Neil Cooper
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Twin Sister - Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh, Thu 10 Nov 2011
15 Nov 2011
Infectiously prettified melodies threaten to become dance-floor dream
In her geek-girl specs and floppy Annie Hall hat, Twin Sister chanteuse Andrea Estella appears as quintessentially kooky a New Yorker as any afficionado of 1970s me-generation peak era Woody Allen movies could wish for. The check-shirted quartet of…
Rob St John - Weald
10 Nov 2011
Forceful mix of melancholy and otherworldly rapture
(Song, by Toad) Forget the much misused ‘F-word’. Rob St John is miles better than that, and putting a full electric band behind his whey-faced Lancastrian intonations has put muscle and guts on his musings. Yet for all the low-key chorales…
Viv Albertine - Henry’s Cellar Bar, Edinburgh, Saturday 5 Nov
8 Nov 2011
Musically and emotionally raw 'secret' show from former Slits guitarist
“Penis!” Former Slits guitarist Viv Albertine may only be checking her sound levels, but her one word opening gambit sets out her store for the artistic splurge that’s to follow. Within seconds Albertine is relating how she thinks about sex all…
The Writing On Your Wall
28 Oct 2011
Rob Tufnell-curated group show chronicling the history of radical print
When Jeremy Deller put Rupert Murdoch’s walnut face on a sky-blue ‘Vote Conservative’ poster to raise funds for the Labour Party, it looked like satire. Given the ongoing phone-hacking saga, it now feels like prophecy. The ‘Murdoch Doesn’t Give A XXX…
Minimal: Glass at 75 - Programme highlights
19 Oct 2011
Glasgow festival features, Scottish Ensemble, Bang On A Can and composer himself
How fragile is Glass? And how shattering? Audiences have had plenty of time of late to ponder the cause and effect of veteran New York composer Philip Glass’ considerable body of work. Glass himself appeared with his Ensemble to perform the dizzying…
Koreless - Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Sun 9 Oct 2011
19 Oct 2011
The youthful, bright-eyed dubstepper takes centre-stage at Sneaky's
Lewis Roberts may only be just about old enough to attend a club, but judging by this appearance he certainly understands what’s required to keep the customers satisfied. Still in his teens, this Glasgow-based Welshman has patented a form of lazy…
John Foxx & The Maths - Interplay
12 Oct 2011
Cold synth masterpiece from the electro-pop pioneer
(Metamatic Records) Now a real-life silver Foxx, the pushing-60 electro-pop/clash pioneer and former vocalist with Ultravox before Midge Ure made them rubbish might just have found his time. This retro-future compendium of detached, dystopian…
The Wild Swans - The Coldest Winter For A Hundred Years
10 Aug 2011
Paul Simpson’s band of reignited pop classicists plus guests
(Occultation) After 30 years of hurt, Paul Simpson’s band of reignited pop classicists are on a mission. Featuring a supergroup of musical crusaders recruited from the ranks of Echo and the Bunnymen, Spiritualised and Brian Jonestown Massacre, this…
Lineage: Michael Craig-Martin, Ian Davenport and Julian Opie
5 Aug 2011
Edinburgh Art Festival 2010 - Printmaking, but not as we know it
Drip, drip, drip go the variations on a theme that form the quartet of works culled from Ian Davenport’s ‘Etched Puddle’ series, in which assorted rainbow-arrayed, candy-striped, multi-coloured streams trickle down into a similarly hued liquid carpet at…
Robert Rauschenberg: Botanical Vaudeville
3 Aug 2011
Sparkling post-industrial dance on gleaming surfaces
Inverleith House has long carved a niche for itself as a champion of late 20th century American icons, and for the gallery’s British Art Show contribution has gathered up a grab-bag of 37 works made between 1982 and 1998 by Abstract Expressionism’s…
The Northern Renaissance: Dürer to Holbein
3 Aug 2011
Compendium of works inspired by the Renaissance innovator
There’s something of an inky-fingered Dürer overload in the ‘burgh just now. Following on from Dürer’s Fame over at the National Galleries, this 16th century compendium of more than 100 works uses his output as a springboard for the burgeoning of…
The Pineapple Chunks - A Dog Walked In
3 Aug 2011
Gloriously messy pop rock from Edinburgh scuzz merchants
(self-released) Smoother than they once were, Edinburgh’s premier lo-fi power-popsters nervertheless come on like some unreconstructed missing link between Swell Maps and Pavement, their urgently scuzzed-up melodies bouncing along with an unashamed…
Dürer’s Fame
21 Jul 2011
Tribute to the German woodcut and engravings master Albrecht Durer
German handball star Pascal Hens gazes out from a black-and-white poster, his torso naked, gaze serious, his pose one of self-deification. This is enhanced further by a tattoo on his stomach of two disembodied hands clasped together as if in prayer.
