Scotland
CD: Franz Ferdinand - Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right ActionSaturday, 24 August 2013
When the best thing you can say about a band’s comeback album is that it sounds vaguely like their era-defining punk funk debut, you can either wonder why they bothered or admire their dogged devotion to a single sound. The music world has moved on... Read more... |
CD: Travis - Where You StandSunday, 18 August 2013
It's a lottery. There are writers who’d see something in the return, after five years away, of this multi-million-selling Scottish four-piece. These writers, however, didn’t step in so Travis have been thrown to the dogs, a non-starter for both of... Read more... |
The Culture Show at Edinburgh: Leonardo da Vinci - The Anatomist, BBC TwoThursday, 15 August 2013
When Leonardo da Vinci went for a job in Milan, he wrote ahead mentioning his bridge-building skills and then turned up at court with a lyre he had made in the shape of a horse’s skull. But had he finished compiling his illustrated treatise on the... Read more... |
Prom 29: Tannhäuser, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, RunniclesMonday, 05 August 2013
On the one occasion I went to Bayreuth, I made the mistake of seeing The Flying Dutchman and Lohengrin after the best of Ring cycles. At the Proms we’ve had a week of serious Wagnerian withdrawal symptoms, so Tannhäuser was never going to feel like... Read more... |
CD: Adam Stafford - Imaginary Walls CollapseWednesday, 10 July 2013
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... Read more... |
East Neuk Festival, Cambo Estate/Crail ChurchTuesday, 09 July 2013
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,... Read more... |
Macbeth, Shakespeare's GlobeFriday, 05 July 2013
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... Read more... |
DVD: ShellFriday, 05 July 2013
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... Read more... |
CD: KT Tunstall - Invisible Empire // Crescent MoonThursday, 06 June 2013
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... Read more... |
CD: Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's HarvestTuesday, 04 June 2013
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... Read more... |
CD: The Pastels – Slow SummitsMonday, 27 May 2013
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... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Shuggie Otis, Peter King, Electronic, Billy MackenzieSunday, 07 April 2013
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... Read more... |
