Issue 598

The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

13 Mar 2008

If there is still such a thing as ‘appointment television’ in this multi-channel age, The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is it. The adaptation of Alexander McCall Smith’s much- loved novel arrives on the small screen this fortnight thanks to a wealth of…

Helen Walsh

13 Mar 2008

Helen Walsh has lived a little. At 13, while her classmates in Warrington were flicking through Smash Hits, she was swept up in the early 90s euphoria of acid house and ecstasy. At 16, as most girls her age sat their GCSEs, she was hooked on cocaine and…

Taste Test - Posh cheese and onion crisps

13 Mar 2008

Tyrells Mature Cheddar & Chives, 50g, 65p Kember & Jones, 134 Byres Road, Glasgow; Jenners, 48 Princes Street, Edinburgh The classy looking, see-through packaging looks promising, but these hand-cooked crisps are over fried and over flavoured. The…

Guru

13 Mar 2008

‘I’ve personally always been about trying to create new, relevant, hot music,’ states Guru in a considered tone that sits well with his rap canon, ‘and thanks to my partnership with the super-producer Solar I’m able to do that. Not everyone has a…

Douglas Maxwell

13 Mar 2008

'It’s a bit like being at the controls of a jumbo jet after four pints at lunchtime. It’s exhilarating but terrifying.’ Douglas Maxwell is employing a typically vivid metaphor for entering into fatherhood. With a child of three months recently arriving…

Glasgow Comedy Festival - Stewart Lee

13 Mar 2008

When a stand-up is dubbed ‘a comics’ comic’, that can usually be translated into: ‘loved by his peers and critics; not quite so loved by audiences.’ Yet, when you look at the career of Stewart Lee, the adulation of comedians and journalists may have…

Scotland’s craft community

13 Mar 2008

Click, click, click. For the past few years, the needles of crafters up and down the country have been spinning a revolution. A very quiet, civilised revolution, granted. Productive. With minimal bloodshed, and lovely accessories. Okay, that might be…

Ceilidh Culture

13 Mar 2008

FOLK Various venues, Edinburgh, Fri 21 Mar–Sun 12 Apr Ceilidh Culture, Edinburgh’s spring fling of acoustic music and the traditional arts has this year moved from its council house, and is now being run by a team from the Usher Hall. Rather than…

Vanity Fair

13 Mar 2008

Sitting at a pub table surrounded by actors can be intimidating. Yet, the assembled cast of Tony Cownie’s upcoming production of Declan Donnellan’s adaptation of Vanity Fair are able to put this journalist at ease by dint of the sheer enthusiasm they…

5 Things you might not know about - French & Saunders

13 Mar 2008

When Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders first met in 1977 at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama, they didn’t exactly hit it off. Saunders believed French was a ‘cocky upstart’ while Dawn thought Jen was ‘snooty and aloof’. French is credited…

System 7

13 Mar 2008

PSYCHEDELIC TRANCE King Tuts, Glasgow, Fri 14 Mar After fronting cult, eccentric 60s space-rock collective Gong, guitarist Steve Hillage ploughed a psychedelic furrow through prog-rock before resorting to production duties for Scottish bands It Bites…

Out on the Wing

13 Mar 2008

Oran Mor, Glasgow, Mon 17–Sat 22 Mar Being gay in the armed forces isn’t illegal any longer, but in the male-dominated world of sports, it would appear that, even in the 21st century, boys can only play football professionally if they’re avowedly…

The Wall

13 Mar 2008

The anxieties and dilemmas of teenage life seems to be the theme of the moment in Scottish theatre. But it’s hard to imagine that they could be approached with such guile, deftness and warmth as in DC Jackson’s new play for Borderline and the…

Exposure - Simon Breed

13 Mar 2008

With shades of Scott Walker, Smog and Simon Bonney by way of Julian Cope and John Cale to his intimately epic, full-larynxed crooning, Simon Breed’s wordier than thou late-night troubadouring has been championed by Bad Seed Mick Harvey, the late John…

