Sean Welsh

Strong EIFF short film programme includes Night Mayor, The Great Race and Pentecost

Edinburgh International Film Festival shorts round-up

27 Jun 2011

Sometimes the short film programme can look like a lesser sibling of the main festival, but this year it was one of the few aspects of EIFF that was in better health than ever. With a fancy new venue in the form of an upgraded George Square Theatre, a…

Ghosted - Art Malik, John Lynch & Craig Viveiros interview

Prison drama cast includes Martin Compston and David Schofield

27 Jun 2011

It’s that if actors of the calibre of John Lynch and Art Malik want a meaty role in a British feature film, the odds are number one, it’s going to have to be set in a criminal world of some description and number two, it’s more than likely going…

Highlights among mixed bag suggest hope for return to cinephilia at EIFF

Reflections on Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011

27 Jun 2011

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. And when life gives you a programme for an international film festival that misspells the Coen Brothers name (among other heinous typographical and grammatical crimes), best take the bull by the horns and make…

Calvet - Dominic Allan & Jean Marc Calvet interview

Documentary charting extraordinary life of French artist

25 Jun 2011

CALVET depicts the struggles of Jean Marc Calvet, now an artist with burgeoning international success, to come to terms with his past and, more particularly reconcile with the son he abandoned. So far, so straightforward, but Jean Marc has quite a few…

Convento - Jarred Alterman interview

Portrait of Dutch artist family and kinetic sculpture

25 Jun 2011

Jarred Alterman, director of the documentary Convento, takes me round the tie-in exhibition at Teviot Row House, full of the kinetic sculptures by Christiaan Zwanikken that populate Alterman’s dreamlike film. Passing a gang of creepy, animated and…

Turin Horse - Béla Tarr interview

Hungarian director's final film takes Nietzsche's madness as starting point

23 Jun 2011

Iconic Hungarian director Béla Tarr was in Edinburgh to present his latest and reportedly final film, Turin Horse. The film is inspired by an event often reported as the beginning of Friedrich Nietzsche’s mental breakdown. The philosopher is said to…

Our Day Will Come - Romain Gavras interview

Provocative debut feature from director of MIA's Born Free furthers redhead theme

20 Jun 2011

From the stage of the Filmhouse on Friday night, Romain Gavras introduces the UK premiere of his debut feature film as a “romantic comedy”. Those who have seen his controversial music video for MIA’s Born Free are not fooled. And shortly, that will be…

Oliver Sherman - Ryan Redford interview

Director of drama charting reunion between two war veterans

20 Jun 2011

In retrospect, the odds were against us: Fresh-faced freelancer meets first time director straight from transatlantic travel and at the end of a long day’s junket. Ryan Redford, a 31-year-old director showing so few signs of media training one would…

Album reviews: Liturgy, Africa Hitech, The Douglas Firs, This Will Destroy You, Psychedelic Horseshit, Young Legionnaire

14 Apr 2011

Liturgy Aesthethica (Thrill Jockey) ●● Pretension in music can be wonderful, but these hipster black metal apologists are unreal. They may not dress like goblins, but their pseudo-intellectual trappings overshadow their music, which is, in the final…

Autechre, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Rival Schools, Times New Viking, The Goldberg Sisters and Cass McCombs

7 Apr 2011

Autechre EPs 1991-2002 (Warp) ●●●● Either a five-disc boxset or a 47-track download, this rich collection traces the non-album development of the influential IDM legends from the playful, techno/hip hop-inflected early years to their more abstract…

Lucky Dragons: No Boundaries, No Hierarchies

Participatory contribution to Glasgow Music and Film Festival

11 Feb 2011

Fans of audience participation are in for a rare treat at Glasgow promoters Cry Parrot’s contribution to the Glasgow Music and Film Festival. Opening the show, Edinburgh’s Wounded Knee has invited audience members to take part in Tones of the Universe…

Faust screened with new score by Alex Smoke

1926 silent film's new score performed by The Scottish Ensemble

11 Feb 2011

At 85 years old, director FW Murnau’s Faust remains one of the most visually arresting films in the history of world cinema. Murnau’s last German production divided contemporary audiences and lost a lot of studio money with its retelling of the…

Goblin set for date at Glasgow Music and Film Festival 2011

Italian prog rock band best known for work on horror films of Dario Argento

3 Jan 2011

The Italian prog rock band Goblin are most famous for their work on the horror films of Dario Argento. Here are five reasons why their appearance at the Glasgow Music and Film Festival will be unmissable 1: They come from another, better time…

Daft Punk - TRON: Legacy OST

Sense of melancholy and creeping doom pervades perfect retro-futurism pairing

15 Dec 2010

(EMI) There’s as much hype and hyperbole around Daft Punk’s TRON: Legacy score as there is around the film itself. Putting aside the massive media assault that is now building around the Disney sequel, the hiring of the Parisian electronic dons for…

