Issue 590

New Scottish bands

15 Nov 2007

Over the last couple of years, it has sometimes seemed like the end of an era for Scottish indie music. Starting with the amicable split of the seminal Delgados, and, more recently, the demise of Falkirk’s Arab Strap and underrated noiseniks…

Optimo turn ten

15 Nov 2007

The main problem with Optimo (Espacio), to give the club’s full title, is that it’s almost impossible to categorise in one handy soundbite. Keith McIvor (aka Twitch, pictured left) and Jonnie Wilkes (pictured right) both came from a techno background…

Brick Lane

15 Nov 2007

The Brick Lane depicted in Monica Ali’s prize-winning 2003 novel and adapted for the big screen by Sarah Gavron is pretty much gone. While the street remains the spiritual home of the huge Bengali community in London it’s now been overrun by wine bars…

Jason Schwartzman - The Darjeeling Limited

15 Nov 2007

‘I felt like we were kids making a movie,’ says Jason Schwartzman. ‘Every day we set out to work was an adventure. We never knew what was going to happen.’ The 27-year-old American actor might well be reminiscing about his big screen debut in 1998 in…

Eating in Inverness

15 Nov 2007

I’d never really thought about Inverness as a holiday destination. To be perfectly, shamefacedly honest, I hadn’t really ever thought much about Inverness. In an age of £20 flights to Europe, the idea of the weekend city break has come to mean something…

Voodoo Rooms - Spellbound

15 Nov 2007

Renegade, the organisation that gave us Pure and Vegas! now have their very own venue to play with. The Voodoo Rooms is situated in the space above Edinburgh’s Café Royal, restored to its former glory and populated by a mixed roster of nights that take…

Allan Moyle - The Cold High

15 Nov 2007

Filmmaker Allan Moyle is beaming across the table at me: ‘I loved your movie!’ Sensing my confusion he continues: ‘The movie – your movie! Trainspotting!’ Unable to discern the distinction between my Glaswegian accent and the Edinburgh-based epic, he…

Example - Word smart

15 Nov 2007

Even for seasoned trend-spotters and taste makers like those here at The List it isn’t easy to predict which artists will strike a chord with the masses, who will stall before take-off and who will crash and burn. Having conquered press and public…

Peter Dineen - Interview by a vampire

15 Nov 2007

Today the critic is often viewed as a vampire sucking the life out of the artist but it wasn’t alwsys thus. Alexander Pope, for instance, was perfectly able to balance his career as an essayist with that of a poet, with, in fact, the former being more…

Tom Phillips - Word and image

15 Nov 2007

In 1966 the artist Tom Phillips went on a shopping expedition in Peckham, casually looking for a book to play with and adapt. Chance led him to a copy of WH Mallock’s A Human Document, an obscure and relatively forgotten Victorian novel, which the…

Cinema’s most unconventional families

The ties that bind

15 Nov 2007

Wes Anderson has made much of the dynamism of the dysfunctional family in his films. Mark Robertson presents some of cinema’s other most unconventional families The Griswolds from National Lampoon’s Vacation The farcical events of the National…

American Gangster

15 Nov 2007

Ridley Scott’s American Gangster opens with callous urban cruelty as a man is tied to a chair, doused with petrol and set on fire. But the reasons behind this violent act are less to do with anarchy than with good business, or at least that’s the lesson…

Charlie Brooker

15 Nov 2007

COLLECTED JOURNALISM Dawn of the Dumb (Faber) Listening to a verbose man rant on and on about the things that irritate him can be a relentless and exhausting chore at times. Put that down in print and those same demented opinions can appear more…

Beowulf

15 Nov 2007

(12A) 114min Beowulf is being released on four formats: 35mm, digital, digital 3D and IMAX. This review is based on the IMAX version, Beowulf being the first mainstream film to successfully employ this technology. Much of the initial wow factor is…

Rescue Dawn

15 Nov 2007

Born in 1938 in the Black Forest region of Germany, Dieter Dengler never wanted to go to war, he just wanted to fly. After emigrating to America at the age of 18 and completing flight training, in 1966 Dengler found himself on board an aircraft carrier…