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

13 Mar 2008

If there was an award to be won on last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea won it. As well as a Fringe First, Herald Angel and Total Theatre Award, the show earned a trip to New York courtesy of the Carol Tambor Award and a…

Manchester Orchestra

13 Mar 2008

ROCK Oran Mor, Glasgow, Sun 10 Feb When it comes to compiling the worst album titles of all time, this Atlanta-based five-piece will surely be up there with the likes of Fiona Apple and Limp Bizkit with their second release, I’m Like a Virgin Losing a…

Remote Control - TV round-up

13 Mar 2008

It’s Easter time, so there seems no reason on this ungodly earth why we shouldn’t crack open the chocolate eggs and indulge in a bit of The Passion (BBC1, Sun 16 Mar Feb, 8pm). Anyone who remembers Robert Powell being strapped to the cross back in the…

Go west: Print The Legend

13 Mar 2008

The idea of the American West once stretched out like a great virginal expanse of prairie, a fantasy only limited by imagination and the Pacific Ocean. This myth is not only an American obsession, but one that the whole western genre film-viewing world…

Peter & The Wolf

13 Mar 2008

DANCE & CLASSICAL MUSIC Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Wed 26 & Thu 27 Mar To young ears, an orchestra can seem like a giant melting pot of sound. And picking out which instrument is playing when is a rather tricky affair. Which is why Sergei…

Wotever

13 Mar 2008

CLUB, FILM & WORKSHOP Various venues, Glasgow, Thu 27 & Fri 28 Mar The name may bring to mind the nonchalant brush-off of disaffected youth, but Wotever is in fact a lively, long-running London-based club and arts movement run by LGBT performers and…

The Style Issue - Trendspotting

13 Mar 2008

Dieny Itoe Clothes Not yet out of college, 23-year-old model and design student Dieny Itoe is hotly tipped for fashion fame. Her sophisticated interpretation of form and fabric earned her the coveted Glasgow 1999 Design Medal last year, and while…

The Style Issue - Music style

13 Mar 2008

With many high street retailers currently stocking just about every item of attire an aspiring indie hipster could dream of – from neon-splattered hoodies to trousers crotch-wrenchingly tight enough to do more for family planning than an entire social…

Harmony Korine

13 Mar 2008

Harmony Korine was thrust into the limelight aged 22, when his sensational script for Kids garnered him the status of overnight sensation. Then came Gummo, a film made in the best traditions of German maverick Werner Herzog, which established the young…

Shopping Showdown - Glasgow

The Style Issue

13 Mar 2008

Glasgow styles better Kirstin Innes and Sharon Stephen report on the heavily accessorised cheap chic trend-setting of the West Coast Despite the manicured, designer labelled image promoted by the city marketing bureau under the umbrella Glasgow…

Peter’s Yard

13 Mar 2008

Across Britain there are around 3000 craft bakeries. In France, with a similar sized population but a rather different attitude to bread, there are 35,000 craft or artisan bakers. French, German and Eastern European traditions have exerted the strongest…

Meaghan Delahunt interview

13 Mar 2008

When Meaghan Delahunt needs a cliché-free way of describing spice markets in India or rain in Scotland, she turns to Zen Buddhism. ‘There’s this idea of looking at the world with beginner’s eyes. It gives you heightened awareness of everything, so you…

TV Box Set Round-Up

13 Mar 2008

Set on a New York comedy sketch show, the whipsmart 30 Rock (Universal) •••• deservedly won Golden Globes for Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin. Former Saturday Night Live scribe Fey plays Liz Lemon, the chief writer struggling to save her baby from the best…

Hercules & Love Affair

13 Mar 2008

So this is where the disco-house revival starts, hopefully. After the garish indie-aided excesses of new rave in 2007, wouldn’t it be a beautiful thing to see and hear classic dance music stand proud again? Certainly, with his/their gorgeous debut…

Shopping Showdown - Edinburgh

The Style Issue

13 Mar 2008

Capital trends Diana Kiernander considers the mix of the traditional and cutting edge that inspires Edinburgh’s dedicated followers of fashion Edinburgh style should be easy to define. There’s an air of near-perfect designer minimalism among the…

