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Issue 613

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Autumn Music Preview 08 - Mogwai

Autumn Music Preview 08 - Mogwai

18 Sep 2008

Is it true that you were asked to be in Mogwai because Stuart Braithwaite thought you were ‘a good laugh?’ I hope I’m still a good laugh; I’ve seen them smile at me a few times, even today. I’m quite an annoying person, really; I’m just very…

Helen Hunt

Helen Hunt

18 Sep 2008

It’s appropriate, given that Then She Found Me is about mothers, daughters and babies, that the film itself is actor Helen Hunt’s baby, and it’s one that has taken over a decade to be born. The film is April Epner’s story, a tale of a woman betrayed by…

Glasgay! - Tennessee Williams

Glasgay! - Tennessee Williams

18 Sep 2008

Some years ago, I attended a conference where a debate about the work of Tennessee Williams came very nearly to blows. The bone of contention involved Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, in which the character Brick confesses an attraction to a friend that surpasses…

Autumn Music Preview 08 - Cibelle

Autumn Music Preview 08 - Cibelle

18 Sep 2008

‘Basically Tarzan makes love to Shirley Bassey but they’re in a threesome with a hula girl,’ laughs rising electro folk starlet Cibelle from her East London abode. ‘They have been kidnapped by a UFO from the 1950s and are plonked in the jungle. Monkeys…

Autumn Music Preview 08 - Tennent’s Mutual

Autumn Music Preview 08 - Tennent’s Mutual

18 Sep 2008

Don’t worry if you’re still scratching your head at the concept of Tennent’s Mutual – the ‘experimental’ new ‘co-creative’ music initiative, which launched its first line-up earlier this month – you’re in good company, and even Tennent’s’ Senior…

Autumn Music Preview 08 - Rock’n’roll agony aunt

Autumn Music Preview 08 - Rock’n’roll agony aunt

18 Sep 2008

Dear List, I’ve just bought the tightest keks in Europe and a vest so day glow it could send a Geiger counter wild at 50 paces. Flag me up some how now danceable indie gigs at which to flash my hot new garb. Beth, Maryhill. Flaunt your new dapper…

Autumn Music Preview 08 - Sam Sparro

Autumn Music Preview 08 - Sam Sparro

18 Sep 2008

Oh dear. It’s not like the summer hasn’t been one long string of achievements for Sam Sparro, aka 25-year-old singer Sam Falson, whose ‘Black and Gold’ will be remembered as one of the sleekest dancefloor anthems of 2008, but more or less the first…

Autumn Music Preview 08 - Future music

Autumn Music Preview 08 - Future music

18 Sep 2008

Limbering up well in advance for the run-up to Christmas (yes, it’s only September and we’ve already dropped the C-word), all manner of superstar acts are crawling out the woodwork to release long awaited albums. Oasis pave the way with their seventh…

John Dolmayan

John Dolmayan

18 Sep 2008

There are plenty of famous faces who love comics: Jonathan Ross, Edward Norton, Sam Raimi, Jon Bon Jovi, Simon Pegg, Jerry Seinfeld, Quentin Tarantino and Nicolas Cage. Even Anthrax wrote ‘I am the Law’ about Judge Dredd. But not many are as passionate…

The Picture House

The Picture House

18 Sep 2008

For gigs of a certain size Edinburgh has long had a gaping hole where a venue should be. Up-and-coming acts love Cabaret Voltaire, smaller touring bands play the 700 capacity Liquid Rooms and then … nothing until the Corn Exchange at almost 3000…

Friendly Fires

Friendly Fires

18 Sep 2008

ELECTRO SHOEGAZE It’s quite probable that pens and keyboard fingers across the land have been itching to write/type the phrase ‘new wave of new rave’ for at least a year now, so might The List endeavour to jump in before anyone else gets there.

