Issue 634

An Hour to Sing fo Your Soul - Kevin Bridges' stand-up show

23 Jul 2009

When comics make their Fringe debuts, many of them are hell-bent on working up the biggest theme their minds and mouths can maintain over the course of an hour. Not such manufactured tosh for a guy like Kevin Bridges, the latest in a long line of great…

Film and Fashion - Coco Before Chanel

23 Jul 2009

As enjoyable as Coco Before Chanel – the giddy biopic of the reputed Nazi collaborator couturier starring Audrey Tautou – is, it underlined a hard, learned truth for me. Fashion and films co-exist – there is no symbiosis between the two. If they were…

Tonite - contemporary art in Glasgow

23 Jul 2009

The East Coast scene may be dominated by the Edinburgh Art Festival, but lovers of contemporary art in Glasgow can get their fix at The Modern Instutute with this large group show, which features work by Hany Armanious, Martin Boyce, Martin Creed, Mark…

Paul & Nusch Eluard & Surrealism Exhibition

23 Jul 2009

PHOTOGRAPHY, ILLUSTRATION & MEMORABILIA All the boys loved Nusch, the hypnotist’s assistant whose skinny frame and fiery demeanour mesmerised every art star in town. It was poet and painter Paul Eluard, though, who made Maria Benz – muse to the…

Antichrist

23 Jul 2009

Danish Dogme pack leader Lars Von Trier conjures up a slice of unbridled and unpleasant pantheistic horror that’s underlined by themes of grief and guilt. When middle class couple Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe’s son dies in a freak accident…

Southern Fried Festival - country music comes to Perth

23 Jul 2009

Glen Lyon, 1982, is as good a place to start as any. That summer Andy Shearer, son of the local deerstalking ghillie, met Will Oldham, a young American holidaying on the estate with his family. They struck up a friendship and began to swap music…

Chic - Nile Rodgers

Funk master

23 Jul 2009

Nile Rodgers defined an era with the classic disco soul of Chic and again as one of the most sampled act in hip hop history. David Pollock meets him.

Wickerman Festival 2009 - DJ Danny Rampling interview

23 Jul 2009

It might not be on the same scale as T in the Park or Rock Ness but the Wickerman is happily striding forth into its eighth year as an alternative to the many big buck corporate festivals. Wickerman aims to create a friendly atmosphere and a good time…

Spotlight on Glasgow's Merchant City

23 Jul 2009

Look up as you walk around the streets of Glasgow’s Merchant City and you can’t help but be transfixed by the history of an area now best known, perhaps, for its food and drink emporiums. First formed in the 18th Century as a stomping ground for the…

Taste Test: Biscuits

23 Jul 2009

Duchy Original’s Sweet Oaten and Heather Honey • 12 biscuits (150g) for £1.99 With the Duchy crest stamp there’s an refined elegance to this one, though whether it’s more than an upmarket digestive is open to question. As with a number of Duchy…

Antichrist - Lars Von Trier interview

23 Jul 2009

Lars Von Trier makes films that defy consensus. He is a showman provocateur in search of a reaction, however extreme. The shrugged shoulders of indifference would be his definition of failure. With this in mind, Von Trier can only have been delighted…

Activism - Meet the political activists

23 Jul 2009

There’s been a lot of nostalgia for the 90s recently, as Blur, Take That and the Spice Girls reform (however fleetingly), and various media outlets (this one included) celebrate 15 years since the invention of a handy marketing tool called Britpop.

DJ Ellen Allien to play at Edinburgh night Kapital

23 Jul 2009

TECHNO ‘Ever since her mix tapes first found their way to us at the start of the decade, we [the trio of DJs and promoters behind Edinburgh night Kapital], have been strongly influenced by Ellen Allien,’ says the club’s Barry O’Connell. ‘Everything…

Málaga Feria - a day in the life of the free, Spanish festival

23 Jul 2009

If there are a thousand reasons to be in Edinburgh during the Festival there are as many to escape, and where better than a free festival in a Mediterranean port founded by the Phoenicians some 3000 years ago. Which is why, at midnight on a mid-August…

Jupiter Artland - outdoor work by high-profile contemporary artists

23 Jul 2009

‘This isn’t a sculpture park,’ says Robert Wilson, co-director, along with his wife Nicky, of the recently-opened Jupiter Artland. ‘We think of it as something different. That’s why we used the word “artland”, because we want to focus equally on the…

Side Dishes - news to nibble on

23 Jul 2009

Roy brett, chef-director of the Dakota Hotel Group, is to open up his own restaurant, Ondine (the name of a mythological water nymph), within the new Missoni Hotel on George IV Bridge in the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town. Brett previously worked with…

Rumba

23 Jul 2009

Written and directed by the triumvirate of Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy, Rumba is a deadpan Belgian tragi-comedy, in which the clowning of the characters goes hand-in-hand with a series of disastrous setbacks in their lives. Happily…

Master Shortie - ADHD

23 Jul 2009

Adopting a grassroots approach to music, taking control of his own marketing and distribution shows this 19-year-old Londoner is determined to be master of his own musical destiny. What he presents is a diverse blend of hip hop, grime infused with…

Wild Beasts - Two Dancers

23 Jul 2009

Imagine Antony Hegarty from Antony and the Johnsons fronting vintage Talking Heads. It might just work, right? Wrong, at least in the hands of Kendal kids Wild Beasts, it is. Maybe it’s all in the execution, which is at best seriously underwhelming and…

Jam the Box meets Rebel Waltz

23 Jul 2009

Starting from humble beginnings at Edinburgh’s City Café, Rebel Waltz have now made their home in London’s East Village via many successful years in Barcelona at City Hall and La Terrazza. So it’s great to see Murray Richardson and Stuart Patterson back…

Activism - Active ingredients

23 Jul 2009

What we eat, where our food comes from and how we eat it all have a huge impact on our local and global environment – and, happily, it only takes a few small changes to the way we approach our food to make a difference. Local, seasonal food is cheaper…

Activism - Global activism

23 Jul 2009

The Make Poverty History campaign garnered worldwide attention back in 2005 thanks to the involvement of Messrs Martin, Bono et al. It’s still going strong, though, and they need support to pressure the politicians and decision makers into helping make…

Activism Feature - why volunteer?

23 Jul 2009

So you want me to do something for nothing? Not nothing, no. Volunteering is a way to gain skills, help out and make a difference. What could I do? There are always countless projects in search of volunteers, and if you want to get involved you…

Activism - The Google activist

23 Jul 2009

If you want to campaign on the big issues greenpeace.org.uk foe.co.uk (Friends of the Earth) antislavery.org cancerresearchuk.org childline.org.uk rspca.org.uk howardleague.org (Howard League for Prison Reform) For insightful…

Adam Thirlwell's latest novel - The Escape

23 Jul 2009

There’s a scene at the end of Adam Thirlwell’s The Escape in which its British Jewish protagonist Raphael Haffner attempts to explain the concept of a draw in cricket to an American friend. This idea acts as a neat allegory of the book’s plot, in which…