Interview - Céline Sciamma

13 Mar 2008

‘I wrote the screenplay for Water Lilies while I was studying screenwriting at La Femis film school in Paris, and the director Xavier Beauvois, who was on the graduation committee, told me I had to make the film myself. My starting point was that I…

Food for free

13 Mar 2008

This is the age we live in: foraging means a trip to the local shops rather than the supermarket and the phrase ‘food for free’ is associated more with ‘buy one get one free’ than nature’s bounty. However, the green revolution may not all be about…

Shopping in London

13 Mar 2008

Something cool For a one-stop shop of new designers Sunday Upmarket (Liverpool Street, sundayupmarket.co.uk) has 140 stalls of accessories, fashion and interiors. Keep an eye out for Maria Helena Spector’s jewellery made from silver, lava and…

Redacted

13 Mar 2008

WAR/HORROR (15) 90min Could the war in Iraq be the first conflict to be lost, not at home or abroad, but on the internet? That’s the proposition featured in Brian De Palma’s Redacted, a disturbing account of how the war on terror has been ‘You…

Singles & Downloads

13 Mar 2008

Hurrying past James Blunt and Bryan’s Adams’ new singles, let’s start at the only logical place, the ‘Start Beginning’ (FDM Records) ••• with Nizlopi (of ‘JCB Song’ notoriety) and their relentlessly optimistic, acoustic pop rainbow of a song that could…

GROUP SHOW, Doggerfisher

13 Mar 2008

Doggerfisher, Edinburgh, until Sat 26 Apr Doggerfisher’s annual group show brings together work by recent graduates and more established artists. Refreshingly, the gallery unites the six artists via an interest in formal concerns with space and…

Tryptych announces final line-up

13 Mar 2008

Triptych has announced its final ever line-up, which showcases the festival’s trademark brew of international stars, musical trailblazers and cutting edge grassroots talent. Organisers have said that, after eight years creating one of Scotland’s…

The Orphanage (El Orfanato)

13 Mar 2008

HORROR/MYSTERY (15) 105min It’s only March but you’re unlikely to see a better ghost story at the cinema this year than The Orphanage. First-time director Juan Antonio Bayona has obviously taken great inspiration from his producer Guillermo del Toro…

Three others to try: Food books

13 Mar 2008

How to Cook for Food Allergies by Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne, Rodale, £16.99 Another local author, Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne is a professional cook with children who suffer from various food allergies including dairy, egg and gluten intolerance. As a way of…

Mr McFall’s Chamber - Aye: An Affirmation of Martyn Bennett

13 Mar 2008

CLASSICAL Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh, Wed 19 Mar; Eastwood Park Theatre, Giffnock, Thu 27 Mar Whether playing to a packed hall or an empty one, musicians bond through the shared experience of being there and doing it together. When legendary piper…

Profile - Hospital Records

13 Mar 2008

Name Hospital Records Occupation Record Label Location West London, UK OK, give me the brief Hospital Records was started by Tony Colman and Chris Goss back in 1996. Today it has grown to be one of the most successful independent labels in…

Jon Richardson

13 Mar 2008

STAND-UP Brel, Glasgow, Sun 16 Mar Watching Jon Richardson disparage Rab C Nesbitt and spectacularly misjudge a Scottish audience remains one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen: ‘they got quite angry’ he recalls. But he was careful not to repeat it…

Shining City

13 Mar 2008

By now, the admirers and detractors of the work of Conor McPherson will have divided firmly into their separate groups. The author of such acclaimed pieces as St Nicholas and The Weir might be said to paint with words, not physicality, as most of his…

Shopping trips

13 Mar 2008

Blow the budget For every traveller who sees haggling as an integral part of any good holiday there are many more who would happily swaddle their first born in giftwrap and hand them to the next passer-by if it meant they never had to play the…

TV: Iraq Season

13 Mar 2008

BBC/Channel 4 With the fifth anniversary of the West’s illegal invasion and errant desecration of Iraq upon us, the networks have seen no reason to halt the stream of related documentaries and dramas which have been filling the schedules on the…