Cristian Vogel and Neil Landstrumm

Cristian Vogel and Neil Landstrumm

18 Sep 2008

TECHNO ‘The reason I stretch out into making music through many different avenues’, says Chilean-born, England-raised techno polymath Cristian Vogel, ‘is that fundamentally I’m not a DJ. Of course, DJing’s the quickest way of paying the bills, but…

Tokyoblu

Tokyoblu

18 Sep 2008

HOUSE ‘It’s a really exciting time for us right now,’ says Tokyoblu founder and DJ John Hutchison. ‘After six years of constant, hard-at-it aiming to get somewhere, we’re only now starting to approximate what our plans were back then.’ Tokyoblu…

Ian Rankin - Doors Open

Ian Rankin - Doors Open

(4 stars)18 Sep 2008

CRIME NOVEL After 18 novels, John Rebus retired in his last outing, Exit Music. Whether the detective inspector will return is unclear, but in the meantime Ian Rankin is having some fun spreading his authorial wings. This heist story was first…

Velcro Quartet

Velcro Quartet

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

GLAM POP Many fine young Scots bands are already lined-up to play The Mill, Miller beer’s new branding doohickey come weekly live gig in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and The List can report it’s actually a pretty good night out. The bands are well-chosen…

Art Spiegelman - Breakdowns

Art Spiegelman - Breakdowns

(5 stars)18 Sep 2008

BIOGRAPHY Subtitled ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@*!’, this was the first collected book of comic art which the Jewish-American Spiegelman had published. Created between 1972 and 1977, the volume is reissued with an illustrated 20-page…

Harry Hill - Tim the Tiny Horse at Large

Harry Hill - Tim the Tiny Horse at Large

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

KIDS STORY You can virtually smell Harry Hill at his keyboard, big collar tickling his neck, tongue flicking in and out (‘hmm, hmm, yeah, hmm?’), eyes blinking maniacally as the ideas bristle through his cranium. There is a chance, of course, that he…

Andrew Davidson - The Gargoyle

Andrew Davidson - The Gargoyle

(4 stars)18 Sep 2008

GOTHIC TALE With so many books on all our to-read lists, brevity is a virtue. The Gargoyle flouts this with great success. Framed by the sceptical voice of a severely burned car crash victim, events swing from medieval times to the present, from…

Cherry Blossom

Cherry Blossom

18 Sep 2008

What does the word ‘collaboration’ make you think of? Director Lorne Campbell thought he knew until he tried it for himself. ‘You think of something cosy and cuddly,’ he says. ‘But this has been really hard. We’re still friends, still happy and excited…

Six Acts of Love

Six Acts of Love

18 Sep 2008

NEW PLAY The Scottish Government’s Homecoming programme is not until next year, but Ioanna Anderson is getting in early. At the age of 38, she’s planning to move back to her native Edinburgh after spending the best part of 20 years in Ireland, where…

Autumn Music Preview 08 - Mogwai

Mogwai - The Hawk is Howling

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

ROCK The line between familiarity and contempt is drawn thinner than ever currently, but Mogwai, six albums and 12 years in, seem in no danger of wearing out their welcome. Given how limiting the initial wordless loud-quiet-loud grind on which…

Scottish Comedian of the Year

Scottish Comedian of the Year

18 Sep 2008

STAND-UP COMPETITION Approaching its third anniversary, the Scottish Comedian of the Year final looms ever more influentially in the stand-up calendar. Inspired by Manchester’s City Life contest – won by the likes of Peter Kay, Chris Addison and…

Mother Courage And Her Children

Mother Courage And Her Children

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

CLASSIC It’s an austere landscape through which Ann Louise Ross drags her cart, scratching a living in the title role of Bertolt Brecht’s epic. Naomi Wilkinson’s set is a wall of grim metal panels, the stage a carpet of grey. Even the iconic cart is…