In the Shadow of the Moon

15 Nov 2007

This exhilarating British-made documentary about the American lunar programme of the 1960s and 70s serves to remind us just how stirring the best efforts of mankind can be. Assembled under the guidance of director David Sington from a wealth of…

Planet Terror

15 Nov 2007

Cut loose from its Grindhouse packaging Robert Sin City Rodriguez’s freaky, apocalyptic horror film is undoubtedly the baddest, nastiest and least well behaved child to come out of that divorce. But in this case that’s a very good thing. When an…

Charles M Schulz - Small world

15 Nov 2007

It’s the little things that make the difference. In the case of the Charles M Schulz cartoon strips, that could mean the smallest of pen strokes for a raised eyebrow, an extra crease on a forehead, the downward bend on the ends of a mouth. Schulz…

Stereophonics

15 Nov 2007

ROCK SECC, Glasgow, Sun 25 Nov It’s a rock truism. Some bands burn out, some fade away while a few just keep rolling on for an age, undaunted by critical opinion and undimmed in their fans’ affections. Stereophonics are an archetypal example of…

SNJO plays Woody Herman

15 Nov 2007

JAZZ Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Sat 24 Nov; Byre Theatre, St Andrews, Fri 30 Nov; RSAMD, Glasgow, Sat 1 Dec The SNJO have already featured the music of Ellington, Basie and Goodman, so it seems only natural that Tommy Smith and his troops should now…

Fiddle 2007

15 Nov 2007

FOLK Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, Fri 16–Sun 18 Nov Asked to name a famous fiddler, most people think of the mysterious character in Fiddler on the Roof, the archetypal lone folk musician, or failing that the lass from The Corrs. Musically, it’s a…

Vieux Farka Toure

15 Nov 2007

WORLD Arches, Glasgow, Sun 25 Nov When Vieux Farka Toure played at WOMAD this year, world music fans were intrigued to see how he would fare. When his father, the great Malian music oracle Ali Farka Toure died in 2006, he left behind a musical…

The Necks

15 Nov 2007

JAZZ The Lot, Edinburgh, Wed 7 Nov Live, the extended improvisations of the Australian trio of pianist Chris Abrahams, drummer Tony Buck and bassist Lloyd Swanson should curl up into an inward-looking heap. Yet, as their recent album, Townsville…

John Spacey

15 Nov 2007

HOUSE Karnival at Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, Sat 24 Nov Having enjoyed increasing success as a DJ under his BeGoodMusic banner, house DJ John Spacey is making something of a comeback gig here. Spacey (real name John Brownlie) is originally from…

Bamboo Fifth Birthday

15 Nov 2007

HOUSE Bamboo, Glasgow, Sat 24 Nov Despite being a commercial club in the heart of the city, Bamboo’s music policy doesn’t just pander to the mainstream, so it’s definitely worth shouting about the fact that they are five this month. A three-room…

Christmas secrets of the master chefs

15 Nov 2007

MARY CONTINI Our family traditions are tied up with the religious traditions that my grandparents brought across with them from Italy, and are to do with fasting and abstinence in the days leading up to a feast. So on Christmas Eve, we always have…

Pamper perfect

15 Nov 2007

Once, your cut and blow dry experience amounted to a cup of coffee and a flick through the latest fashion glossy. But hairdressing has come a long way with today’s super salons offering a brilliant, modern and elegant array of luxury services. A…

Remote Control

15 Nov 2007

It’s probably not Jack Dee’s fault that comparisons with Curb Your Enthusiasm have been made to his Lead Balloon (BBC2, Thu 15 Nov, 9.30pm ••). Sure, Curb’s ‘Larry David’ and Lead’s Rick Spleen work in similar areas of the entertainment industry and…

Spiders - Eight-legged freak out

15 Nov 2007

A spider fear is an embarrassing thing to admit to. They don’t bite, they don’t sting, they’re almost blind, and yet I find the sight of one running towards me distinctly unsettling. I’d like to be one of those people who scoops them up in her bare…