Outdoor food festival returns to Edinburgh

13 Mar 2008

Taste-buds at the ready! Following the success of last year’s festival, Taste of Edinburgh is set to return in May with an even bigger line-up. As well as having the opportunity to sample taster dishes from 20 of Edinburgh’s top restaurants…

Robert Glasper

13 Mar 2008

JAZZ The Lot, Edinburgh, Thu 27 Mar Blue Note recording artist Robert Glasper has made one of the more successful attempts to merge the influences of jazz with contemporary urban forms, and particularly hip hop. While such experiments often end up…

The Spiderwick Chronicles

13 Mar 2008

DRAMA/FAMILY/FANTASY (PG) 95min When newly divorced mother of three Helen Grace (Mary-Louise Parker) moves her kids to the secluded rundown Spiderwick estate, once owned by their great great uncle Spiderwick, the children are less than impressed. Twin…

Fortified Sessions

13 Mar 2008

DUBSTEP Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Fri 21 Mar Gradually emerging from the soundsystems of London and Bristol and combining elements of dub, UK garage, jungle and rave, dubstep is sinuous and slow, juxtaposing intricate, syncopated hi-hat and…

The Unconquered

13 Mar 2008

Following its UK tour, Torben Betts’ The Unconquered, an adventurous piece of new work which netted the Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland’s new writing award, will be travelling on to New York for a shot at American audiences. Stellar Quines…

We Are Together

13 Mar 2008

DOCUMENTARY (PG) 86min Whether the tragedy is personal or universal, filmmaker Paul Taylor manages to extract an upbeat film out of harrowing and difficult lives in this moving documentary. Concentrating on the Agape Orphanage in South Africa, Taylor…

Susan Faludi - The Terror Dream

13 Mar 2008

MODERN HISTORY (Atlantic) Susan Faludi has gained a fearsome reputation for her analysis of gender politics, the state of America and political horseplay. And after making her name with Backlash and Stiffed, she has now chucked all three into one…

Lars and the Real Girl

13 Mar 2008

DRAMA (12A) 106min If, as the American columnist and poet Don Marquis noted, ‘fishing is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in bad clothes’, then he should try a few hours in the sub zero Wisconsin town where Lars Lindstrom (Ryan Gosling) lives.

Single Spies

13 Mar 2008

The murky exchanges between the Russian and UK intelligence services that have captured so many column inches over the last year or so were bound to have an impact on the theatre. It might seem an apt time to reappraise two plays about cold war…

Side Dishes

13 Mar 2008

Gamba restaurant in Glasgow is celebrating its 10th birthday with a series of special meals, kicking off with an Oriental night on Friday 14 March. Tickets cost £59.95 for four courses with wines; book on 0141 572 0899. Two of leith’s most venerable…

DJ Hell

13 Mar 2008

TECHNO/ELECTRO/HOUSE Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, Fri 14 Mar DJ Hell will perhaps always be associated with the electroclash scene, after his International DeeJay Gigolos label spearheaded the sound that changed UK clubbing in the late 90s. However…

The Blank Album

13 Mar 2008

As all musicians know, putting together an album isn’t just about writing songs. Running order, track length and variety of sound all come into play. So when choreographer, Natasha Gilmore decided to use the album model to create her latest dance piece…

The Boss Of It All

13 Mar 2008

Taking a break from vituperative deconstructions of US history, the ever playful Danish director, writer and producer Lars Von Trier brings us a comedy shot in Automavision, a process whereby the director chooses a fixed camera position and then allows…

Bailegangaire

13 Mar 2008

When an elderly loved one prefers to live in the memories of the past, it often falls to their children and grandchildren to care for them in the present. Such is the case in Andy Arnold’s swansong as artistic director of The Arches, as Tom Murphy’s…

Back To Normandy

13 Mar 2008

DOCUMENTARY (12A) 113min For this quietly compelling, multilayered documentary, French filmmaker Nicholas Philibert (Etre et Avoir) returned to the same Normandy agricultural community where, some 30 years earlier, he had served as an assistant…

