germany or a mental institution, the lead is being performed by – Gosh o’blood – a woman, the whole thing’s being done in the…

Hatchet

20 Sep 2007

HORROR/COMEDY (18) 85min Although the tagline – ‘it’s not a remake, it’s not a sequel and it’s not based on a Japanese one’ – suggests Hatchet is an original horror movie, it’s far from that. It is, as a second tagline more accurately describes this…

Hitlist - The best classical & opera

20 Sep 2007

• BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra: Thursday Night Series The opening concert of the BBC SSO’s new series is inspired by heavenly bodies, centred on Holst’s everlastingly vivid portraits of The Planets, one of the most popular pieces of classical music…

Hitlist - The best comedy

20 Sep 2007

• Fred MacAulay The star of telly and radio also happens to be a truly inspiring stand-up performer and this show is one of the main draws of the Merchant City Festival. The Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, Sat 22 Sep. • Debra-Jane Appelby The former…

Hitlist - The best dancefloor action

20 Sep 2007

• Merchant City Festival Club Every night the best in local DJs play the hottest sounds to round off your festival day including Bebado, Harri and the Trouble DJs. Carnival Arts Centre, Glasgow, Thu 20 Sep–Sun 23 Sep. • Our Haus Set in a tenement…

Hitlist - The best exhibitions

20 Sep 2007

• Scott Myles This exhibition of installed sculptures and work on paper frustrates easy judgements of taste, and plays with ideas of illusion, reflection and artifice with a sense of humour. Myles’ sculptures, as fixtures and fitting, stand apart from…

Hitlist - The best film & dvd releases

20 Sep 2007

• The Yacoubian Building Good Egyptian films don’t come round that often so don’t miss this epic multi character drama. GFT, Glasgow from Fri 21-Sun 23 Sep. • A Mighty Heart Angelina Jolie stars in Michael Winterbottom’s moving adaptation of…

Hitlist - The best rock, pop, jazz & folk

20 Sep 2007

• Dean Owens and the Whisky Hearts This masterful Edinburgh songwriter kicks of ten days of shows in Darvel with a full-blooded, full-band show of his beguiling Americana. Darvel Music Festival, Darvel Town Hall, near Kilmarnock, Wed 26 Sep. (Folk…

Hitlist - the best books, comics & events

20 Sep 2007

Bruce Parry, the intrepid BBC guy, helps launch the book of the TV series Tribe. Yann Martel, the Canongate author who sprung a major surprise with his Booker win for Life of Pi, drops by for a couple of events to mark the illustrated version of his…