Noises Off

Noises Off

18 Sep 2008

REVIVAL Bringing farce to the fore, Michael Frayn’s 80s parody is touring once again, revealing the merry antics of a second-rate theatre company both on and off stage as it struggles with its ludicrous sex comedy, Nothing On. Nestling at the core…

5 Things you might not know about - Jenny Eclair

5 Things you might not know about - Jenny Eclair

18 Sep 2008

1 Having left drama school in Manchester, Eclair started her stage career in an ‘alternative cabaret’ outfit called Kathy Lacreme and the Rum Babas. When the act split, she went solo as a punk poet before eventually going all-out on a stand-up…

Offshore

Offshore

18 Sep 2008

Alan Wilkins triumphed in this year’s Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland as the author of Carthage Must Be Destroyed, a knotty drama about the political mindset. Now he’s teamed up with Glasgow’s Birds of Paradise, a company dedicated to putting…

New Work Scotland Project 2008: Lila de Magalhaes

New Work Scotland Project 2008: Lila de Magalhaes

18 Sep 2008

VIDEO INSTALLATION Over the last nine years, autumn at the Collective has heralded an annual showcase for artists making their solo-show debuts under the wing of the gallery’s New Work Scotland Project. The first of three shows this year is by Lila…

Mary Poppins

18 Sep 2008

MUSICAL In 1964, when Mary Poppins opened at the cinema, it immediately amassed an army of fans. One woman, however, was distinctly unimpressed by the all-singing, all-dancing Disney adaptation – the novel’s author, PL Travers. Thirty years later…

Kate Davis: Outsider

Kate Davis: Outsider

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

DRAWING AND SCULPTURE As a reaction against her own previous work in this space – 2004’s Participant, which invited the audience to place themselves within the art – Kate Davis’ latest is a complete volte face. Outsider’s intention is to isolate the…

BloodRayne II: Deliverance

BloodRayne II: Deliverance

18 Sep 2008

The name Uwe Boll may well strike fear into many a gamer’s heart. The German director is famed for his videogame adaptations, with his myriad of delights to date, including House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege…

Remote Control

Remote Control

18 Sep 2008

Older viewers may recall Christina Applegate as the slightly slutty teenage airhead from annoying 80s US sitcom Married with Children. And should you have not seen the cinematic likes of Anchorman or Employee of the Month in the intervening years, you…

Pink Olive

Pink Olive

18 Sep 2008

The restaurant world consumes an awful lot of dreams. Everyone who has ever eaten out has discussed how they would do things better, and anyone who has ever worked in a restaurant has nurtured a blueprint for world, or at least neighbourhood…

Andy C

Andy C

18 Sep 2008

You’d be hard pushed to find a DJ bigger than Andy C; in this business he’s the boss, the CEO, of D&B. ‘In my eyes there is no other DJ in the drum & bass industry with the profile that Andy C has,’ explains Street Knowledge DJ/promoter DJ Kid. ‘His…

Malcolm McDowell & Lindsay Anderson - Never Apologize

Malcolm McDowell & Lindsay Anderson - Never Apologize

18 Sep 2008

‘I got a callback for If…. I went in and there was this girl, she was gorgeous. I had to do this scene with her, but unfortunately, I didn’t have a script. I thought, you know, I’ll just wing it. I fall in love with this girl. I see the script says…

Autumn Television

Autumn Television

18 Sep 2008

Britain is in utter chaos. The dead have returned to life and are attacking the living who, once deceased, then get up and do some more killing. The only people unaware of this horrendous phenomenon are the occupants of the Big Brother household. But…

Kill Your Timid Notion

Kill Your Timid Notion

18 Sep 2008

Since its first outing in 2003, Kill Your Timid Notion’s four editions have mixed and matched sound and vision and utilised the Dundee Contemporary Arts gallery space to the maximum. This year KYTN goes even further, with a large-scale exhibition…

LGBT DVD Round-Up

18 Sep 2008

International interest in the sciences may have been piqued by the recent, less-exciting-than-it sounds Big Bang experiment but let’s face it – the most important question is: ‘If time and space are curved, where do all of the straight people come…