Gravity's Rainbow
21 Jul 2011
Pynchon-inspired group show explores different representations of colour
The acid house smiley face on the sunny yellow ball of Peter Liversidge’s shelf-load of single-hued detritus speaks volumes about this colour-focused group show of eight artists that takes its title from Thomas Pynchon’s baroque noir. It begins with a…
Fake Eyelashes - A Little Bit of Bread and No Cheese
13 Jul 2011
Melancholic laidback affair fronted by Katy Lironi
(Creeping Bent) Katy Lironi’s pedigree as a chanteuse dates back to C-86 swoonsters Fizzbombs followed by a stint fronting bubblegum stompers The Secret Goldfish. This latest vehicle for Ms L’s sublime cooing is an infinitely more laidback affair.
The Blue Aeroplanes - Anti Gravity
13 Jul 2011
Dense art-rock epic chiming with wisdom and experience
(Art Star/Albino Two) Long before REM lost their edge, Bristol’s Blue Aeroplanes were their English counterparts, ploughing an urgent furrow of spikily jangular folk-rock with multiple guitars zinging about every which way to backdrop lead auteur…
Qatsi trilogy with Philip Glass live score highlight of Edinburgh International Festival
5 Jul 2011
EIF 2011 screening of Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi
One of the earliest Edinburgh screenings of Koyaanisqatsi, the first of Godfrey Reggio’s remarkable trilogy of films scored by minimalist composer Philip Glass, was in an old porn cinema opposite what is now the Festival Theatre, then a bingo hall.
Nina Rhode: Friendly Fire / Cara Tolmie: Read Thou Art And Read Thou Shalt Remain
23 Jun 2011
Mixed media from Glasgow and Berlin
If the world is a circle without a beginning and nobody knows where it really ends (‘laa-la-laaa-la’), as a zenned-out Hal David once wrote to a Burt Bacharach choon, then both Nina Rhode and Cara Tolmie’s worlds seem to be on a permanent loop in these…
Wounded Knee - Anicca
21 Jun 2011
Drew Wright’s ongoing adventure in ethno-celtic vocal loops
(Krapp Tapes) This latest excursion in Drew Wright’s ongoing adventure in ethno-celtic vocal loops marries two extended pieces back-to-back on a cassette that comes in a plain brown, hand-stamped envelope and wrapped in an offcut of Harris…
Thomas Houseago: The Beat of the Show
14 Jun 2011
Sculptures that 'suggest a society getting back to basics'
The relationship between the title of the first museum-based show by Leeds-born sculptor Houseago and the work itself may not be immediately apparent. It’s taken from Transmission, the urgent post-punk anthem released in 1979 by Joy Division, who…
The Wild Swans - Captain's Rest, Glasgow, Tue 7 Jun, 2011
14 Jun 2011
Reignited version of iconic Liverpool post-punk group
Heroism comes in many forms, but Paul Simpson's ongoing awfully big adventure fronting his reconstituted, reconfigured and on this showing on the first date of a short UK tour thoroughly reignited Wild Swans nom de plume is a sublime experience that…
Nina Rhode: Friendly Fire / Cara Tolmie: Read thou Art And Read Thou Shalt Remain
14 Jun 2011
Two art films from a Berliner and a Glasweigan
If the world is a circle without a beginning and nobody knows where it really ends (‘laa-la-laaa-la’), as a zenned-out Hal David once wrote to a Burt Bacharach choon, then both Nina Rhode and Cara Tolmie’s worlds seem to be on a permanent loop in these…
White Heath - Take No Thought For Tomorrow
14 Jun 2011
Edinburgh five-piece pop-rock collection latest fruits from Stow College
(Electric Honey) The latest graduate of Stow College’s music industry course’s in-house record label is this Edinburgh five-piece’s collection of epic soundtracks to vocalist Sean Watson’s heartfelt lyrical concerns. Delivered in an opaque vocal…
The legacy of Scottish arts institutions ECA and GSA
27 May 2011
An examination as degree shows and 2011 Turner Prize approach
When David Shrigley spoke in 2010 about how the arts institutions in Glasgow were crucial to his creative development, he may have been bemoaning the impending threat of arts cuts, but his intervention nonetheless speaks volumes about where art…
The Nightingales - Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh, Mon 23 May 2011
27 May 2011
Skewed meat n' two veg avant-garage from alt-punk stalwarts
The Nightingales are what happens to 1970s-sired latch-key kids if you leave them alone with a CD of Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, a DVD of The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club and the Bumper Book of Existentialism For Boys. After more…