The Cottage

13 Mar 2008

COMEDY/HORROR (18) 91min The art of the horror comedy is in juxtaposing terror with humour until both are intensified into hysteria. Good examples of the genre include John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London, Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2 and Wes…

Let Me Show You Some Things: The Magic Lantern, Robert Orchardson and Sarah Tripp

13 Mar 2008

This collaborative installation brings together a large collection of films previously shown at The Magic Lantern (an independent film night at the CCA), a new film by Sarah Tripp and sculptures by Robert Orchardson. The short film format is ideally…

Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid

13 Mar 2008

ROCK (Fiction) Mancunian troubadours Elbow have always been at the more inventive end of the indie spectrum. Their restless musical experimentalism has garnered a mountain of critical acclaim, but their refusal to take the easy route has seen them…

Horton Hears A Who!

13 Mar 2008

ANIMATION (U) 86min The magical rhyming whimsy of Dr Seuss was never more resistible than when rendered in live-action by comedians Jim Carrey (The Grinch) or Mike Myers (The Cat in the Hat). But technology has finally caught up with Seuss’s…

Also Released - Music

13 Mar 2008

Grand Archives - The Grand Archives (Sub Pop) The debut album for this band of sunshiny Seattle-ites who celebrate the non-ironic joys of The Beach Boys, Bee Gees and the Mamas and the Papas and come out somewhere between Belle and Sebastian and The…

Flight of the Red Balloon

13 Mar 2008

DRAMA (PG) 113min Taiwanese New Wave cinema pioneer Hou Hsiao-hsien makes his French language debut with this eloquent drama loosely inspired by Albert Lamorisse’s much-loved 1956 short, The Red Balloon. Taking as its starting point that film’s…

Children Of Glory

13 Mar 2008

DRAMA (15) 120min Made to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the doomed Hungarian uprising against Soviet rule in 1956 (which cost some 5000 lives including that of the executed prime minister Imre Nagy), director Krisztina Goda’s Children of Glory…

Also Released - Film

13 Mar 2008

Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert 3D (U) 75min •• The titular pop queen on an insanely popular Disney Channel series and the teenage daughter of 90s country music star Billy Ray Cyrus go head to head in this flashy but economical…

10,000 BC

13 Mar 2008

ADVENTURE (12A) 108min Long ago, in a land far away, there lived a young buff hunter D’Leh (Steven Strait). He had a simple life killing mammoths, listening to the latest prophesy from the village shaman and falling in love with the beautiful Evolet…

Luke Fowler: Bogman Palmjaguar

13 Mar 2008

In his new 30-minute film, titled after an eccentric subject who sees himself as being in symbolic union with the great cat, Glasgow filmmaker Luke Fowler manages to combine measured storytelling with a readjusted idea of documentary realism. Bogman…

Meet the Spartans

13 Mar 2008

COMEDY (12A) 83min Date Movie and Epic Movie were unforgivable atrocities against comedy, but writer/directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer manage to deal themselves a slightly stronger hand with their latest effort Meet the Spartans, which sets…

Water Lilies (Naissance Des Pieuvres)

13 Mar 2008

DRAMA (15) 83min The literal translation of this film’s French title is ‘Birth of Octopuses’, which is a far more apt description of how the growing pains of a trio of 15-year-old girls translate into arrogance and sexual confusion. Set in a new…

5 Reasons To Go See - Jean Michel Jarre

13 Mar 2008

He’s an Oxygenius - Sorry, terrible pun to start with. Jarre’s revolutionary album Oxygene changed the face of popular music (trust us, you’d know if you heard it) on its release three whole decades ago. To celebrate the 30-year anniversary, he’s gonna…

Food For Thought

13 Mar 2008

I generally start the day with a bowl of oatmeal and cold milk for breakfast. Not porridge though – I believe the Scots word for it is ‘drammoch’. I add in some prunes out of a packet, and drink a coffee with milk. For lunch I’ll maybe stop what I’m…

