Issue 629

Ludivine Sagnier - Fairy Tales

14 May 2009

Ingenue, starlet and disgracefully young-looking, Ludivine Sagnier is about to turn 30. In a dazzlingly high-quality career, she has packed in collaborations with many of the heavyweights of French cinema including Francois Ozon, Claude Miller and Alain…

Why Hip Hop show Breakin' Convention has the original spin

14 May 2009

In May 2007, hip hop came to Edinburgh. A laughable comment for those already immersed in the scene, but for many people it was the start of a beautiful friendship. Having taken London by storm every year since 2004, Breakin’ Convention finally branched…

Hip hop in Scotland - Taking the mic

14 May 2009

MC SOOM T Combining fierce vocal ability with commercial versatility, fast-rapping Glaswegian Sumati Bhardwaj has opened for Basement Jaxx and Aphex Twin, and performed diverse styles such as reggae with Mungo’s Hi-Fi and folk alongside The Burns…

Graffiti in Scotland - Creative writing

14 May 2009

From Loanhead to Glasgow there’s a rich heritage of graffiti art in Scotland. We speak to two of the key figures on the scene Elph and Derm

Heart of darkness

His Dark Materials

14 May 2009

Three novels, hundreds of characters and numerous parallel worlds – Philip Pullman’s imagination knows no bounds. Between them, Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass have captivated millions of readers worldwide. Fitting their…

Ladyhawke

14 May 2009

‘Well, it’s basically me just flying through the air, shooting cats, avoiding cats, and trying not to die,’ grins Pip Brown, abashedly. Better known as one-woman vintage pop behemoth Ladyhawke, the quietly-spoken, congenial New Zealander is detailing…

Jac Scott - Excess all areas

14 May 2009

Jac Scott’s new exhibition at the Collins Gallery couldn’t be more perfectly pitched to capture the credit crunch zeitgeist. At a point when many of us are reassessing our expenditure and desire for all types of goods, Excess: Experiments in Living…

Margaret Elphinstone: The Gathering Night

14 May 2009

Margaret Elphinstone has carved out a fine career as a purveyor of excellent historical novels, but for her latest offering she’s done something a bit different and gone prehistoric. The Gathering Night is set in Mesolithic Scotland, somewhere between…

Mad Decent records

14 May 2009

‘We look for people who are trying different things,’ says Jasper Goggins, New York-based manager of the Mad Decent label, ‘and who aren’t afraid to be a bit experimental with their sound. But more than that everyone on the label is friends, there’s…

Synecdoche, New York: Crisis of faith

14 May 2009

‘How many roads must a man walk down / before you call him a man?’ Is Bob Dylan’s most famous protest song really a surrealist riddle? What’s the road made out of, and will it hurt the tender soles of my feet? That’s the thing about the Jewish…

Reel Iraq

14 May 2009

The point of Charlie Brooker’s excellent Newswipe series, which ended recently, seemed to be that, far from being an honest and agenda-free information source, the news is just as much a constructed text as, say, a novel or a film. And for most people…

Scottish Arts Council award for St Peter’s Seminary development proposal

14 May 2009

The List is delighted to report on NVA’s announcement that they will play a ‘major role’ in plans to save St Peter’s Seminary and Kilmahew Woodlands. The Glasgow based environmental charity will use the £45,600 award fund given to them by the Scottish…

Go Faster Stripe

14 May 2009

Every November time an onslaught of comedy DVDs hits the nation’s shops and online retailers, almost as though there was some big occasion around the corner that stand-ups and their representatives wished to capitalise upon. Yet one wholly independent…

The Vaselines: Enter the Vaselines

14 May 2009

Things those under the age of 30 should know about The Vaselines: They were formed in Glasgow by Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee. They were in existence from 1986 to 1989, and more recently on an occasional live basis. They are best known outside of…

Modern Life (La Vie Moderne)

14 May 2009

(PG) 90min The third part of Magnum photojournalist and filmmaker Raymond Depardon’s trilogy of films about the lives of France’s highland farmers receives a standalone release. We can only hope its predecessors will follow. The Cévennes region in…

Mark of an Angel

14 May 2009

THRILLER (12A) 91min It’s partly spoiling the experience of watching this impressively executed French film to reveal that what begins as an engrossing character study transforms into a riveting domestic thriller. But to not make reference to the…

Helen

14 May 2009

(PG) 79min Given that contemporary filmmaking in Britain continues to be comprised largely of stale costume dramas and gangster thrillers, cheap carbon copies of American horror movies and grim social realist stories either made by or made in the…

