Issue 671

Edwyn Collins

Oran Mor, Glasgow, Sun 7 Nov 2010

With a new solo album called Losing Sleep and a retrospective of his old band Orange Juice called Coals to Newcastle out, it should have been just another day at the comeback coalface for a middle-aged indie star with a healthily enduring reputation.

Unstoppable

(12A) 98min Director Tony Scott clearly hasn’t had enough of Denzel Washington and locomotives; after their half-hearted remake of The Taking of Pelham 123, Unstoppable puts both director and star back on the tracks for a slick action film about a…

Tinchy Stryder

HMV Picture House, Edinburgh, Wed 3 Nov

‘I wanna get real deep with you right now,’ promises East London’s own Tinchy Stryder before his big number one hit of last year ‘Never Leave You’. Deep is relative, though. Here it translates almost exactly as ‘a bit like the heart-numbingly awful bits…

The Green Door Kids - Muzikal Yooth

(Optimo Music) Recorded at Glasgow’s Green Door Studio and featuring 10 to 25-year-old students of the workshops and music production courses there, this compilation regresses the punk spirit to its foetal form; a desire to make noise and express…

Original Broadway Cast Recording - Fela!

(Cast Records) If you can’t get to London’s National Theatre to see the phenomenal show telling the extraordinary life of Afrobeat’s Fela Kuti, look no further than this tremendous recording of the original Broadway show. It evokes Lagos in…

Seafieldroad - There Are No Maps For This Part of the City

(Biphonic) Seafieldroad is the solo guise of Andrew Eaton, vocalist with noirish Edinburgh electro-pop trio Swimmer One, whose latest album Dead Orchestras is one of this year’s shimmering successes. Recorded in tandem with said LP, There Are No Maps…

Alasdair Gray: Gray Stuff

Murals, posters, books and doodles from Glasgow polymath artist

Alasdair Gray is the very definition of a polymath, and Gray Stuff is a loving testament to his industry and curiosity. The artist’s murals, theatre posters, books and doodles fill the gallery space at Talbot Rice, despite being of rather small…

National Theatre hit The Habit of Art set for Glasgow Theatre Royal

Alan Bennett’s play explores artistic relationship between WH Auden and Benjamin Britten

From Picasso’s vaguely prurient late work, to Yeats’ references to tits and bums in his later poems, great artists have often taken great pleasure in alarming their audiences by entering into a second childhood with alarming sexual references. In Alan…

Bobby Conn - Rise Up!

(Fire) ‘I can’t help you baby, when the empire falls,’ warbles futurist New York psych-disco troubadour Bobby Conn early on in this reissue from 1998, and he’s either talking about the Evil Galactic Empire or just plain ol’ America. Taking…

Errors - Celebrity Come Down With Me

(Rock Action) Boasting remixes from the mammoth likes of Mogwai (‘Supertribe’), Moon Unit (‘Beards’) and Gold Panda (‘A Rumour In Africa’), Celebrity Come Down With Me is a compelling and curious addition to the Errors canon: a record that delivers…

Idlewild - 100 Broken Windows: 10th Anniversary Edition

(EMI) Despite making The List feel hideously old, this 10th anniversary re-release of a bona fide classic is a hugely welcome one. Devotees will pour over the wealth of live and exclusive goodies featured here (including tracks recorded by Shellac’s…

Childish Things explores surrealist use of childhood themes in art

Edinburgh Fruitmarket exhibition features works by Louise Bourgeois, Susan Hiller and Jeff Koons

From St Paul’s assertion of adult intent to the Corinthians to Rousseau’s call for clemency towards its fundamental freedoms (‘childhood is the sleep of reason’), notions of childhood and childish behaviour have long fascinated and divided artists. To…

Dadafest International Scotland showcases work by deaf and disabled practitioners