Roseleaf - Upbeat pub grub

15 Nov 2007

There’s no doubt that the shake-up of pubs nearly two years on from the introduction of the smoking ban is well underway. Most of us have changed our attitudes to pubs in that time – we’ll go more often, but for a shorter time, we’re more likely to eat…

Music DVD Round-Up

15 Nov 2007

Oasis show their capacity to entertain remains undiminished on Lord Don’t Slow Me Down (Sony) ••• which follows Noel and Co round the world on the tour to support Don’t Believe the Truth. More accurately it shows the relentlessness and tedium of touring…

The Persian Revolution

15 Nov 2007

NEW WORK Traverse, Edinburgh, Wed 21–Sat 24 Nov What do we imagine when the word Iran is mentioned? In the West, the frequent response might be images of great masses of conforming folk, all similarly attired, with a succession identical…

Twelve days of Christmas - daily entertainment

15 Nov 2007

1 Norweigan Carol Concert Struggling to tap into the festive spirit? Awaken your seasonal senses at this sonorous evening of family carol singing with a Scandinavian slant. St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh, Thu 22 Nov. 2 The Wizard of Oz The…

DVD Roundup

15 Nov 2007

‘No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees/No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds!’ That’s how English poet and humourist Thomas Hood chose to describe the month of November. There is some of Hood’s cheeky sense of observation in John Waters: This…

BAFTA - In the spotlight

15 Nov 2007

BAFTA continued to showcase its dedication to short film last week, launching details of this year’s 60 Seconds of Fame initiative. The competition, set up last year, aims to support and encourage the public to participate in filmmaking. Open to anyone…

Also Released - Film

15 Nov 2007

Bug (18) 101min ••• William The Exorcist Friedkin’s film adaptation of Tracey Letts’ nausea-inducing play about a couple of depressed white trash lovers holed up in a rundown hotel, and their slow realisation that something may be crawling under their…

Wristcutters: A Love Story

15 Nov 2007

There’s a thick-blooded vein of Slavic humour running through Croatian writer-director Goran Dukic’s absurdist purgatorial romantic comedy. Adapted from Israeli writer Etgar Keret’s short story, Kneller’s Happy Campers, Dukic’s feature debut boasts a…

Singles & Downloads

15 Nov 2007

There’s a definite sense of gloom hanging over this fortnight’s bunch, particularly from the Glaswegians. Make Model prove that misery needn’t be without a sense of humour in ‘The Was’ (EMI) ••••, whose grungy cries of ‘Comatose stoned/Softening the…

Cinderella’s fella

15 Nov 2007

Matthew Lenton, artistic director of Vanishing Point, explains why he moonlights as a children’s entertainer every December ‘I’m writing and directing Cinderella at Carnegie Hall in Dunfermline this year. I’ve directed their annual panto for the past…

The Pearlfisher

15 Nov 2007

NEW WORK Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, run ended Philip Howard’s final production as the Traverse’s artistic director might be seen to characterise much of his sterling work there over the last decade. His swansong with Iain F MacLeod’s gentle, but…

Smith/Stewart: Enter Love and Enter Death

15 Nov 2007

SCULPTURAL INSTALLATION Royal Botanic Gardens, Inverleith House, Edinburgh, until Sun 20 Jan Simply entering Smith/Stewart’s new exhibition is difficult. Faced directly with a black horizontal girder, one feels tempted to advance, yet hesitant.

Interview - Russell Ferguson

15 Nov 2007

Alexander Kennedy takes a walk in the woods and meets Russell Ferguson, co-owner and curator at Analogue Alexander Kennedy Tell me about the exhibition space at Analogue. Which artists have you shown there and what kind of work do you exhibit?

