Latest reviews & features

Malcolm Middleton - Electric Circus, Edinburgh, Mon 29 Apr 2013

Guitarist in his element marking reissue of brutally despondent debut album

’I have to apologise in advance,’ says Malcolm Middleton, ‘for being slick and so well-rehearsed.’ His tour opener, coming before bad habits of the road kick-in and soon after the ex-Arab Strap guitarist’s SAY award nomination for his release under the…

Reginald D Hunter set for 2013 UK tour

Hitting the trail on the back of fresh controversy

You could say that an extra dollop of spice has been added to Reginald D Hunter’s national tour after a furore that could be described as misguided on almost everyone’s part but the comic himself. When the Professional Footballers Association invited…

William Tyler & Hiss Golden Messenger - Summerhall, Edinburgh, Sat 4 May

Songs setting a dense emotional mood and strong sense of place

Despite the setting in a cool, dark, wood-panelled lecture theatre, sometime Silver Jews and Lambchop guitarist William Tyler and Hiss Golden Messenger songwriter and fulcrum Michael ‘MT’ Taylor brought a certain sense of the pastoral with them for this…

Theatre director Emma Callander dicusses the political side of David Greig's Dalgety

The play will be the first staged work from Callander's Theatre Uncut company

Both Theatre Uncut and David MacLennan, curator of A Play, a Pie and a Pint, have their foundations in populist, political theatre. MacLennan’s history with 7:84 reflects his leftist leanings and, as Theatre Uncut’s co-artistic director Emma Callander…

Citizens Theatre conclude season with Caryl Churchill's Far Away and Seagulls

Dominic Hill stages two contemporary classics

In directing a double bill of Caryl Churchill plays, who bridges the gap between the political plays of the 1970s and the personal tone of contemporary theatre, artistic director of The Citizens Theatre Dominic Hill makes a claim for Seagulls and Far…

Alasdair Roberts & Friends - Stereo, Glasgow, Fri 3 May 2013

Less a conventional folk gig than a subversive ceilidh organised by some cracked millenarian cult

Alasdair Roberts is hopping around the stage, picking out a jaunty Scottish dance tune on guitar. Huddled around him are fiddler Rafe Fitzpatrick and electric guitarist Ben Reynolds, while double-bassist Stevie Jones flanks them all, rocking and swaying…

Sweet Baboo - King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow, Tue 7 May 2013

Charming set combines lyrical originality with self-deprecating humour

‘I go dancing and chancing my luck with all those girls - that’s why I’m bound for hell’, sings Stephen Black, aka Welshman Sweet Baboo, on catchy 2010 single ‘I’m a Dancer’. To look at this freckly face, rabbit-in-the-headlights expression and guitar…

The Foamy Saliva of a Horse by Carol Bove

Concise, erudite and illumaniting installation which will absolutely draw you in

This exhibition at The Common Guild presents Carol Bove’s work for the first time in Britain. With an adept and highly poetic consideration of the gallery space, the show displays a variety of found objects, from driftwood, peacock feathers and…

The Middle Place presented by Garry Fabian Miller

Step into the timelessness of nature captured by the world acclaimed Bristolian photographic artist

The Middle Place is Bristolian photographic artist and gardener Garry Fabian Miller's personal viewing area from which he can eyeball the seasonal synergies which have made him an acclaimed international artist. It's best to start upstairs with this…

Ciara Phillips: And More

Canadian-born and Glasgow-based artist presents new collection of screenprints

X marks the spot in Inverleith House's latest show in which a contemporary artist responds to work in the RBG's archival holdings of botanical-based art. Arriving just in time for the sun to belatedly shine, and running alongside 'Nature Printed'…

Jenny Mayhew - A Wolf in Hindelheim

Former screenwriter Mayhew's debut novel is a strong, atmospheric story set in pre-WWII Germany

War hangs heavy over the small German mountain community of Hindelheim in Jenny Mayhew’s unusual crime novel, set in 1926. WWI has left local constable Hildebrandt crippled and estranged from his adult son, while the war which we know is still to come…

Black Host - Life in the Sugar Candle Mines

Splendid mix of prog tentacles and free jazz goo

(Northern Spy) Bursting out of some back-alley Brooklyn laboratory in an explosion of prog tentacles and free jazz goo, Black Host are bizarro world mutant cousins to Little Women. As the sole horn player in a jazz-rock (of sorts) combo, Darius…