Carrots

Taste Test - Carrots: Organic v Non-organic

18 Sep 2008

After potatoes, carrots are our most consumed vegetable; they are also a stalwart of the organic vegetable box scheme, so we decided to see what difference we could find locally available carrots. These ones came from a decent dedicated local…

2008 Merchant City Festival

2008 Merchant City Festival

18 Sep 2008

Anyone who has cast their eye over the website for this year’s Merchant City Festival will have found the photograph of Baillie Gordon Matheson flicking through the festival programme while a pair of parkour performers jump around him. In suit and tie…

Sound and vision

Sound and vision

18 Sep 2008

Film and music collide in rude style this fortnight with the launch of the inaugural Sounds Film Festival. With a locations spread across the city from the West End to the city centre ABC, the programme of events includes 11 screenings and a string of…

Glasgay! - Highlights

Glasgay! - Highlights

18 Sep 2008

David Trullo’s Ecce Homo & Gregor Laird’s Plastic Pastorals These two rising stars of the European art circuit display their wares at the Q! Gallery. Spanish photographer Trullo unpicks the enduring Western obsession with beauty while Scot Laird…

Follow Me

Follow Me

18 Sep 2008

NEW PLAY Drawing a dazzling trail of four and five-star reviews since its world premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year, Follow Me is a sparsely staged emotive tale about Ruth Ellis, the last woman hanged in Britain, which has arrived on…

Sonic Fusion

Sonic Fusion

18 Sep 2008

CONTEMPORARY Left field music festivals aren’t exactly thin on the ground in this country. Edinburgh events, however, have had a lower profile than elsewhere, with the Dialogues weekend setting an electronically inclined tone, picked up in a more…

The Pictish Trail

The Pictish Trail

18 Sep 2008

SINGER-SONGWRITER The Pictish Trail is coming out of the shadows. Johnny Lynch (for the Trail is he) has until now focussed on running the Fence Collective and playing guitar for head-honcho King Creosote (aka Kenny Anderson). But with the release of…

Singles & Downloads - Local Special

Singles & Downloads - Local Special

18 Sep 2008

Locally-sourced produce is all the rage these days, so let’s have a cheeky wee Scottish round-up this issue, eh? Quality meat to kick off in the form of Frightened Rabbit, whose ‘I Feel Better’/’The Twist’ (Fat Cat) •••• is excellently jittery, skittery…

Profile: Dennis Gansel

Profile: Dennis Gansel

18 Sep 2008

Name Dennis Gansel. Born Hanover, Germany, 1973. Background Gansel studied at Munich where he shot a couple of short films. After graduating he went on to make Phantom, a film for television about the Red Army Faction, the self-styled youthful freedom…

Exposure - Desalvo

Exposure - Desalvo

18 Sep 2008

Desalvo’s sound is a furious battle between prog showmanship and math metal technicality, all drenched in black, black humour. Imagine the aural equivalent of watching as that fella in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom tears your heart out and shows…

Profile: Baltasar Kormakur

Profile: Baltasar Kormakur

18 Sep 2008

Name: Baltasar Kormakur Born: 27 February 1966 Background: A graduate of Iceland’s National Academy of Fine Arts, Kormakur worked as both an actor and theatre director, before making his debut feature in 2000 with the slacker comedy 101…

Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder

(4 stars)18 Sep 2008

When location filming on the Vietnam war movie goes awry, three big name Hollywood actors become embroiled with a heroin cartel run by a tyrannical 12-year-old (Brandon Soo Hoo) and are forced to become the soldiers they are portraying. Excess is what…

Picture this

Picture this

18 Sep 2008

Creatives of all ages are being encouraged to pick up their pens and pencils as the Big Draw returns for another year. Everyone from children to adults will be able to take full advantage of a programme that will see hundreds of venues announce hands-on…