Theophilus London

14 May 2009

Midway through Hinterland festival’s first evening, the indie kids of Glasgow scuttle from one bunch of guitar-twangers to another. Leaning against the building site fence next to the Sub Club, a pair of Brooklynites in retro shades, skinny jeans and…

David Aaronovitch: Voodoo Histories

14 May 2009

Pearl Harbour was engineered by FDR so America could enter World War II. Princess Di was bumped off by MI6. And 9/11 was the master plot of a wicked American administration. All because TV documentaries, the internet or some bloke down the pub told us…

Lau: Arc Light

14 May 2009

Lau have established themselves as the hottest band out there on the Scottish folk scene over the last eighteen months on the basis of their gripping live performances, and if their recordings haven’t yet quite matched the on-stage excitement, Arc Light…

Colm Tóibín: Brooklyn

14 May 2009

Times are tough in Enniscorthy, a small job-scarce town in the south-east of Ireland where idle gossip and parish dances are the only entertainment on offer for the young and restless. Instantly likeable leading lady Eilis Lacey’s life is turned upside…

Laurence Hobgood: When The Heart dances

14 May 2009

Pianist Laurence Hobgood is a somewhat underrated figure on the jazz piano spectrum, perhaps largely because we have come to think of him as a masterly accompanist to singer Kurt Elling rather than a soloist in his own right. Hobgood appeared with…

Sucioperro: Pain Agency

14 May 2009

Friends in high places can be a blessing and a curse. This Ayrshire power trio’s association with Ayrshire’s only other spectral rock gods Biffy Clyro – Sucioperro’s JP Reid is the other half of Marmaduke Duke – means the two bands will always suffer…

Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

14 May 2009

Phoenix are really rather brilliant, it’s just a shame more people don’t know it. Criminally underrated for most of their career, the French quartet return with this fourth effort; which, cringey title aside, is by far their most accomplished and…

Manchester Orchestra: Mean Everything to Nothing

14 May 2009

They’re not from Manchester and they’re not an orchestra. Instead this young indie five-piece from Atlanta tap into the blue-collar rock ethic that’s spawned the likes of The Hold Steady and Kings of Leon, while also displaying plenty weirdness to keep…

Taste Edinburgh - Season to Taste

14 May 2009

Edinburgh’s tented food festival is back, with 14 restaurants, three cooking theatres and over 60 food and drink stallholders gathering in Inverleith Park for three days of meeting and eating. The List takes a look at what’s in this year’s picnic basket

The best medicine

14 May 2009

My sides really do feel like they’re splitting. I am in a room with 15 other adults, none of whom I’d met an hour ago, and we are all rubbing nice big dollops of imaginary ‘laughter face cream’ into our cheeks, chanting ‘ho ho ho,’ ‘ha ha ha,’ ‘hee hee…

In the loop - Glasgow Subway Festival

14 May 2009

It’s every commuter’s nightmare, being stuck in a carriage with a talker. The sort of person who simply won’t respect your need to privacy in a public place; who wants to ask you questions, or worse, tell you all about their life. Or worse. Try and…

Child’s Play

Imaginate festival

14 May 2009

Now that it’s settled into its new name, the event formerly known as the Children’s International Theatre Festival is finding bigger and bolder ways to spread its wings. This year, the Bank of Scotland Imaginate Festival has shows in no less than seven…

FUEL - Pole position

14 May 2009

When you think racing games, you picture unaffordable sports cars tearing around tracks based on real-life circuits in exotic parts of the world. FUEL is different. It rips up the rulebook and delivers something more ambitious. Set in a future where…

Taste of Edinburgh - Stuart Muir gets out of the kitchen - Pressure cooker

14 May 2009

Brand Events, the company behind Taste of Edinburgh, run their restaurant festivals in a number of cities around the UK, as well as overseas in places such as Cape Town and Sydney. The concept is clearly popular with the public, but it also involves…

Café Bayan - Falling into steppe

14 May 2009

Entering Café Bayan, your eye is drawn to an enormous, mauve-toned mural depicting Scottish and Russian luminaries. In the Scots corner, Burns; in the Russian corner, Pushkin and Tchaikovsky; and, floating incongruously between the two, a tiny depiction…

Love's Time's Beggar

14 May 2009

If you were about to die, and could select one abiding memory to keep with you in the hereafter, what would it be? Hirokazu Koreeda’s film Afterlife dreamed up this intriguing premise about a decade back, and it stayed in director, writer and actor Cora…