The changing attitudes towards deaf and disabled arts companies

Disability is perhaps the last remaining taboo when it comes to positive representation in the arts, and it’s only in recent years that disability and deaf arts practitioners have been recognised for the rich contribution they make to the UK’s cultural…

Upside Down: The Best of The Jesus and Mary Chain

(Rhino) Quite sensibly, this kitchen-sink-included compilation of the East Kilbride noiseniks does not arrange itself in chronological order, thus concealing the fact the band’s introductory fusillade of sonic fireworks – ‘Upside Down’, ‘You Trip Me…

Blue and Silver: Whistler and the Thames

Superbly executed exhibition documents London in the 1860s

This superbly executed exhibition builds a narrative around a major work in James McNeill Whistler’s oeuvre. ‘Blue and Silver’ depicts the old Battersea Bridge as it stands tall against the ethereal night-time skyline of the river. Brush strokes of a…

Yo! Picasso: Beside Picasso / Picasso’s Women

Ramshorn Theatre presents two plays focusing on artist's turbulent life

Picasso is taken out of the gallery and on to the stage as the Ramshorn presents two plays focusing on the turbulent life behind the canvas. Yo! Picasso! opens with the artist’s death, as he enters into a state of limbo and is met by Sabartés, his long…

Social Documents: The Ethics of Encounter Part 1

Film documents artist’s two-year journey across the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Screened as part of Stills’ The Ethics of Encounter programme, which comprises exhibitions, screenings and workshops exploring artists’ use of documentary processes, Renzo Martens’ feature-length filmwork Episode III Enjoy Poverty (run ended) is a work…

Atmospheric show The Strasse set for Bedlam Theatre performance

New play by Tash Frost brings ominous atmosphere of short story to stage

Edinburgh University’s Bedlam Theatre is perhaps one of the capital’s most prolific live performance venues, with adaptations and new writing showcased at lunchtimes and special week-long productions. The UK’s oldest student-run theatre, it’s been…

Revealing the Invisible: The Art of Stansfield / Hooykaas from Different Perspectives

Exhibition represents spiritual homecoming for Dutch artist Madelon Hooykaas

When Revealing the Invisible opens at Glasgow’s CCA and Street Level, it will be a spiritual homecoming for Madelon Hooykaas. While the CCA may be unrecognisable from its origins as all-purpose arts lab the Third Eye Centre, it was here in 1974 that the…

Central Station - Enda O’Donoghue

Irish artist explores themes found in photographs found online

Enda O’Donoghue is an Irish artist who has been living and working in Berlin since 2002. He originally studied computer programming before changing to visual art and has worked professionally as a web designer, internet developer and in various dotcom…

Finn Peters - Music of the Mind

(Mantella Records) Arguably all music is at least initially of the mind, but there is an extra degree of literal description in the title of the saxophonist’s latest project. Peters worked with Dr Mick Grierson at Goldsmith’s University to map his…

Femi Kuti - Africa For Africa

(Wrasse Records) With songs like ‘Bad Government’ and ‘Nobody Beg’ Femi Kuti not only takes up the cause of ordinary Nigerians and Africans but consciously takes on the mantel of his father, the late Fela Kuti, as scourge of corrupt politics. With…

The Greenhornes - ****

(Third Man Records) According to some worldviews, the 1960s officially ended when The Beatles announced they were splitting up or when Charlie Manson and his followers unleashed a summer of hate. Clearly, no one ever informed Cincinnati garage band…

Simian Mobile Disco - Delicacies

(Delicacies) This latest from London-based duo James Ford and Jas Shaw takes a leap from the electro-dance of their first two albums into harder, more techno territory. Gathering releases they’ve put out this year on their new imprint, Delicacies…

The Pictish Trail - In Rooms

(Fence Records) The second long-player from local alt.pop prodigy The Pictish Trail boasts more songs than some artists chalk up over an entire career. Inspired by indie comedian Josie Long’s ‘100 Days To Make Me A Better Person’ endeavour…