Little Women - Lung

Somewhere between free jazz, avant-classical and downtown art-rock

(Aum Fidelity) Like their more fidgety Brooklyn associates Zs, Little Women operate somewhere between free jazz, avant-classical and downtown art-rock. Lung is conceptualised around the human breath, treating it as a sound source and organising…

Quercus - Quercus

June Tabor and Huw Warren collaboration blending jazz and folk tradition

(ECM) The great English folk singer June Tabor has been working with Welsh pianist Huw Warren for several years, most notably on her 2011 album Ashore. Now, under the Quercus umbrella, the pair is joined by saxophonist Iain Ballamy, best known for…

Orchestre Poly-rythmo De Cotonou - The Skeletal Essences of Afro Funk

(Analog Africa) The third compilation of vintage recordings from Benin's greatest dance band, The Skeletal Essences of Afro Funk stands as a fitting tribute to founder Melome Clement, who died of a heart attack in December last year. His 'Ne Rien…

Top 5... time manipulation movies

Inspired by the trailer for About Time, we recount the 5 best chronologically-challenged movies

The trailer for writer-director Richard Curtis’ new time travel rom-com, About Time, was recently released, giving us first look at the love story between the chronologically gifted Tim (Black Mirror’s Domhnall Gleeson) and the object of his affections…

Singles and downloads - May 2013

Sad City, Carter Tutti, Jon Hopkins and Rob St John among this months new music

Sad City - ‘You Will Soon Find That Life Is Wonderful’ EP (Phonica Special Editions) ●●●● Glasgow-based producer Gary Caruth delivers an EP that is dripping with lush, undulating synth hedonism and blissed-out meditative swashes. It’s reminiscent in…

Outwork by Stephen Sutcliffe

Ambitious new show from the Glasgow video artist

One only has to look at the names on the spines of the books projected on the two large side-screens that flank a central one in Stephen Sutcliffe's large-scale film installation to get where he's coming from. Philosopher Jacques Derrida, semiotician…

Kevin Spacey set for talk at 2013 Edinburgh International TV Festival

MacTaggart lecture from actor will address change in ways TV is commissioned and watched

Actor Kevin Spacey will deliver the MacTaggart Lecture at the 2013 Guardian Edinburgh TV Festival. Being a broadly industry-focused festival, the lecture is only open to Edinburgh TV Festival delegates. Spacey recently starred in 13-part Netflix series…

Something in the Air

Olivier Assayas returns with bittersweet portrait of countercultural French 70's youth

French writer-director Olivier Assayas follows up his epic chronicle of legendary terrorist Carlos the Jackal with this bittersweet portrait of countercultural youth in early 70s France. ‘Diffusely autobiographical’ is how the filmmaker has described…

The King Of Marvin Gardens

Reissue of forgotten 70s film starring Jack Nicholson by director of Five Easy Pieces

'In the fun house how do you know who's really crazy?' that's the pertinent question in The King of Marvin Gardens, Bob 'Five Easy Pieces' Rafelson's third film. This reissue is a chance to re-appraise the 1972 financial flop starring Jack Nicholson and…

The Liability

Tim Roth and Jack O'Connell pair up for a seemingly familiar hitman film

You may get struck by déjà vu watching The Liability, the third feature film by former cinematographer Craig Viveiros. A story of a taciturn hitman and his callow assistant starring Tim Roth, it sounds suspiciously like a remake of Stephen Frears’ 1984…

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Adaptation of Mohsen Hamid’s book starring Riz Ahmed and Kate Hudson

A globetrotting adaptation of Mohsen Hamid’s allegorical first-person novella, director Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a thriller in which the character names are freighted with symbolic baggage. Britain’s Riz Ahmed is impressive as the…

Let the Right One In re-written for stage by Dundee Rep

John Tiffany and Steven Hoggett adapt Swedish vampire romance

Their screen-to-stage adaptation of Once won eight Tony Awards in 2012. Now, John Tiffany and Steven Hoggett are giving another cult film a theatrical makeover: Swedish vampire romance Let the Right One In. Adapted by John Ajvide Lindqvist from his own…

Blue Raincoat present The Poor Mouth

Irish theatre company Blue Raincoat apply eclectic style to Flan O'Brien's absurdist language

In their annual visits to Scotland, Blue Raincoat demonstrate a rare gift for combining spectacular visual theatre and the rigorous demands of a script. The Poor Mouth, the finale of their adaptation of Flann O’Brien’s trilogy of novels, sees the…