Playlist: Mashup and reworked movies

Playlist: Mashup and reworked movies

18 Sep 2008

Not enjoying the films you’re watching? Why not just re-cut them to reflect your own sick tastes? Reworking or ‘mashing-up’ classic films is a popular internet sport. Millions have already seen how much cuter The Shining’s father-son dynamic would look…

Righteous Kill

Righteous Kill

(2 stars)18 Sep 2008

MURDER/MYSTERY (15) 100min When Robert De Niro and Al Pacino had one scene together in Michael Mann’s Heat, the sense of anticipation of these two legendary New York actors sparking off each other (rather than just being in the same film a la The…

Death Race

Death Race

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

After a long gestation as a big budget vehicle for Tom Cruise, Paul W Anderson’s rehash of elements from Roger Corman’s 70s cheapie Death Race 2000 finally rolls into theatres to be met with suitably lowered expectations. It’s hard to cheapen the memory…

Profile - Armin van Buuren

Profile - Armin van Buuren

18 Sep 2008

Name: Armin van Buuren Occupation: The reigning number one DJ in the world, if you believe the readers of DJ magazine. But of course, you don’t get to such a pinnacle of global popularity these days without playing trance somewhere in your set, and…

Swing Vote

Swing Vote

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

What if the fate of the US presidential election came down to the vote of one man? This is the premise rolled out in this pleasing comedy directed by Joshua Michael Stern. Bud (Kevin Costner) is a trailer-trash father being looked after by his 12…

Drever, McCusker and Woomble

Drever, McCusker and Woomble

18 Sep 2008

FOLK There comes a time in most rock musicians’ careers when they long to swap the frenetic rock’n’roll lifestyle for something more sedate. After a decade of touring the world with Idlewild, Roddy Woomble’s inclination of late has been towards folk…

Humble Boy

Humble Boy

18 Sep 2008

REVIVAL Following its 32-week sell-out nationwide tour of Abigail’s Party, London Classic Theatre returns to Musselburgh with Charlotte Jones’ award-winning Humble Boy. Artistic director Michael Cabot has mixed memories of his last visit to Scotland…

Linha De Passe

Linha De Passe

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

DRAMA (15) 113min The title, Linha de Passe, refers to a Brazilian game where the players attempt to pass a football to one another without it touching the ground. Yet the phrase also echoes the dramatic structure of this São Paulo-set film…

Side Dishes

Side Dishes

18 Sep 2008

Ex-corinthian chef Iain McMaster has opened up Tattie Mac’s on a nice wee site at 61 Otago Street in Glasgow, which in recent years has seen more change than a busker on Byres Road: you may remember it as Otago, the Cheese Bar or, most recently, Pizazz.

Keith Ingham: Urban Echoes

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

PHOTOGRAPHY As the title implies, Urban Echoes focuses on representations of the city environment. An experienced photographer, Keith Ingham has explored this well-worn theme through images taken both locally and internationally, using the…

The Wave (Die Welle)

The Wave (Die Welle)

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

THRILLER/DRAMA (15) 107min A slickly produced examination of how fascism can enter everyday life, The Wave is a peer pressure teen drama where much of the heat comes from above, noticeably Jürgen Vogel’s high school teacher who wonders what will…

Macbeth

Macbeth

(2 stars)18 Sep 2008

CLASSIC On the surface, Lucy Pitman-Wallace’s Macbeth is set up brilliantly. Set in medieval Scotland – as opposed to modern gun-slinging versions – we see a wild, desolate land; large wooden beams rising into the air, creating a fortress around…

Redbelt

Redbelt

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

ACTION/DRAMA (15) 99min David Mamet – master of the con trick and rapid fire verbal jousting, writer of award-winning plays and respected political commentator – pulls a rabbit out of the hat by making a martial arts movie with a moral code and a…