Les Patterson Saves The World

13 Mar 2008

COMEDY (15) 85min (Arrow DVD retail) Strewth! When an unfortunate incident involving fart-burning at the UN sees Sir Les Patterson ignite Mustafa Toul, dictator of an oil rich middle eastern state, our hero is sent there to make amends. From there he…

The Twisted Wheel

13 Mar 2008

INDIE Barrowland, Glasgow, Tue 19 Feb Having previously thrust The Ting Tings upon the world (or at least the small to medium gig venues of the UK), Jon ‘Reverend and the Makers’ McClure will be getting a name as the man young Manchester bands will be…

Brandi Carlile

13 Mar 2008

COUNTRY ROCK Barrowland, Glasgow, Thu 28 Feb It’s fairly rare to see a support act who will easily outlast a headliner, and even if the main attraction on this occasion was Newton Faulkner – an artist with all the staying power (and strangely the…

Take Three: Craft bakery-cafes

13 Mar 2008

Tapa Coffee & Bakehouse 21 Whitehill Street, Dennistoun, Glasgow 0141 554 9981, www.tapabakehouse.co.uk The hand-made, traditional ethos of this artisanal bakery, café and coffee roasterie has won it fans across the city despite the unfashionable…

Sleuth

13 Mar 2008

MURDER/MYSTERY (15) 132min (Paramount DVD retail) If you were a ‘bluddy idiot’, as Maurice Micklewhite might say, you could purchase both versions of Sleuth, which are being released on the same day, and then compare the two: this 1972 original…

Come on Gang!, Alison and the Mings and Poor Edwar

13 Mar 2008

GARAGE FOLK The Ark, Edinburgh, Tue 4 Mar With the best will in the world, local charity showcases are almost always a wildly mixed bag, although The List did take some mild amusement from the fact that this benefit for homeless charity the Ark…

Katherine Ashenburg - Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing

13 Mar 2008

SOCIAL HISTORY (Profile) For germophobic Westerners in the 21st century, it’s customary to shower at least once a day before applying any number of perfumes and deodorants; anything less would be considered a sign of slovenliness. Yet, as Katherine…

Benny's Video

13 Mar 2008

DRAMA (15) 105min (Tartan DVD retail) ‘How beastly the bourgeoisie is,’ DH Lawrence once proposed, and they don’t get much worse than in Benny’s Video. Not that the parents in Michael Funny Games Haneke’s film are especially cruel or vindictive, it’s…

Music news round-up

13 Mar 2008

Björk representatives have said that the singer was forced out of Serbian festival EXIT due to her outspoken views on Kosovo. The Icelandic singer voiced her support for the region gaining its independence while onstage during her recent Japanese…

Ace in the Hole

13 Mar 2008

FILM NOIR (U) 111min (PDX DVD retail) At long last, the late, great Billy Wilder’s very finest – and all too rarely seen – film is available on DVD (if only on region one). Released in 1951, the year after Wilder’s acerbic indictment of the movie…

Amy Hempel - The Dog of the Marriage

13 Mar 2008

SHORT STORIES (Quercus) Often it’s the throwaway remarks that are the most revealing, and no writer exemplifies this more than celebrated writer Amy Hempel. The award-winning New Yorker brings her four volumes of work together here for the first time…

Also Published - 5 Crime Novels

13 Mar 2008

Colin Bateman - Ghost Town A bestselling writer visits the scene of his wife’s murder ten years previously to get some ideas for his latest novel, but turns up more than he bargained for. Headline. Mo Hayder - Ritual DI Jack Caffery is back with a…

Reginald Hudlin, Larry Stroman & Ken Lashley - Black Panther: Black to the Future

13 Mar 2008

SUPERHERO (Marvel) Marvel celebrates Black History Month with this double-sized one shot focusing on two of the highest profile black characters in comics: The Black Panther and his wife Storm (of X-Men fame). The tale is set in the fictional African…

