The Thing

Neneh Cherry & The Thing - Cherry Thing

Inventive and charismatic return from Cherry in this free jazz/post-punk collaboration

22 May 2012

Neneh Cherry’s first album in 16 years is perhaps closer in spirit to the jazzoid post-punk of Rip Rig & Panic than the glorious hip-pop of Raw Like Sushi, but hot damn, it’s good. The Thing are renowned for their wild takes on cult rock and free-jazz…

The Thing

'Prequel' to John Carpenter's 1981 classic is a shapeless mess of a rip-off

9 Nov 2011

(15) 103min Despite confusingly sharing the same title, debutante director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr’s film is a prequel rather than a remake of John Carpenter’s 1981 horror classic, which was itself a remake of Howard Hawks’s 1951 version of John…

Eastern Promise brings live music and record fair to Platform, Glasgow

To Rococo Rot, Tarwater and Conquering Animal Sound

14 Sep 2011

The second Eastern Promise builds on the good work of last year’s festival by bringing an admirably eclectic bill of Scottish and international acts to Easterhouse. Underground pop legends The Pastels play their first show in over a year on the Sunday…

Fire! With Jim O’Rourke - Unreleased?

Members of The Thing, Tape and Wildbirds & Peacedrum

13 Jun 2011

(Rune Grammofon) Saxophone behemoth Mats Gustafsson is best known for his work with baws-oot jazzers The Thing, but Fire! is a relatively controlled affair, more rock-oriented improv than free jazz. Gustafsson, bassist Johan Berthling (Tape) and…

Zombie Zombie perform the music of John Carpenter

23 Feb 2010

Forming part of the Glasgow Film Festival’s Music and Film strand, the influence of one of American cinema’s most widely-respected cult auteurs hung over this event, so we shouldn’t be too picky that the band scrapped the idea of performing in front of…

Pere Ubu, Mogwai, Thomas Truax and Zombie Zombie set for The Glasgow Music and Film Festival

17 Feb 2010

The Music and Film Festival is a strange beast, full of contradictions and tangents that threaten to pull apart its coherence, but ultimately make it the most exciting strand of this year’s Glasgow Film Festival. Co-curated by the Arches, and featuring…

The Ex & Brass Unbound

13 Jan 2010

In their 30 year existence, Dutch underground legends The Ex have made connections between post-punk, Eastern European folk, free-improvisation and Ethiopian jazz, yet they’re still widely referred to as anarcho-punks. A misrepresentation? ‘Yes – in…

The Thing

11 Sep 2009

John Carpenter’s excellent 1982 monster flick revived on digital big screen projection. Selected release from Tue 15 Sep. (18) 108min

Continental shift at the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival

This year sees a fresh influx of New European Jazz

13 Jul 2009

While American jazz remains a central plank of the Edinburgh International Jazz and Blues Festival programme, its European counterpart is still well-represented. The Festival is an opportunity to both welcome back seasoned artists (or in the case of…

Edinburgh festival highlights: The top 30 shows

August’s finest entertainment at a glance

13 Jul 2009

We bring you a selection of the best shows at Edinburgh this year across all the festivals, including barnstorming retelling of the Goethe story Faust, former Talking Head David Byrne in experimental mood, The Wire's creator David Simon and theatre…