Coffee-Table Notes

North Edinburgh Arts, Edinburgh Four stars The underworld has long been the most fertile place for artistic expression inspired by things lost on higher ground. Just ask Orpheus, the nearest thing Greek mythology has to a rock star. Ask Eurydice too, whose untimely demise prompts Orpheus to attempt the grandest of gestures. Things might not end well, but at least they can say thank you for the music, even if it does become the death of them, immortality guaranteed. This is certainly the case in Nicholas Bone’s Magnetic North company’s album-length rendition of this classic yarn, which pitches the story through a suite of songs written and performed by an ad hoc quartet of some of Scotland’s most adventurous musicians overseen by musical director Kim Moore. Things begin with the voices of the future, as young people’s recorded responses to the importance of music form a kind of spoken-word collage set to a chamber-pop instrumental overture. This is played with exquisite p

Various venues, Edinburgh Four stars In the shadow of Luke Jerram’s installation, Museum of the Moon, which hangs over the interior of St Giles’ Cathedral, a fanfare is sounded from behind a screen. An overhead projector beams out a series of miniature cut-out models as a four-part chorale sings of ancient things. This is Disarming Reverberations, a one-night-only experience that formed part of the Burns and Beyond mini festival’s Culture Trail, which hosted events across eight city centre venues over four hours on Saturday night. Curated by Lau’s Martin Green and featuring Alba Brass and the group Landless, Disarming Reverberations evoked a spirit of after-dark mystery which fed through the other venues. While across town Lost Map Records founder The Pictish Trail recreated the label’s Howlin’ Fling nights in the Freemason’s Hall, and the Gilded Balloon presented bite-size comedy sets at the Rose Theatre, at Greyfriars Kirk, spoken-word night Neu! Reekie! co-founder Kevin W

Various venues, Edinburgh Four stars How did we allow this to happen? This is the question asked by historian William Dalrymple regarding the UK’s impending departure from Europe in his contribution to this six installation city-wide series of love letters to the continent which 62 per cent of Scotland’s voters chose to remain part of. Commissioned by Edinburgh’s Hogmanay and Edinburgh International Book Festival, and running from dusk to late evening from now until Burns Night, this is resistance in monumental fashion. Dalrymple’s rich evocation of the two-way traffic between Scotland and the rest of Europe is writ large on the wall of the Tron Kirk, where a window on the world is brought to life by Double Take productions as a simmering score by RJ McConnell threatens to explode. The umbilical connections between nations are rolled back even further to ancient times atop Calton Hill. Here, Kapka Kassabova’s words declare how ‘migration is our inheritance’ as shimmering ani