The Bulletin: Arts & Culture News | 24 May

HAVE YOUR S.A.Y! SCOTTISH ALBUM OF THE YEAR: PUBLIC VOTE ON MONDAY
On Monday 27 May, public voting opens for 24 hours so that you can make your voice heard in the search for the Scottish Album of the Year. The SAY Award is in its second year – last year's winners were Aidan Moffat and Bill Wells, for their album Everything's Getting Older. The winner of the SAY Award will receive £20,000, with nine runners-up receiving £1000 each. 

The public vote will be used to push one nominee from the 20-strong longlist of nominated albums through to the final 10. You can listen to tracks from the longlist at the SAY Award site. The ten shortlisted albums will then be judged by a panel of cultural spectators, chaired by Glasgow University music academic (and former Belle and Sebastian manager) John Williamson, which includes broadcaster Douglas Anderson, novelist Christopher Brookmyre, and Turner Prize-winning artist Douglas Gordon. See our previous analysis of this year's nominees here.

Do you have a favourite from the longlisted albums? Who are you rooting for to win first prize this year? Is there anyone on the list whom you feel doesn't deserve the recognition? Tell us in the comments below, and remember to have your SAY on Monday!

EDINBURGH ART FESTIVAL: 10 NEW COMISSIONS
To celebrate the tenth anniversary of Edinburgh Art Festival, 10 new works have been commissioned from leading Scottish and international artists, it was announced yesterday. From 1 August to 1 September, the commissioned pieces will be on show at sites and galleries across the capital. The new collection will be titled Parley. It "celebrates art that generates and depends on dialogue for its realisation, offering a site for debate, discussion and exploration," according to the EAF press release.

Featured artists include Christine Borland in collaboration with Brody Condon, whose project at the New Calton Burial Ground will explore "ideas of decay and dereliction," and new work from Robert Montgomery, his first work in Scotland since 1999, entitled Fire Poem. Dutch artist Krijn de Koning will present new work in a UK exclusive site-specific installation, and Peter Liveridge will unveil his Flags for Edinburgh project. Sara Barker, a young Scottish artist, will present new sculpture work and Ross Sinclair brings Real Life and How to Live it in Auld Reekie, a series of graphic works that examines Scotland’s complex relationship to her history and culture.

Sorcha Carey, the Festival's Director for 2013, commented: "Our annual commissions programme has grown to become an essential part of Edinburgh’s summer festival offering. Our 2013 programme, the most ambitious to date, celebrates art’s unique capacity to promote dialogue and debate; and we are particularly excited that this latest edition sees leading and emerging Scottish and international artists collaborate across borders to make new work for Scotland’s extraordinary capital city." 

Video and print artist Rachel Maclean, who recently won the coveted Margaret Tait Award, previews her much anticipated solo exhibition I Heart Scotland at the festival.

THE RETURN OF ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY
Alejandro Jodorowsky, the visionary Chilean-French film-maker behind the psychedelic arthouse/exploitation classics El Topo and Holy Mountain, is returning to the big screen later this year with his first feature film since 1990's The Rainbow Thief. Jodorowsky is a cult figure in the world of avant garde cinema – perhaps best known for his aborted attempt at filming Dune. A new documentary, Jodorowsky's Dune, is also in the works (see trailer below). Jodorowsky is also known as a writer of graphic novels, collaborating several times with cult French artist Moebius. 

Jodorowsky's new film, entitled The Dance of Reality, is based on his autobiography. The 84-year-old director has publically announced that his next project will be a long-mooted follow-up to the classic El Topo, entitled Abel Cain. Watch the trailers for The Dance of Reality and Jodorowsky's Dune below.

NEW MUSIC: JACQUES GREEN FT. HOW TO DRESS WELL, THE UNDERACHIEVERS, VS//YOUTHCLUB
LuckyMe's next release will be by Canada's Jacques Greene, and features a collaboration with alt-R&B star How To Dress Well. The 3-track EP On Your Side is out digitally on 3 June, with a physical release to follow on 1 July. 

Recently signed to Brainfeeder and causing huge waves on the hip-hop blog circuit, 'psychedelic gangster' rappers The Underachievers revealed their first new track since the deliriously well-received Indigoism mixtape, which came out earlier this year (and is still available for free download). Stream and download the new track, May's Patience, below. 