Still and Signs of Life

14 May 2009

Cormac Quinn is fast distinguishing himself as a name to watch. The young Glasgow-based playwright won enthusiastic plaudits with his thematically linked two-handers, Still and Signs of Life, when the double bill was staged at the Ramshorn by director…

Willie Doherty: Buried

14 May 2009

First impressions of Buried, a film made especially for Willie Doherty’s exhibition of the same name at The Fruitmarket, indicate that the Northern Irish artist has had a change of subject matter. We see a forest and can hear birdsong and other sounds…

Singles and Downloads

14 May 2009

Take four kids from Northern Ireland and force feed them AC/DC from birth and you’d create The Answer, a scarily authentic gonzo rock outfit who create a fun fluster of riffage and shrieking on ‘ Tonight’ (Albert Productions) ●●● Brainless fun…

Glasgow Americana Festival

14 May 2009

Scotland in general, and Glasgow in particular, has had a long love affair with the dusty backroad heartbreak of Americana and anything with a folky bent from across the pond. In the past the Big Big Country festival run by late promoter Billy Kelly was…

The Grocer’s Son (Le Fils de l'Epicier)

14 May 2009

(12A) 99min The fatted calf is swapped for a mobile grocer’s van in documentarian Eric Guirado’s likeably breezy fictional debut, a take on the prodigal son fable. When his father becomes sick, Paris-based waiter Antoine (Nicolas Cazalé) agrees to…

R&S Records

14 May 2009

Weren’t they big back in the day? Not just big but huge. R&S were at the forefront of the European techno scene and helped cement Belgium’s standing in the world of the electronic beat with releases from CJ Bolland, Derrick May, Aphex Twin, DJ Hell…

Up the Glitter! and Queerbash

14 May 2009

Two nights are starting up this fortnight which aim to breathe a bit of fresh air into the queer clubbing scene in Glasgow. The first of these is named (in shamelessly outré style) Up the Glitter!, and is the brainchild of Dawid Penkowicz and Anne…

Scottish Opera: Manon

14 May 2009

All singing, all dancing might be a phrase originally applied to musicals, but it’s a description that well fits Scottish Opera’s new production of Manon. A chorus of 40, orchestra of 60-plus, fully choreographed ballet scenes and at least eight…

Lights, camera, action - Edinburgh International Film Festival launches programme

14 May 2009

The Edinburgh International Film Festival has launched its much-anticipated line-up boasting 135 features from 33 countries and 23 world premieres. Recent Oscar-winner Kate Winslet is expected to inject some glamour to the proceedings, work schedule…

First word: Jim Kerr

14 May 2009

First record you ever bought David Bowie – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust. Last time you were chatted up This morning! First film you saw that really moved you Bambi. Last lie you told It’s been a while … honest! First movie…

Quadrophenia

14 May 2009

The current economic crisis has cast many minds back to the unemployment-wracked 1970s, so it’s perhaps apt that a new stage adaptation of The Who’s Quadrophenia – one of the decade’s most celebrated albums – is touring this year. Composed by The Who…

Various Artists: Limbo Live Volume 1

14 May 2009

Anyone fortunate enough to attend the live music night Limbo at Edinburgh’s Voodoo Rooms on regular Thursdays will know that it’s run by people who know what’s best on the local musical landscape, and who have the luxury of applying some well-exercised…

Spirit of Jura

14 May 2009

While various coffee houses of the Scottish capital have taken credit for providing the caffeine-fuelled watershed for JK Rowling’s career, few places have such literary resonance as Jura. The iconic isle was the isolated spot where George Orwell, fresh…

Site Specifics: Edinburgh Castle

14 May 2009

What is it? Do I really have to answer this? It’s that gigantic castle thing on a rock dominating your capital city. Yeah, we know Look, it may seem like rather an obvious choice, but really, when was the last time you actually visited? May is the…

Everlasting Moments

14 May 2009

DRAMA (15) 131min Given veteran Scandinavian filmmaker Jan Troell’s latest is about a woman discovering her natural ability for photography in early 20th century Sweden, it’s wholly appropriate that the film is a masterclass in visual design.

Claude Von Stroke

14 May 2009

Like many teenagers in Detroit during the 1980s, Barclay Crenshaw (aka Claude Von Stroke) grew up listening to The Electrifying Mojo’s seminal Midnight Funk Association radio broadcasts, which exposed a generation of young producers to the music of…

Xplicit

14 May 2009

Wander through the doors of Edinburgh Uni’s Potterrow on 22 May and you might be in for a bit of a surprise. Over the last year or so the venue has once again started to host a growing number of club nights and large events run by some of the capital’s…