Scotland
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Watching Adam Stafford at work can only be described as magical. Thanks to his ingenious use of loop and effects pedals, the Falkirk-born songwriter can spin intricate, layered compositions using nothing but his voice and a couple of bars on guitar. At last week’s Glasgow launch show for his latest album, he ended the night with a ten-minute monster from Awnings, a 2009 experimental a capella album. Cue an audience literally stunned by a noise as wild and intense - and yet, as strangely controlled - as that from a full orchestra.It stands to reason that some of the immediate impact of Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Scotland’s East Neuk is a little like Hardy’s Wessex – less a geographical specific and more an idea, a resonance. Tucked up into the crook of the Firth of Forth, directly below St Andrews, the region encompasses the tiny coastal towns of Crail, Pittenweem, Anstruther and St Monans, where stern stone cottages and still sterner churches have done battle with the elements since at least the 9th century. But while there’s plenty of ancient history here, a visit each July will find it defiantly in dialogue with the present, as local churches, gardens and even a potato barn are taken over by the Read more ...
Veronica Lee
This is the directorial debut of Eve Best, better known as a talented classical and comedic actress, who was last at Shakespeare's Globe appearing as Beatrice in a superb Much Ado About Nothing opposite Charles Edwards's Benedick.Best's reading of the Scottish play - her favourite Shakespeare - is pleasingly straightforward and she introduces few thrills and spills (and there's a minimalist Birnam Wood in Mike Britton's simple but elegant design), nor a big idea that imposes itself on the text without illuminating it. This is a production that allows the actors to breathe – and pleasant Read more ...
Graham Fuller
There is a burgeoning of Scottish films that refuse to romanticise the Highlands and islands. Writer-director Scott Graham’s feature debut Shell does not satirize the capitalistic exploitation of the nation's heritage culture as do several of the movies directed by Ken Loach and written by Paul Laverty. However, the braes and mountains surrounding Shell's single location, a remote petrol station by a loch, have a bleaker and more implacable presence than is usual in Scottish cinema. Yoliswa Gärtig's spare, wintry cinematography makes no concessions to pictorialism or iridescence Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
That KT Tunstall has released probably her most introspective album to date is unsurprising, given that the past year has seen both the end of her marriage and the death of her father. But the trouble with introspective albums is that, without a certain rawness, they’re not always the most engaging listen. Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon contains some of the most beautiful music of the St Andrews songwriter’s career but, like when people tell you their dreams, it isn’t always very interesting.The album’s name reflects its two halves, recorded in separate sessions in the Arizona desert with Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Boards of Canada have it nailed. If we are to believe what we’re told, Scottish brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin are semi-permanently holed up in rustic heathlands south-west of Edinburgh, beavering with mystical intensity at analogue electronica. Every few years they release an enigmatic slice of it that’s pure, classic Warp Records on… Warp Records.They have developed a non-image that somehow intimates whiffs of the occult, particularly of The Wicker Man variety, of spooky 1970s public information films and general uncanny Berberian Sound Studio-style weirdness. Not since the prime Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It's apt that the word "slow" crops up in the title of the first album proper in 16 years from Scotland’s seminal and influential indie kingpins. "Stately" would be even more suitable. The pace at which Stephen McRobbie and long-term accomplice Katrina Mitchell move is akin to the speed change is accommodated by the rules governing accession to the British throne. And, in many ways, The Pastels are as important to the fabric of what makes this island nation tick as the royal family. Without the Pastels there would have been no Creation Records, no Jesus & Mary Chain, no Primal Scream.As Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Shuggie Otis: Inspiration Information/Wings of LoveShuggie Otis's vanishing act after the release of his 1974 album Inspiration Information belatedly created one of pop’s great what-ifs. However, it only became so in the Nineties after the album was recognised as a soul treasure. David Byrne reissuing the album on his Luaka Bop label in 2001 didn’t plug the information gap, and Otis remained in the shadows. Now though, with this new reissue, the enigmatic soul auteur has resurfaced to supplement the album with a series of unreleased tracks dating from 1971 to 2000. Whatever else he was doing Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Simple Minds: Celebrate – The Greatest Hits +Of all the bands which surfaced in 1977 in response to punk, Simple Minds occupy a singular status. Despite line-up changes, they have never split up. After their 1982 success with “Promised You a Miracle”, they have never surrendered the glittering prize. Their enviable career is defined by a tenacity which can go hand-in-hand with a music that runs on rails. Although they can’t be faulted for sometimes putting their musical development on hold to embrace causes and the needs of the stadium, this chronologically sequenced triple CD suggests their Read more ...
Jasper Rees
There has always been a keen air of propulsion to the career of James McAvoy. He made his name on television in State of Play and Shameless, while early film roles in Starter for 10 and Inside I’m Dancing swiftly promoted him up the leading man’s ladder to appear in The Last King of Scotland, Atonement, The Last Station, X-Men: First Class and, as of this month, Welcome to the Punch.Equally comfortable playing romantic leads and action heroes, he has never been quite a force in theatre. This is partly a matter of choice. He has prioritised screen roles over stage opportunities. The last time Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Apparently on a clear day in the Shetlands, you can see Norway and Iceland. And from about halfway through the first instalment of this Caledonian murder mystery, you could see all the way to the final reel and take a well-educated guess about who did it.I was reading an opinion somewhere the other day that ITV's Broadchurch was an inferior rip-off of such fashionable Scandinavian fare as The Killing or The Bridge. Can't see it myself. Shetland, on the other hand, was riddled with Nordicisms and fit the bill perfectly. Shetland (the place) was even a Norwegian province back in the Middle Ages Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
As a finely drawn portrayal of loneliness and solitude encouraged by bottled-up emotions, Shell would be noteworthy enough. But it also contains two scenes – father and daughter interactions - that are deeply uncomfortable viewing. First-time feature director Scott Graham’s encapsulation of the life of 17-year old Shell and her father Pete’s life at an isolated Scots garage isn’t going to be quickly forgotten.Shell’s mother left years ago, for unspecified reasons. With an epileptic father, her routine, such as it is, is set by the infrequent customers that stop to fill up on the journey Read more ...