Neil Cooper

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The Fall - Re-Mit

15 May 20134 stars

Suggests insistent inter-band chemistry despite there being no real surprises here

(Cherry Red) Whoa-whoa-whoa, etc! Don't ever underestimate Mark E Smith, The Fall's founder, writer, vocalist and sole surviving member since they formed 35 years ago. Some may dismiss him as a past-his-best drunken parody of many former glories, and…

Ciara Phillips: And More

15 May 20133 stars

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'…

Outwork by Stephen Sutcliffe

14 May 20134 stars

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…

Albums round-up - April 2013

26 Apr 2013

New releases from The Postal Service, Small Black, Akron/Family, Sweet Baboo and Collar Up reviewed

The Postal Service Give Up: 10-Year Anniversary Reissue (Sub Pop) ●●●●● Jimmy Tamborello and Ben Gibbard – of Dntel and Death Cab for Cutie respectively – likely didn’t consider the longevity of their fun little ‘record-by-mail’ project. But their…

Et Tu Brute??? - Henry's Cellar Bar, Edinburgh, Wed 20 Mar 2013

22 Apr 20134 stars

Avant-garage hardcore supergroup peddling intense and wilfully no-fi sound

Edinburgh scene super-groups don't come along every day, yet the arrival of Et tu Brute??? opening a four-band House of Crust bill headlined by Californian punks, Fracas, is a tantalising prospect. Initiated by Edinburgh School For the Deaf/St Judes…

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Magic Eye / Le Thug / Zed Penguin / Plastic Animals - Split 12”

19 Apr 20134 stars

Four-band snapshot of Scotland’s more gloriously, and at times wilfully off-piste musical treats

(Song, by Toad) Eclectica abounds on this four-band snapshot compendium of dispatches from some of the country’s more gloriously, and at times wilfully off-piste musical treats. Each provide two songs for this limited edition vinyl, alongside more of…

Interview: Terre Thaemlitz to perform at Arika Episode 4/5

18 Apr 2013

Politically-engaged DJ and producer set for gender-themed Arika event in Glasgow

There’s a story Terre Thaemlitz, aka DJ Sprinkles, tells in a footnote to a recent address she gave at Tate Modern. Now published on Thaemlitz’ website, it recalls her DJ-ing a deep house set at the closing party of a queer and transgender cultural…

Mariana Castillo Deball - What we caught we threw away, what we didn't catch we kept

17 Apr 20133 stars

Works based on anthropological detritus from Mexican artist

Anthropological detritus forms the bulk of 'What we caught we threw away, what we didn't catch we kept', a new body of work by Mexican artist Deball, which was co-commissioned by Cove Park and the Chisenhale Gallery in London, where it transfers later…

William E Jones

17 Apr 20134 stars

Film works based on archive documentary footage from Los Angeles-based provocateur

Three film-works by this Los Angeles-based provocateur take notions of power drawn from archive documentary footage, then, by recontextualising each one via collaging, cut-ups and other treatments, liberates them from their authoritarian…

Rachel Mimiec: Plough

17 Apr 20133 stars

Show that blurs the boundaries between community and solo practice

When GoMa's soon to be outgoing associate artist Rachel Mimiec led workshops with children at the Red Road Family Centre Nursery, her own line of inquiry with blocks of colour led to 'Plough', a body of work in which pages from issues of National…

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Ulrich Schnauss - Electric Circus, Edinburgh, Sun 17 Mar 2013

26 Mar 20134 stars

A panoramic and emotionally driven electronica set from the ambient techno artist

The first time Ulrich Schnauss appeared in Edinburgh, back on Easter Sunday, in 2008 at the Voodoo Rooms, there wasn't a still body in the room, such was the infectiousness of Schnauss' laptop-generated electronica that has since defined a mashed-up…

Jutta Koether - Seasons and Sacraments

19 Mar 20134 stars

Large-scale reimagining of Nicolas Poussin back catalogue

The back catalogue of 17th-century painter Nicolas Poussin isn’t the most obvious frame of reference for German iconoclast Jutta Koether, but when she was taken to see his The Seven Sacraments at the Scottish National Gallery, something clicked. The end…

Flickering Lights

19 Mar 20134 stars

Rachel Maclean cartoon pop-vid bravura a highlight of film and video show

`Up in the Lower Church Gallery end of Summerhall, three very different video works are in motion as part of this superb arts space’s latest exhibition programme. David Bellingham’s ‘An Object Revolving Around a Day / An Object Revolving Round Events…

