When novelist Alasdair Gray suggested that we should 'Work as if you were in the early days of a better nation' on the frontispiece of his 1983 short-story collection, Unlikely Stories, Mostly, the landscape he imagined might have looked and sounded a little like Scot:Lands. The New Year's Day centrepiece of Edinburgh's Hogmanay programme, Scot:Lands presents a microcosm of Scottish music and performance that both looks to its cultural roots for inspiration while remaining utterly contemporary as it is performed in the throbbing heart of the capital city. With nine unnamed but iconic venues in Edinburgh's Old Town hosting some imagined new 'Land', each features a rolling programme of international artists curated by venues and figureheads from a particular area. So where High:Land will be run by The Ceilidh House venue in Ullapool, Heid:Land will be curated by The Pathhead Music Collective from Fife. While the former will feature the likes of radical f
An archive of arts writing by Neil Cooper. Effete No Obstacle.