Zach Hill - Face Tat

23 Nov 2010

(Sargent House) By his own reckoning, Zach Hill has contributed to 100 albums over the course of his short career to date, building a reputation as one of the best drummers on the planet. He’s worked with everyone from Omar Rodriguez-Lopez to…

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Samples King Crimson, Nicki Minaj, Bon Iver - justifying the hype

23 Nov 2010

(Mercury) In the two years since he recorded the singular 808s & Heartbreak, Kanye West has opened a couple of Fatburger franchise restaurants, designed a line of shoes for Louis Vuitton, played himself as an obnoxious drunk in a Spike Jonze short…

The Dirt - Bury Me Tomorrow

23 Nov 2010

(Big Rock Candy) For those that like their alt.country sparse, dark and deadly, Glasgow’s The Dirt are just the tonic for those frozen nights when nothing but the bleakest music can warm the soul. Graeme Dirt channels Johnny Cash’s deathless growl…

Zombie Zombie - Plays John Carpenter

26 Oct 2010

(Versatile) Commissioning Zombie Zombie to reimagine John Carpenter’s classic oeuvre of horror movie themes for a performance at the Glasgow Film Festival was an inspired idea. Even so, it’s hard to entirely justify the Parisian electro-kraut…

Cry Parrot Compilation Launch

Stereo, Glasgow, Sun 5 Sep

22 Sep 2010

Glasgow promoters Cry Parrot’s eclectic remit was in full effect at the launch of their third compilation (free to download from winningspermparty.com). Openers Small Scale Collisions used two laptops, a guitar and the focus of a couple of NASA…

Bruce Haack - Farad (The Electric Voice)

15 Sep 2010

(Stones Throw) Listening to the bizarre, bewitching and above all unique work of ‘lost’ electronic music pioneer Bruce Haack, it’s tempting to trace his influence through Cabaret Voltaire, Brian Eno, Kraftwerk and any number of psychedelic…

How to Swim - Retina (or More Fun Than a Vat of Love)

15 Sep 2010

(Personal Hygiene) This full-length debut has been a long time coming, but Glasgow’s How to Swim have taken their time to serve up a rich tapestry of witty orchestral rock. With a vocal delivery somewhere between Neil Hannon and Jonathan Richman…

The Ballad of Mable Wong - Is Worth Two In The A Tree

Epic math-pop

15 Aug 2010

(Self Released) Glasgow’s TBOMW make epic instrumental music condensed to a microcosmic level. Each song finds them working carefully through hyper-melodic permutations on a theme, the instruments constantly spinning around each other like a…

Menomena - Mines

29 Jul 2010

(City Slang) Portland’s Menomena have always been the kind of band that reward repeated listens. Unfortunately, Mines, their fourth release, lacks the immediacy that drew listeners into the whirlpool ingenuity of 2007’s Friend And Foe. With three…

Wavves new album King of the Beach steers band into new direction

New, studio-recorded album abandons distortion for keyboards and samples

22 Jul 2010

Wavves’ Glasgow show last November disappointed some of those charmed by the fuzzy, home-recorded pop thrum of their first two albums, Wavves and Wavvves. In sharp focus, the qualities that led some dizzy minds to lump them in with a new wave of…

Eternal Fags - Eternal Fags

16 Jun 2010

If the inmates of Napa State Mental Hospital formed a band after The Cramps visited to play there in 1978, they might have sounded something like Eternal Fags. The tortured yowls and strange austerity of the melodies on songs like ‘Annie’ and ‘The Slug…

Indómitos

8 May 2008

ROCK Nice’n’Sleazy, Glasgow, Sat 19 Apr From the moment they take the stage with a dry ‘goodnight, we are Indómitos’, to when they amble off the stage having delivered a pitch-perfect set of rattling, rumbling and reverb-drenched garage punk, it’s…

Black Acid

24 Apr 2008

ROCK Nice’n’Sleazy, Glasgow, Tue 6 May Nice’n’Sleazy is an aptly titled venue for the debut of Richard ‘Death in Vegas’ Fearless’ new psychedelic scuzz rock outfit, Black Acid. The five-piece – a full band replete with Farfisa organ and Fearless on…

The Dirtbombs - We Have You Surrounded

10 Apr 2008

ROCK’N’ROLL (In The Red) Pity The Dirtbombs. While frontman Mick Collins (with his former outfit The Gories) can claim to have been a formative influence on The White Stripes, they may always be known to the wider public as second wave garage…

Frightened Rabbit

27 Mar 2008

INDIE Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, Thu 27 Mar; Barfly, Glasgow, Sat 29 Mar Returning the conquering heroes from equipment trashing gigs at SXSW, Frightened Rabbit are playing a series of Scottish shows to mark the imminent release of their follow up…