Salo

Salo

(5 stars)18 Sep 2008

DVD (18) 112min (BFI DVD retail) Pier Paolo Pasolini’s loose 1975 adaptation of the Marquis De Sade’s The 120 Days of Sodom gets an excellent two disc DVD (and Blu-ray) makeover with a ton of fantastic extras. Pasolini transposed De Sade’s tale…

Also Released - Music

18 Sep 2008

Rags & Feathers - The Other Side of Morning (Lucky Number Nine) Tom Davis used to make rowdy garage blues with Dead Fly Buchowski, but this debut from his new Glasgow-based band, Rags & Feathers is an altogether gentler affair, full of lush, folky…

Food For Thought

Food For Thought

18 Sep 2008

I spent a lot of time in Italy as a child and I was brought up in a foodie family so I’ve always been interested in food. I like very simple, peasant food so I eat homegrown wherever I can. For breakfast I have either a smoothie or muesli with…

Half Moon

5 Reasons To Go See - Half Man Half Biscuit

18 Sep 2008

1 Gigs by the band are a rarity. Their peccadilloes famously led to them turning down 80s TV show The Tube (and a helicopter ride there) because it clashed with a Tranmere Rovers match. Other means of transport are no more popular – the Renfrew Ferry…

The Fist Foot Way

The Foot Fist Way

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

Getting a cinema release through the endorsement of Will Ferrell and his Anchorman/Tallegeda Nights director Adam McKay, The Foot Fist Way is a low-budget mockumentary about a small-time martial arts training school. Made in 2006, the central role of…

Jar City

Jar City

(4 stars)18 Sep 2008

THRILLER (15) 94min ‘Another typical Icelandic murder - messy and pointless’, sighs Inspector Erlendur (Ingvar E Sigurdsson) following the killing of an elderly Reykjavik low-life towards the beginning of Jar City, a starkly atmospheric detective…

Merlin

Merlin

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

DRAMA It would perhaps be unfair to describe this new BBC1 post-teatime ‘is it ok to let the kids watch?’ show as ‘Robin Hood meets Doctor Who’, but you can see what the schedulers were going for when they plopped this fresh take on the Arthurian…

Zombie Strippers

Zombie Strippers

(2 stars)18 Sep 2008

There was a time in 70s cinema, and then again in 80s video, when putting the word ‘strippers’ in the title made for a guaranteed moneymaker. Competition from the super-pornography-highway of the internet has put the kibosh on such suggestive marketing…

Taken

Taken

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

THRILLER/ACTION (15) 93min *** When it comes to his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace), retired US secret agent operative Bryan (Liam Neeson) is feeling pretty redundant. Her new stepfather (Xander Berkeley) is wealthy enough to give her everything she…

I've Loved You So Long (Il Y a Longtemps Que Je T'aime)

I've Loved You So Long (Il Y a Longtemps Que Je T'aime)

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

DRAMA (12A) 117min Novelist and screenwriter Philippe Claudel makes his directorial debut with this patient and sensitively shot family drama. Plainly-dressed, middle-aged Juliette (Kristin Scott Thomas) comes to stay in Nancy in north east…

Then She Found Me

Then She Found Me

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

Adopted, broody April (Helen Hunt) is rocked when her husband leaves her and her adopted mother dies, but everything changes again when her birth mother (Bette Midler) jostles her way into her life. The theme of actress Hunt’s directorial debut is…

Euchrid Eucrow

Euchrid Eucrow

(4 stars)18 Sep 2008

ALT.FOLK Two young women in full-length angel-white Victorian frocks flank a bearded young man in a tank top sitting on a stool. As he clutches his acoustic guitar for dear life, the dark-haired woman on his right puts her bow to her viola while the…

The Fnords

The Fnords

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

GARAGE ROCK Anyone familiar with Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s doorstep epic of conspiratorial speculative fiction The Illuminatus! Trilogy will know where the Fnords name comes from, and might well expect big things from a band who use it.

