Coffee-Table Notes

Concert in the Gardens Edinburgh’s Hogmanay Four stars The spirit of Glasgow club-night Optimo hung over the capital on a grand scale to see out 2018 with a very hip spring in its step. While Optimo DJs prepared to man the decks alongside Chicago House queen The Black Madonna at Leith Theatre, Edinburgh’s Hogmanay kick-started official celebrations with a mainstage triple bill headlined by Franz Ferdinand, one of the first of a post-millennium art-pop new wave to infiltrate the mainstream. That happened shortly after the band’s first scheduled Edinburgh’s Hogmanay appearance was cancelled due to high winds. Fifteen years on, the same slot is taken by Free Love, the Glasgow-based duo of Suzi Rodden and Lewis Cook formerly known as Happy Meals. The euphoric storm of hippified techno whipped up by a barefoot Rodden and a beret-clad Cook on an analogue electronic kit flanked by a mini backdrop of psychic signs and symbols suggests biblical weather wouldn’t be a problem. R

Freedom of movement matters to Suzy Glass, the arts and events producer currently overseeing the second edition of Message from the Skies.   This animated literary derive around the city forms part of this year’s Edinburgh’s Hogmanay programme, and runs right through till Burns’ Night. Glass’ concerns are inherent in the event itself, which has commissioned six writers from different disciplines and experiences to each pen a love letter to Europe. Each writer has then paired up with a composer and visual artist or film-maker, with the results of each collaboration projected in monumental fashion on the walls of one of half a dozen of the capital’s most iconic buildings. With venues stretching from the south side of Edinburgh to Leith, and with one city centre stop requiring a walk up Calton Hill, there is considerable legwork required to complete the circuit. It shouldn’t be considered a race, however, and audiences are free to move between venues at their leisure, visiting each s

The Liquid Rooms, Edinburgh Four stars The mini spotlight attached to Martin Metcalfe’s microphone lights up the Filthy Tongues’ vocalist’s face with a celestial glow that casts even more shadows on an otherwise black-swathed stage. This gives the now annual festive appearance by Metcalfe and co the stylistic demeanour of a demon-purging hellfire club. The scene set, Metcalfe and fellow core members, bassist Fin Wilson and drummer Derek Kelly, proceed to reclaim their neglected past with 1980s/90s shoulda-beens Goodbye Mr Mackenzie as much as keeping a gimlet eye on the future. The opening bump and grind of Come on Home from their second album, last year’s Back to Hell, is followed by late-period Mackenzies number, Crewcut. This fits seamlessly with the gothic noir of Leper Town and Carlos The Jackal that follow. Augmented by guitarist Alex Shedlock and percussionist Asim Rasool, this five-piece incarnation of The Filthy Tongues unleash barrages of swamp-deep thunder wielded li