Manchester's VS//YOUTHCLUB have been receiving a lot of attention on dark electronic blogs for their smooth and sensuous synth-pop – you can download their EPs Tide Out and Waves for free. This week they branched out into production for other artists, producing a hip-hop track for Thy A'Priori.

THE XX COVER TWO MODERN DISCO CLASSICS
Over in Berlin, The xx are curating their very own bespoke series of musical events under the banner Night + Day. The band were joined onstage by singer Jessie Ware at one of the events, where they covered two modern disco classics – Mojo's Lady (Hear Me Tonight) and Stardust (aka Thomas Bangalter)'s Music Sounds Better With You. Watch the performance below.

NEW VIDEOS: BRITISH SEA POWER, SHIT ROBOT, BEACON, HOOKWORMS, STEVE AOKI, NOAH23
British Sea Power's new video for Hail Holy Queen, taken from Machineries of Joy features, appropriately enough, the band's singer Hamilton singing while submerged in water, and images of submarines and fish. We here at The Skinny believe it is always good to see an indie band taking their name literally.

Shit Robot, aka Irish musician and producer Marcus Lambkin, has recorded a track and shot a video for Feels Real, his new single on DFA Records. The track features vocals from The Rapture's Luke Jenner aka JENR. It's available now on 12" vinyl from DFA. 

Sticking with super-cool New York labels, the latest offering from Ghostly International's stable is a new video by Beacon, the duo behind the excellent album The Ways We Separate. According to Stereogum, the video was inspired by the dark plot-lines of R&B videos... 

Leeds-based band Hookworms have a new video out this week – their debut Pearl Mystic came out in March, and now they're back with a new 7" entitled Radio Tokyo. They've put together a simple film to accompany the B-side On Returning, featuring an interesting take on the 'dancing at World Heritage sites' meme. The single is out on 27 May. 

Producer Steve Aoki's new video is very special indeed – it includes appearances by leading futurologist and thinker Ray Kurzweil making predictions about the approaching post-human singularity, where he tells us we will merge with the 'machine consciousnesses' we have created. Also, it's a banging slice of polished electro, if a little too polished... but still worth watching for the big-budget effects and Kurzweil's input.

Finally, Guelph, Ontario-based rapper and leader/founder of the Plague Language label, Noah23, has released a new album this week – Lotus Deities is a pay-what-you-want release, showcasing Noah23's illuminated, philosophical raps and productions. There's also a video created to accompany the album's title track, produced by Toy Trains.

TRAILERS: MAN OF STEEL, THE WORLD'S END, ONLY GOD FORGIVES
Time for a roundup of this week's most exciting trailers – we'll lead off with the new Man of Steel clip. If you thought the first two trailers for Zack Snyder's new take on the most famous cape of them all looked a bit melodramatic and dry, prepare to be blown away, as this new clip splurges some incredibly fast-paced action scenes all over the screen, including footage of General Zod's army in action, Supes in some thrilling mid-air combat scenes, and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it glimpse of his famous 'heat-vision'. The proof, as always, is in the cinematic pudding, but this one definitely raised our pulse rates. 

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost return to the screen this summer in the third part of Edgar Wright's Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, which began with the fantastic Shaun of the Dead and continued in the mildly underwhelming but still enjoyable Hot Fuzz. The apocalypse-themed comedy The World's End features Pegg and Frost as old friends reuniting for a pub crawl, only to witness what could well be the start of Armageddon. With roles for British comedy mainstays such as Martin Freeman, Reece Shearsmith and Mark Heap, this looks very promising indeed.

And finally, the much-anticipated reunion of visionary Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn and in-demand top totty/Oscar-bait Ryan Gosling, the Bangkok-set Only God Forgives, was reportedly greeted with a mixture of jeers, catcalls and ecstatic whoops at this year's Cannes Film Festival. The ultra-violent revenge thriller, with Gosling's monosyllabic character apparently delivering just 17 lines of dialogue, looks set to polarise opinion. One thing's for sure - the trailer is visually stunning, in true Refn style.