Buzzcut 2013 is a five-day festival of live art and performance in Glasgow

18 Mar 2013

Highlights include work by Eilidh MacAskill, Andy Field and Catherine Street

Buzzcut is a five-day festival of live art and performance founded in Glasgow by Nick Anderson and Rosana Cade. Here they explain about the most youthful addition to the city’s experimental arts scene and its second year. What’s the thinking behind this…

From Death to Death and Other Small Tales

19 Feb 20135 stars

Astonishing archive of body-themed work including Sarah Lucas, Otto Dix and Matthew Barney

From the moment you step into the first corridor and meet an opening tease of Magritte, it’s hard not to be overwhelmed physically and mentally by this major mix-and-match collection of 20th and 21st century work. And that’s really how it should be for…

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Massimo Bartolini: Studio Matters + 1

19 Feb 20134 stars

Large scale sculpture and miniatures from Italian artist

Like a moth to a flame, the habitual party-goer will always be drawn to Kraftwerkian big-city neon. So it goes in ‘La Strada di Sotto' (The Street Below), the toytown-style installation that maps out the whole of the Fruitmarket’s main downstairs room…

Randan Discotheque - Sonderweg

25 Jan 20134 stars

Artist Craig Coulthard's art-pop posse release an album that's part-po-mo Proclaimers, part Zappa

Fuck miracles. The art/pop diaspora of the last few years traverses regions, as this first non-CD-r release from Forest Pitch imagineur Craig Coulthard’s revolving musical troupe proves in spades. Sonderweg opens with some very wise spoken words before…

Zoe Beloff: A History of Dreams Remains to be Written

24 Jan 20135 stars

Two-part mixed media show examining Coney Island's psychogeography and Occupy Wall Street

Libido and revolution are not so strange bedfellows in New York-based Edinburgh expat Beloff’s first solo show in Scotland, in which imaginary worlds collide in two complementary takes on utopia. In ‘Dreamland’, Beloff mines the archive of the Coney…

Slovakian Master Printers

24 Jan 20133 stars

Group show highlighting the works of Karol Felix, Igor Benca, Robert Jancovic and Marian Komacek

There’s a muscular gloss to much of the work on show in this showcase of four Slovakian printmakers that forms part of an ongoing international exchange initiated by the Scottish Society of Artists. Much of this is to do with the mezzotint techniques by…

Jeff Mills, Dieter Moebius, JD Twitch and Raime perform live film soundtracks at 2013 Glasgow Film Festival

21 Jan 2013

Woman in the Moon, Baraka and Metropolis among films featuring live score

Science-fiction and electronic music have long co-existed in parallel universes, the assorted experimental visionaries behind them predicting the future. Detroit techno pioneer and long-term sci-fi obsessive Jeff Mills in particular has made such a…

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Haftor Medboe and Anneke Kampman - Places and Spaces

17 Jan 20134 stars

Refreshing collaboration between dexterous jazz guitarist and electronic chanteuse

(Fabrikant) At first listen, Conquering Animal Sound chanteuse Anneke Kampman's first sojourn into off-piste collaboration sounds like the straightest thing she's done. Here she is, singing proper words and everything alongside seasoned jazz guitarist…

Various artists - Some Songs Side By Side

19 Dec 20124 stars

Showcase of Scottish indie talent, featuring Tut Vu Vu, Sacred Paws, Muscles of Joy and more

So-called ‘regional’ compilations were crucial statements of independence during the post-punk fall-out that briefly shook up the bone-idle London-centric record company hegemony. Snapshots of Manchester, Brighton and other scenes proliferated on…

Snide Rhythms - Snide Rhythms

19 Dec 20124 stars

A grab-bag of leftfield post-punk influences that channel the sound of the ECA's Wee Red Bar

With art school credentials to spare, Colvin Cruikshank’s trio of Edinburgh scene-setters mash up a grab-bag of leftfield post-punk conceptualists to make something that seems to channel the ghosts of every act who ever made the Wee Red Bar such a…

Iceage - The Third Door, Edinburgh, Sat 24 Nov 2012

18 Dec 20124 stars

Blistering, breathtaking neo-hardcore punk show from the Danish quartet

‘Can we borrow the support bands’ guitars?’ asks vocalist Elias Ronnenfelt with a sleepy-eyed mix of boredom and self-belief that expects no answer other than action. Three songs in, and the Danish neo-hardcore quartet’s guitars are fucked, a mess of…

The York painter Harland Miller explores the art of fiction in Overcoming Optimism

18 Dec 20124 stars

Cock-snooking obscenities with darkly subversive intent

If the Obscene Publications Squad are on the case of this first solo exhibition in Scotland by a York-born painter with a name like a pulp fiction hack, rest easy. Miller’s monumental depictions of dog-eared Penguin book designs down the decades may…