William Shakespeare - Macbeth

13 Mar 2008

REIMAGINED CLASSIC (Classical Comics) Some stories are so good they permit retelling again and again. Classical Comics knows this and these books – the fifth in their series – recreates Shakespeare’s tale of ambition, betrayal, delusion and power in a…

Ross Ainslie & Jarlath Henderson - Partners In Crime

13 Mar 2008

FOLK (Vertical Records) While many piping recordings are primarily of interest to the piping community, this disc follows the lead of Ross Ainslie’s late teacher, Gordon Duncan, in aiming at a more diverse audience. The players are two of the…

Led Bib - Live

13 Mar 2008

JAZZ (Babel) This brief, limited edition four-tracker catches drummer Mark Holub’s quintet storming through four cuts at Pizza Express in Soho last year. Led Bib have all the bluster and fury of the band who trailblazed the unholy fusing of be-bop and…

Alan Grant & Cam Kennedy - Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

13 Mar 2008

LITERARY ADAPTATION (Waverley) The second One Book – One Edinburgh graphic novel adaptation was never going to be a straightforward reprise of last year’s successful Kidnapped campaign, even based around a source novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Bill Griffith - Zippy: Walk A Mile in My Muu-Muu

13 Mar 2008

CULT STRIP (Fantagraphics) Having made his first appearance in Real Pulp Comix in 1971 Zippy is getting old. For the uninitiated Zippy is a polymath, free associating pinhead who wanders the consumerist besieged wastelands of the US. Griffith’s…

Kronos Quartet & Wu Man - The Cusp of Magic

13 Mar 2008

CONTEMPORARY (Nonesuch) The music of Terry Riley has run through the repertoire of the acclaimed contemporary music specialists the Kronos Quartet like a thread. No surprise, then, that they should have chosen to mark the composer’s 70th birthday with…

Ron Blake - Shayari

13 Mar 2008

JAZZ (Mack Avenue Records) American saxophonist Ron Blake is most likely to be familiar to UK-based listeners through his work with trumpeter Roy Hargrove and bassist Christian McBride. His third album as a leader finds him in generally pensive mood…

George Saunders - The Brain-Dead Megaphone

13 Mar 2008

ESSAY COLLECTION (Bloomsbury) In his first collection of essays, George Saunders tries out a number of styles as he patrols the American border, investigates the British national character and bemoans the degraded quality of the American media…

The Black Crowes - Warpaint

13 Mar 2008

ROCK (Silver Arrow) The Black Crowes’ initial explosion here in the early 90s was intense but short-lived. They’re now, like those other American stalwarts Pearl Jam, a huge cult band here not to mention legends in their homeland. This, their first…

Cadence Weapon - Afterparty Babies

13 Mar 2008

HIP HOP (Big Dada) It’s not entirely fair to say we need another smartass boy shooting his mouth off over gristly beats but here’s another, who, despite initial impressions has dealt us a hand of oddly affecting, raw and human stories. Cadence…

Doug Johnstone - The Ossians

13 Mar 2008

ROCK’N’ROLL DRAMA (Viking) Sex, drugs and rock’n’roll is the old cliché but Doug Johnstone gives it new definition in this young-indie-band-on-the-road fictional travelogue. Naming themselves after an invented Scottish mythmaker, The Ossians have high…

Ivor Cutler - The Flat Man

13 Mar 2008

POP (Hoorgi House) When Ivor Cutler died in 2006 aged 83 a little piece of British culture died too, never to return. Celebrated by many as Scotland’s alternative poet laureate, his talents as a writer, poet, songsmith, humorist were like no other…

Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair

13 Mar 2008

DISCO HOUSE (EMI/DFA) We can only hope that Hercules and Love Affair’s stunning debut single ‘Blind’ doesn’t soak all the attention away from this great record, because otherwise the new last days of disco start here. Neglecting the affecting…

A Toys Orchestra - Technicolor Dreams

13 Mar 2008

ROCK POP (Urtovox) Written rule in music number 14: Europeans of the continental type make horrible, horrible pop music. Of course, there are a few examples which dilute this tenet (ABBA and, um, A-ha?). And when it comes to Italians and pop, you can…