Gillespie, Kidd and Coia: 1956–1987

15 Nov 2007

ARCHITECTURE The Lighthouse, Glasgow, until Sun 10 Feb It’s always difficult to review an architecture exhibition. Do you focus on the realised buildings or the sketches, blueprints and models on show and the way they are presented? At first…

Introducing . . . The GRV

15 Nov 2007

The best new venues in Glasgow and Edinburgh. This month: The GRV, Edinburgh Residents A comprehensive array of local talent providing a variety of styles. Regulars include GT, Joe Jerome and Scottieboy. Guests Lo Fidelity Allstars (pictured…

Dunedin Consort – Buxtehude Anniversary Concert

15 Nov 2007

ANNIVERSARY Queens Hall, Edinburgh, Sun 18 Nov Composers’ anniversaries can be neat pegs upon which to hang concert programmes, with the added bonus that audiences hear music that otherwise might not get much of an airing. In the case of Dietrich…

GHQ

15 Nov 2007

NEW VENUE Allan Radcliffe savours a gay venue with a difference in the capital According to a recent study by Washington’s Urban Institute, which highlighted indicators of a city’s economic success, one of the marks of a thriving urban economy…

Winterfest Glasgow

15 Nov 2007

Glasgow is set to sparkle in suitably gallus style this year, as, for the first time, the various massed events and celebrations are being collected under the non-denominational and kinda cuddly umbrella Winterfest – a programme of ceilidhs, clubs…

A Soldier’s Tale

15 Nov 2007

MUSIC THEATRE Tron, Glasgow, Fri 16–Sat 17 Nov Among what we rather forbiddingly call ‘serious’ or ‘classical’ music composers, perhaps the most frequently performed over the last century, at least in terms of theatre rather than opera, is…

They Make These Noises

15 Nov 2007

NEW PLAY Arches, Glasgow, until Fri 16 Nov The noises in question emanate from the rumbling stomachs of the old boys living in a godforsaken hostel where the theft of a splash of milk can lead to a bloody stabbing. This is where Brian Ferguson’s…

5 Reasons To Go See - The Hives

15 Nov 2007

1 ‘Cos every girl crazy ‘bout a sharp dressed man’ Sorry for starting with a ZZ Top quote, but it couldn’t be more apt for this impeccably attired Swedish five-piece garage rock behemoth. Every new record comes accompanied by a razor-sharp new look, and…

Milton Jones

15 Nov 2007

STAND-UP The Stand, Glasgow, Mon 19 Nov; The Stand, Edinburgh, Tue 20 Nov For Milton Jones, it must seem like a very long time ago since he was hitting the Edinburgh Fringe heights with a Best Newcomer success in 1996 and a main Perrier Award…

Blame it on Fidel!

15 Nov 2007

Paris in the early 1970s and nine-year-old Anna de La Mesa (Nina Kervel) is having problems coming to terms with her radical political activist parents. Her Spanish-born lawyer father Fernando (Stefano Accorsi) and journalist/writer mother Marie (Julie…

The Jane Austen Book Club

15 Nov 2007

Despite the literary title, the club in this adaptation of Karen Joy Fowler’s bestselling book is conceived after Prudie Drummond (Emily Blunt) goes to see the 1999 version of Mansfield Park at the cinema. Similarly, writer/director Robin Swircord…

Sleuth

15 Nov 2007

Some typically terse Harold Pinter dialogue aside, Kenneth Branagh’s reworking of Anthony Shaffer’s theatrical two-hander is an annoyingly clueless affair. Having played opposite Laurence Olivier in the original, Michael Caine now switches to playing…

The Tragedie Of Macbeth and The Tragedie Of Hamlet

15 Nov 2007

CLASSICS Hudson Hotel, Edinburgh, until Mon 17 Dec Communicating Shakespeare’s contemporary relevance is always contentious. To draw links with modern day society or not, that is the question. Artistic director and actor William Mann, of…

Boy A

15 Nov 2007

DRAMA Channel 4, Mon 26 Nov, 9pm As Channel 4 looks forward after glancing back at its first quarter of a century, there’s one area of programming where it seems to be especially strong: the one-off trauma drama. In recent times we’ve had Matthew…

Endgame

15 Nov 2007

MODERN CLASSIC Arches, Glasgow, Wed 21–Fri 23 Nov, then touring There are so many expectations attached to Beckett’s masterpiece, be it existential, political, comedic or other in intent, that it’s hard to see how it can be approached without a…

