Latest news with #WeWereMadePrey
Scotsman
08-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
My Festival
The BBC Radio Scotland and Radio 6 Music presenter on giving local bands an international platform at the Fringe, why you should see Kathryn Joseph at EIF, and why he has conflicted feelings about the Reading Festival Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... There are thousands of shows in Edinburgh this month. Please tell us why we should come and see yours. There always seems to be a lack of quality local music in the morass of international shows at the Fringe. Our week of shows bucks that trend. It will be an intimate way to meet and experience renowned, homegrown, independent musicians in a really great venue. They will perform acoustically throughout the night, and chat to me about their lives and careers. Leith Depot is the perfect location for this too. It has a great bar and a tasty, reasonably priced restaurant, plus it's on Edinburgh's most vibrant street – Leith Walk – surrounded by great shops, pubs, music venues and cafes. Vic Galloway | Mike Wilkinson Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad What will we learn from your show that we didn't know before? I think we will learn all about the inner secrets of some of Scotland's finest indie musicians, and how and why they create their art. I know most of the musicians appearing on the bill quite well, and have championed them on my BBC shows over the years, so hopefully the rapport between us will be natural and easy. With a glass of something in hand, acoustic instruments at the ready, and a relaxed atmosphere, I'm hoping we can hear some really personal, reflective stories and fun anecdotes… plus some great music obviously. Who or what was the biggest inspiration for your show? Putting local talent on an international platform. Often this is ignored in favour of out-of-town comedians, bigger names and TV stars. What I've always been passionate about is showing what talent we have around us in Scotland – musicians, comedians, actors, filmmakers and artists. This run of Fringe shows gives us the excuse to showcase a wee bit of that. What's the best review you've ever had, and the worst? We've not done the shows yet… but the reviews will be amazing… of course! Who or what are you most excited about seeing this year? Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Outside of our own run of shows I'd recommend seeing Kathryn Joseph performing at the Edinburgh International Festival. She is always otherworldly and her new We Were Made Prey album is special. Also comedian Connor Burns doing stand-up. He is a rising star and was brilliant in 2024. Who do you most like spending time with in Edinburgh? My pal Olaf Furniss, who runs the Wide Days festival – he's always monstrous fun! We might go to eat Indian food at Desi Packwan and talk a lot of shite! Tell us something about you that would surprise people. I don't live in Edinburgh anymore… After years on the walk, I left Leith for rural Fife! It's been amazing so far… Gardening, DIY, barbecues … how rock 'n' roll! Make sure you keep up to date with Arts and Culture news from across Scotland by signing up to our free newsletter here Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad What are the best and worst things that have happened to you at a festival? Having my tent robbed while I was sleeping in it at Reading Festival was pretty bad. Years later, playing in a band at Reading Festival was pretty good. What's the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night? Morning – Strong black Coffee. Night – Turn off screens and read. Thanks for the interview! We'd like to buy you a drink. Where are we going and what are we drinking? Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad We're going to Leith Depot on Leith Walk, of course. Mine's a single malt whisky. Double please! Fankyouverymusch… hic…
Scotsman
04-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Blue Note Nights – JazzMain on the Fringe
Prepare yourselves for a big old cosmic waves machine and an immensely enjoyable tribute to one of the seminal jazz record labels in our latest batch of Fringe music reviews. Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... MUO Live ★★★★ French Institute in Scotland (Venue 168) until 23 August Analogue synth wizard Lomond Campbell has boffin form when it comes to inventing instruments. Some years back his Cybraphon literally played mood music, affected by the tone of social media chatter about it. Now he has been commissioned by Glasgow University to produce the Muonophone, another very attractive piece of kit which uses muon detectors to harness cosmic radiation from nuclear events in deep space. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Some people might even know what that means but at least a few folks get to hear what it sounds like as Campbell performs a limited series of concerts in the French Institute where the machine is on display as a Fringe installation. Stop me if I'm getting too technical but the Muonophone is a beautiful beast which looks like a sleek update on something Brian Eno might have twiddled in the early Roxy Music days, with lots of shiny knobs and a panel of lights activating in real time to the sound waves. Some will get to hear how it sounds solo but on this occasion Campbell was joined by special guest Kathryn Joseph, performing songs from her Campbell-produced synthed-up new album We Were Made Prey on grand piano for the first time. MUO, meanwhile, is going to 'twinkle in the background' as if it has a life of its own. Maybe it does. Encountering MUO in this stately oak-panelled room feels like being at a cosmic recital or the unveiling of a new invention but this is a fully fledged concert, not some lab conditions reveal. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad A sound like the crackle of vinyl runs under much of the music while on the big screen behind the musicians, visuals shift from splashes of movement to geometric shards to kaleidoscopic patterns. Campbell/MUO adds foreboding swoops to the visceral gothic folk of Roadkill, slabs of stormy drones over the pounding piano of Wolf and playful boings, burps and bursts of sound to accompany Joseph's sorceress quaver on Before but otherwise MUO is rather unobtrusive, even sensitive for such a big old cosmic waves machine. Fiona Shepherd Blue Note Nights – JazzMain on the Fringe ★★★★ The Jazz Bar (Venue 57) until 11 August New York's Blue Note label, which lent its name to a richly creative era of bop and post-bop jazz over the 1950s and 1960s, is widely regarded as one of the most significant record labels in the history of jazz. The music of that Blue Note era is particularly favoured by the Scottish quartet JazzMain, a well-honed quartet led by saxophonist Nick Gould with pianist Steve Grossart, bass guitarist Iain Harkness and Kevin Dorrian on drums. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad They play with panache and a palpable love of the repertoire. Gould introduced each number and whichever legendary figure played it, opening with the familiar, insouciant swing of Hank Mobley's My Move Your Groove, led by Gould's big-toned tenor sax. The quartet acquainted – or reacquainted – us with some perhaps relatively lesser known numbers such as Wes Montgomery's Full House, sax and bass guitar spelling out its theme in unison, Horace Silver's Tokyo Blues which, despite its title, worked up a gladsome groove, with short sharp drum interjections from Dorrian, or Dexter Gordon numbers including his perky Three O'clock in the Morning and the infectious samba hook of Soy Califa. More familiar material included Dizzy Gillespie's Night in Tunisia, delivered with plenty of punch, and, from Miles Davis's landmark album Kind of Blue, the laid-back rocking of All Blues, Gould's beefy sax winding around the groove then giving way to an animated piano excursion from Grossart. Another delight was Joe Henderson's rollicking, bossa-inflected Mamacita, with Dorrian's shakers kept busy and further pianistic fireworks from Grossart. As a showcase of that creatively fecund Blue Note era, it was an immensely enjoyable one – and JazzMain promise a different playlist every night. Jim Gilchrist
The Herald Scotland
25-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Kathryn Joseph on why she finds it 'weird to be headlining'
Artistically, at least. The City of Discovery has had more than its fair share of negative press recently, between the impact of its university's financial distress, and some sobering stats around the levels of deprivation endured by some of its residents. It's in stark contrast to the cultural flourish the place has enjoyed. This month, it welcomes back one of its favourite sons, with Brian Cox stepping out on stage in the National Theatre of Scotland's satire Make It Happen, about the 2008 financial collapse and Fred Goodwin's role in it. Meanwhile, across the river at Newport-on-Tay, a new boutique festival is enjoying its second year. Lughnasadh Festival is hosted by Forgan Arts Centre, staged in its grounds, one of four such events connected to the clicking-through of the seasons. Lughnasadh marks the beginning of the harvest period, and the female-led crop yielded this year is very healthy, with Sacred Paws, Free Love, Lacuna and Becky Sikasa, among the other names on the day-long bill. Joseph is the headline act, but in typically self-deprecating style, wonders why. 'They've booked everyone I love to play with,' she says, laughing. 'So they have very good taste. I've been looking forward to seeing everyone else on the bill. I find it weird to be headlining, I don't feel like I deserve to be doing that, but I'm very excited to. 'Everyone else is better than me, the noises that they make and the humans that they are. I still can't believe I get to do this job.' Joseph's modesty is in contrast with her calibre. A Scottish Album of the Year Award winner in 2015, she's since gone on to enjoy enduring high regard as one of the country's leading indie acts. Her fifth LP We Were Made Prey was released at the end of May, winning plaudits and an ongoing European tour slot with Mogwai, whose Rock Action Records label she's on. It is, she says, somewhat proudly, disgusting. She says: 'This record has a lot of blood and references to things that I think other people find disgusting but that I think are lovely. So disgusting is a word I use a lot to describe myself. I always find it funny that I put people in a situation where I am talking about things that make them feel uncomfortable. 'My 14 year old daughter is now aware of the words and she's also horrified and thinks I'm writing porn, basically. I'm getting a row from my own kid now, so I'm feeling bad about that." The album fuses her distinctive vocals – distinctive in raw content, as much as in unique tortured style – with the atmospheric washes of electro-composer Lomond Campbell's sonic footering. Since working together on an album of remixes last year, the pair have become a twin presence on stage. And he's got her standing up. Joseph says: 'I feel easier about it now because I'm playing with Lomond, and I'm able to enjoy it more rather than thinking about what I'm doing. 'Standing at a keyboard when I'm performing feels like a completely different experience. It definitely feels easier to sing.' The album was recorded in Black Bay Studio on the Isle of Lewis, and is, Joseph says, the album she's most proud of. 'I'm addicted to listening to it, just because of how it sounds,' she says. 'Listening to your own stuff is really strange but it's because of the noises Lomond has made on the record, every noise he made was perfect.' Lyrically, it's a challenging listen. 'The songs are really dark,' she says. 'But we had a hysterical laugh most of time we were making it.' Lugnasadh marks a return to the coast where she found shelter at the height of the pandemic, having switched Glasgow for Broughty Ferry as covid made tenement living in the country's biggest city a challenge. 'That was my experience of lockdown,' she says. 'I was worried we'd never get to live anywhere again, so I went to live by the sea. It was very easy, it felt like where I was supposed to be at the time. I absolutely loved it. I love that bit of coastline and everyone I know who lives there, so I'm really excited to play a festival there.' Afterwards, like the aforementioned Cox, she's on the bill at the Edinburgh International Festival, before heading back on the road with the supersonic sounds of Mogwai, to rattle eardrums across the Baltic countries. And she's learned tour bus etiquette from her earlier sojourn with Stuart Braithwaite and his band. 'I knew you're not allowed to do a poo on a tour bus, but you can't even put toilet roll down there either,' she said, semi-incredulous. 'I actually ended up getting really attached to sleeping in my little bunk. But one night as I was climbing into bed I accidentally pressed something on my phone and Don't You Forget About Me by Simple Minds started blaring out. It was my first time on a tour bus. I learned a few things.' Mogwai would have a cheek to complain about the noise. 'The boys are great,' she says. 'People who like Mogwai are great human beings and I'm reaping the benefit of that. I feel really happy and comfortable, and I want to enjoy it while it lasts.' Lugnasadh Arts Festival, 2 Aug, Edinburgh International Festival, Up Late at the Hub, 9 August. We Were Made Prey is available from Rock Action Records,