Also Published - 5 Celebrity Memoirs

Also Published - 5 Celebrity Memoirs

18 Sep 2008

Roger Moore - My Word is My Bond Seems like it’s 007 memoir season as Alan Partridge’s favourite Bond suavely knocks out his story, an all-true tale of a childhood in WW2 London and hanging out with the stars in Tinseltown. Michael O’Mara. Julie…

The Chaser (Chugyeogja)

The Chaser (Chugyeogja)

(2 stars)18 Sep 2008

THRILLER (18) 124min ** South Korean director and screenwriter Na Hong-jin’s festival award winning debut is this year’s largest grossing domestic film in its homeland and, unsurprisingly, Leonardo DiCaprio has snapped up the remake rights.

Charles Lloyd - Dream Weaver - The Atlantic Years 1966-69

Charles Lloyd - Dream Weaver - The Atlantic Years 1966-69

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

JAZZ Saxophonist Charles Lloyd is now a respected elder statesman in jazz circles, but in the late 60s his group with pianist Keith Jarrett and drummer Jack DeJohnette was making inroads into the rock audience with appearances at venues like the…

The Liar

The Liar

18 Sep 2008

COMEDY/DRAMA (15) 88min (Bluebell DVD retail) *** Written by and starring Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismaki and directed by his brother Mika, The Liar is an early 1980s monochrome mood piece with the nouvelle vague echoing in the distance. One critic…

Twin Atlantic and The Xcerts

Twin Atlantic and The Xcerts

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

ROCK Both bands here follow in the wake of Biffy Clyro, and evoke moments of their early racket-making with considerable style. While The Xcerts (who are from Aberdeen and Exeter, collectively) are the poppier proposition of the pair, and have been…

Metallica - Death Magnetic

Metallica - Death Magnetic

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

METAL That Metallica have become metal’s answer to the Rolling Stones – an endlessly touring megalith who’s albums have be come increasingly irrelevant as their live shows have become greater spectacles – should not negate getting the most out of…

Adrian Tomine - Sleepwalk and Other Stories

Adrian Tomine - Sleepwalk and Other Stories

(4 stars)18 Sep 2008

COLLECTION There is a lightness of touch and simplicity that is both brave and endearing in the work of Adrian Tomine. He created Optic Nerve, an outlet for his stories and art from his university dorm in the mid 90s and was picked up by underground…

Lords of Bastard - Lords of Bastard

Lords of Bastard - Lords of Bastard

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

ROCK Some people just know how to say the right things and this trio of Edinburgh bams got two stars for the top name and the sticker on the CD case alone declaring ‘ … if you like albums, then this might be for you …’ Maybe ‘if you like The Melvins…

Marilynne Robinson - Home

Marilynne Robinson - Home

(2 stars)18 Sep 2008

FAMILY DRAMA With its groaningly slow pace and scriptural debate-heavy prose, labouring through Marilynne Robinson’s thick-set third novel – a companion piece of sorts to 2005’s Pulitzer Prize winning Gilead – is an experience recommended only to the…

Various (Ed: Paul Gravett) - The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics

Various (Ed: Paul Gravett) - The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

ANTHOLOGY Lead by Frank Miller’s nightmare-noir Sin City series, crime comics are enjoying a resurgence in creativity and popularity the like of which hasn’t been seen since the genre dominated the American newspaper ‘funnies’ in the 1930s. Which…

Inner Space Music - Five Animal Dances

Inner Space Music - Five Animal Dances

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

JAZZ The name most likely to catch the eye on this release is probably drummer Seb Rochford, although the disc was actually recorded back in 2004, and Tim Giles seems to have taken his place in the band’s more recent live dates. Nonetheless, he makes…

The Duplets - Tree of Strings

The Duplets - Tree of Strings

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

FOLK The harp is enjoying something of a resurgence at the moment, with new young players like Ailie Robertson, Rachel Hair and The Duplets pairing of Freya Thomsen and Gillian Fleetwood all focusing on the oldest of the Scottish folk instruments.