Ori Gersht

15 Nov 2007

PHOTOGRAPHY AND FILM Stills, Edinburgh, until Sun 20 Jan In the dark back section of the bisected Stills space, Ori Gersht’s video installation ‘The Forest’ intermittently emits the overwhelming roar of trees being felled. Meanwhile, a series of…

Also Released - Music

15 Nov 2007

• LCD Soundsystem > 45:33 (DFA/EMI) James Murphy and Pat Mahoney Fabriclive: 36 (Fabric) A pair of LCD related mixtapes emerge within weeks of each other, the former an extended jam Murphy recorded for Nike which gets a physical release while the latter…

Anna M

15 Nov 2007

French writer/director Michel Spinosa’s Anna M is a psychological thriller which blends the clinical and the mystical in its portrait of a female erotomaniac. A rare book restorer at Paris’s Bibliotheque Nationale, who still lives with her mother, the…

Marjolaine Ryley

15 Nov 2007

PHOTOGRAPHY Street Level, Glasgow, until Sat 22 Dec The exhibition of photos by Sunderland-based Marjolaine Ryley at Street Level does exactly what we now expect photography to do in the eternally expansive post-modern moment – register and present…

Keith Farquhar

15 Nov 2007

ARTIST-CURATED SHOW Embassy, Edinburgh, until Sun 18 Nov Blurring the line between curation and creation, this new show by Edinburgh artist Keith Farquhar exists – as the artist himself states – to serve as ‘advertisements’ for the work of Henri…

'Twas The Night Before Christmas

15 Nov 2007

AERIAL SHOW Opposite Ocean Terminal, Leith, Sat 24 Nov, 5pm The words ‘Christmas’ and ‘free’ rarely go hand in hand these days, but a one-off event in Leith is bucking the trend. ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas is a free outdoor family event…

White Christmas

15 Nov 2007

MUSICAL Edinburgh Playhouse, Mon 19 Nov–Sat 8 Dec For 13 years he was JR’s arch enemy, but these days Ken Kercheval is more likely to have a song, rather than hate, in his heart. As Scotch-drinking oilman Cliff Barnes in Dallas, Kercheval became a…

Radiance

15 Nov 2007

LIGHT INSTALLATION Various locations, Glasgow city centre, Fri 23–Sun 25 Nov As the nights draw in, Glasgow City Council is flooding the dark skies with light, filling the streets with large-scale light installations by some of the most successful…

Shrooms

15 Nov 2007

(18) 84min Paddy I Went Down Breathnach’s ‘kids in the woods’ horror movie digs the rich genre furrow that runs from Evil Dead through Blair Witch Project to Wrong Turn. But here’s the twist – everyone’s off their faces, tripping on magic…

Blood Country & Rehearsal Room 12

15 Nov 2007

NEW WORK Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Thu 22–Sat 24 & Thu 29 Nov There’s always been something boysie about the best of Douglas Maxwell’s work, with such pieces as Our Bad Magnet and Decky Does a Bronco depicting all-male casts exploring the rites…

The Producers

15 Nov 2007

MUSICAL King’s Theatre, Glasgow, until Sat 17 November It’s a rule of thumb that celebrities cast in touring musicals to pull in floating punters will require some degree of propping up by the singing/dancing pros in the company. Certainly…

Calvin Harris plays Edinburgh's Hogmanay

15 Nov 2007

Are you more festive elf or Scrooge McDuck? I’m getting less festive as I get older. In fact, all year round I’m becoming a miserable Scrooge. Which songs would feature on your perfect festive soundtrack, and which definitely wouldn’t? Paul…

Britney Spears

15 Nov 2007

POP Blackout (Jive) Producer So, she’ll be here in a few minutes, yeah? Record company executive Yeah, so we’ll have a window of 30 minutes to lay down some vocals. P But she hasn’t even heard the tunes yet... RCE Erm, yeah, just, um...

Miss Bollywood

15 Nov 2007

MUSICAL Let’s be honest, the prognosis isn’t good. But we at The List never pre-judge a show before its arrival. All the same, Shilpa Shetty’s musical star vehicle, intended, no doubt, to cash in on the storm of publicity that exploded around her…

Paul Vickers & The Leg

15 Nov 2007

ROCK Nice’n’Sleazy’s, Glasgow, Tue 6 Nov Rock’n’roll clichés, eh? Musicians trashing their instruments, throwing TVs out of their hotel room windows, and erm... their backing bands modelling terrifying panda-meets-voodoo-skeleton outfits. The…

Kisses

15 Nov 2007

TEEN DRAMA (15) 74min (Yume Pictures DVD retail) In some ways resembling a Japanese Rebel Without a Cause, Yasuzo Blind Beast Masumura’s sweet romantic debut feature film from 1957 offers hyperbolised family problems to bring out the best in the…

EXODUS

15 Nov 2007

One of Britain’s best-known maverick filmmakers, Penny Woolcock (Mischief Night, The Principles of Lust), teams up with Artangel (an organisation that commissions and produces projects by contemporary artists), Antony Gormley and the city of Margate to…

Profile - Matt Berry

15 Nov 2007

Who’s he then? You may recognise Matt Berry from his role as aristo explorer type Dixon Bainbridge in The Mighty Boosh or for his parts in Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and the recent second series of The IT Crowd. No, there’s somewhere else... Then…

News in Brief - First Writes

15 Nov 2007

Scottish playwright wins major accolade Scottish playwright Morna Pearson has won the Meyer-Whitworth Award for new writing in theatre for her play Distracted, which met with critical acclaim when it played at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre last…

Brain Damage

15 Nov 2007

Brain Damage is surely the masterpiece in Frank Henenlotter’s limited but bloody career (though he does have a film called Bad Biology currently in post-production). Henenlotter made his name with the lurid Basket Case, before moving on to Frankenhooker…

Mike Mignola

15 Nov 2007

HORROR Hellboy: The Troll Witch and Others (Dark Horse) Those lamenting the scaling back of Mike Mignola’s terrifically idiosyncratic illustrations (presumably so he can focus on comic scriptwriting, film development and other business affairs) will…

The Ting Tings

15 Nov 2007

POWERPOP Liquid Room, Edinburgh, Wed 17 Oct If record labels really must go getting caught up in unseemly ‘bidding wars’, the least they can do is make sure they’re getting a good band. Columbia recently won the squabble for Manchester duo The Ting…

Jon Ronson

15 Nov 2007

COLLECTED JOURNALISM What I Do (Picador) I’ve mostly avoided Jon Ronson in the past, mainly because of an irrational fear of his ultra-liberal-looking potato-head, and witnessing an early simpering appearance of his on late-night Channel 4. So…

Portico Quartet

15 Nov 2007

JAZZ Knee-Deep in the North Sea (Babel Vortex) The first release on the new label jointly run by Oliver Weindling’s The Babel Label and the London jazz club The Vortex features the debut album from a young group attracting a lot of attention at the…

Mary Gaitskill

15 Nov 2007

SOCIAL DRAMA Veronica (Serpent’s Tail) Mary Gaitskill rarely shies away from the violence of inner life. S&M, self-harm and bad sex torment characters as they struggle to define themselves and the world and new novel Veronica is no different. Alison…

John Wagner, Alan Grant & Jose Ortiz

15 Nov 2007

HORROR The Thirteenth Floor (Hibernia) The 80s British comic boom is best-remembered these days as the glory days of 2000AD, when such creators as Alan Moore and Grant Morrison came to prominence. Yet, other contemporary comics from the same…

When the Trumpets Fade

15 Nov 2007

WAR DRAMA (15) 85min (Arrow DVD Retail) Brit John Irvin directed this HBO-produced WWII-set film which concentrates on the bloody, drawn out, all but forgotten battle at Hürtgen Forest on the border between Belgium and Germany in the winter of…

Also Published - 5 Humour Books

15 Nov 2007

• Ibrahim Amin The Monster Hunter’s Handbook Subtitled ‘The Ultimate Guide to Saving Mankind from Vampires, Zombies, Hellhounds and Other Mythical Beasts’ this includes a Top Trumps on the weapons which might come in handy should you encounter said…