James Buchan - The Gate of Air

James Buchan - The Gate of Air

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

GHOST STORY James Buchan’s most recent main protagonist isn’t the most likeable of chaps. Jim Smith – an emotionally closed, ex-London business entrepreneur with a love of complete solitude – moves to the Brackshire countryside, taking early…

Half Moon

Half Moon

18 Sep 2008

DRAMA (PG) 107min (ICA DVD retail) *** Mamo (Ishmail Ghaffari), a brusque Kurdish musician living in Iran has spent months trying to arrange a permit for one final concert in Kurdish Iraq. When this is resolved, his problems really start. He…

The Sick House

The Sick House

(2 stars)18 Sep 2008

HORROR (18) 104min (Showbox DVD retail) Young archaeologist (Gina Philips) finds her research into London’s great plague of 1665 barred when public health officials reveal that the former orphanage she is excavating still contains plague.

Still Life

Still Life

(4 stars)18 Sep 2008

DRAMA (15) 109min (BFI DVD retail) Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke (Platform, Unknown Pleasures) hails from the tradition of Asian long-take, observational masters that include Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang, but Zhang-ke’s work often has a…

Manda Rin - My DNA

Manda Rin - My DNA

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

ELECTRO POP After 14 years in bands like Data Panik, The Kitchen and most famously Bis, this is the first time Amanda McKinnon has stepped away from the collaborations and released under her own (stage) name – although listening to the album, it…

Pumajaw - Curiosity Box

Pumajaw - Curiosity Box

(4 stars)18 Sep 2008

PSYCHEDELIC FOLK Is this thing on? That’s what you might be asking yourself as the first album for Fire by Fence Collective affiliates Pinkie Maclure and John Wills kicks in. Against the picking of a lone guitar, shimmering bells and whispered vocals…

Heartbreak - Lies

Heartbreak - Lies

(5 stars)18 Sep 2008

ITALO DISCO Heartbreak, where have you been all my life? It seems only fair to point out – before excessive scenester fawning turns the increasingly resurgent Italo disco sound into a mutated make-believe genre of new rave proportions – that this…

Is That All There Is?

Is That All There Is?

18 Sep 2008

Scotland welcomes neglectful son Lindsay Anderson home this fortnight (despite having Scottish ancestry Anderson never visited Scotland) with the Scottish premiere of Malcolm McDowell’s tribute concert film Never Apologize (see preview, page 43) and…

Mat Johnson & Warren Pleece - Incognegro

Mat Johnson & Warren Pleece - Incognegro

(4 stars)18 Sep 2008

DRAMA Comics of course can tackle any subject matter – it’s a medium not a genre after all (despite the predominance of superhero titles), and Vertigo at DC has been pushing leftfield stories into the mainstream since its inception in 1993. Set…

Brian Wilson - That Lucky Old Sun

Brian Wilson - That Lucky Old Sun

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

POP There’s no disputing Brian Wilson’s genius – Beach Boy’s classic Pet Sounds is proof alone – and it’s wonderful to have him back from his self-imposed exile; performing live (particularly his joyous set at T in the Park in 2007) and releasing…

Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue

Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue

(4 stars)18 Sep 2008

POP Lewis is a sultry indie poster girl with Rilo Kiley and delivered a beautifully moving country record, backed by The Watson Twins, two years ago. This second solo album lacks the focus of those projects, but it’s still a cut above the average…

Mercury Rev - Snowflake Midnight

Mercury Rev - Snowflake Midnight

(4 stars)18 Sep 2008

ROCK The Rev are like an indie version of Madonna, constantly reinventing themselves and their sound with each album, and this seventh studio outing is another successful reincarnation for these dreamy loons. Their early drone-rock weirdness and even…

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