Scottish Opera: Seraglio

15 Nov 2007

OPERA Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Sat 24, Tue 27 & Thu 29 Nov. Seen at Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Sat 27 Oct The term Turkish harem usually brings to mind opulent palaces, sumptuous silks and sensual, oriental soft-furnishings. In Seraglio, however…

Elina Hirvonen

15 Nov 2007

FAMILY SAGA When I Forgot (Portobello) The first novel by young Norwegian filmmaker and journalist Elina Hirvonen is a slim but well-formed volume. At 180 pages it’s a day’s read, although many of the evocative situations Hirvonen conjures will…

Various

15 Nov 2007

SUPERHERO Marvel Europa (Marvel UK) Last fortnight we had a collection of the UK’s best writers and artists. This issue we look at Europa a collection bringing together a selection of European creators as they tackle Marvel’s roster of superheroes.

Reuters

15 Nov 2007

SPORT PHOTOGRAPHY Sport in the 21st Century (Thames & Hudson) Alongside the wilds of earthly nature and mysteries of the solar system, sporting endeavour and its surrounding dramas could have been created simply to be caught on camera. In this…

Jeff Lemire

15 Nov 2007

DRAMA Essex County Vol 2: Ghost Stories (Top Shelf) The second volume of an interconnected trilogy of graphic novels set in a fictionalised version of Essex County, Ontario is almost unbearably poignant. Ghost Stories follows the lives of brothers…

Chihiro Yamanaka

15 Nov 2007

JAZZ Lach Doch Mal (Emarcy) This young Japanese pianist makes her Scottish debut this issue at The Lot, and follows in the wake of Hiromi in being snapped up by a major label. Like many of our own young jazz musicians, she has studied both in London…

Burial

15 Nov 2007

DUBSTEP Untrue (Hyperdub) This is as far from the blissed-out Ibiza late-night comedown as you could ever wish. Burial’s intention was to create a soundtrack for a moment in the middle of the night; a moment of dark contemplation and he has does so…

Hitting the right note

15 Nov 2007

Scottish Opera supremo Alex Reedijk has officially launched the company’s Five:15 programme, which features such Scottish talent as Grace Notes author Bernard MacLaverty and Rebus creator Ian Rankin (pictured) working alongside such musical talents as…

Hitler – A Career

15 Nov 2007

Hardly justifying a DVD release, this 1970s-made steady trot through Hitler’s rise and fall has the sanctimonious tone of an admonition. Joachim C Fest’s film is less a warning from history and more a sustained attack of Hitler’s one-dimensional…

Dillinger Escape Plan

15 Nov 2007

METAL Ire Works (Relapse) Having written the definitive math-metal album with 1999’s Calculating Infinity debut, DEP have faced incessant criticism from a select few for daring to expand the sonic palette. Ire Works looks set to provoke further…

Fraser Anderson

15 Nov 2007

FOLK Coming Up for Air (Monochrome) Born in Edinburgh and now based in Paris, Fraser Anderson is a hidden talent. Certainly in an era when you can’t turn round for a new, major label-signed singer-songwriter busking on every street corner, his…

DJ Vadim

15 Nov 2007

HIP HOP The Sound Catcher Extras (BBE) When The Sound Catcher came out last year, some reviewers believed that DJ Vadim, the original White Russian, was not interested in inventing sub-genres, but simply putting his stamp on the music he was in…

Duran Duran

15 Nov 2007

NEW ROMANTIC LEGENDS Red Carpet Massacre (RCA) In the 20-odd years since the original fab five went their separate ways, Duran Duran have plastered the cracks in their line-up with contributions from session musicians and legendary producers such as…

Nine Black Alps

15 Nov 2007

ALT.ROCK Love/Hate (Island) When this Manchester foursome released their debut album two years ago, they sounded a great deal like Nirvana. Now they’re back it’s disappointing to hear just how little they have actually progressed. On the plus side…

BMX Bandits

15 Nov 2007

INDIE Bee Stings (Poppydisc) Fifteen albums on, these indie legends show no sign of resting on their laurels, and Bee Stings is proof that all this frolicking in pastures new has paid off. From catchy opener ‘Take Me to Heaven’ to the captivating…