The Skinny Current Issue

On the cover this month, we have SOPHIE, the pioneering electronic artist whose posthumous album is set to be released this month. As we look forward to the new music, one writer considers how we can tend to a beloved artist’s memory without tainting their legacy.

Glasgow’s festival of sound and vision, Sonica returns with another boundary-pushing programme. We talk to piper Harry Górski-Brown and French artist Annabelle Playe as they prepare to premier their new experimental work Elephant, You Shake Your Sheep at the festival. Katy J Pearson is set to release her third studio album, Someday, Now – we meet up to talk pop music and living in the moment.

Caleb Femi takes a break from Edinburgh International Book Festival appearances to discuss his second poetry collection, The Wickedest, an intimate deconstruction of a London house party. Dundee Design Festival returns this month, now under the directorship of our very own design correspondent Stacey Hunter. We talk to her about her about what to expect, with immersive displays showcasing the best of Scottish design, a sustainable focus and the opportunity for designers to engage with an international audience. One of the centrepiece exhibitions is BOOKENDS, a series of commissioned works inspired by the writings of two late 19th century Dundonian women journalists, who were sent out to report on women’s lives around the world for DC Thomson.

Film meets Naqqash Khalid, whose debut feature In Camera takes us inside the life of a jobbing actor of colour in the prejudiced UK film industry. We talk to French provocateur Coralie Fargeat about new Demi Moore-starring body horror, The Substance, and Daniel Kokotajlo about his latest folk horror Starve Acre. I misheard it as being called Star Baker, which has a very different vibe.

In our centre pages – a centre 24 pages to be precise – we have this year’s Student Guide, which was commissioned by actual recent student Jack Faulds. In it you’ll find a mixture of insight and nonsense, aimed to provide the 2024 cohort with some tips on embarking on independent life in these cities we live in. The poster for this month comes from Samuel Temple, an art school graduate who won our award at RSA New Contemporaries. We follow with an interview with the artist, covering such subjects as the difficulty of building a creative practice post-art school.

Art also meets Tayo Adekunle, whose exhibition at Edinburgh Printmakers, Stories of the Unseen, takes the Yoruban divine spirit Éṣù to explore racial history and its colonial violence. Theatre takes a tour through the new season of A Play, A Pie and A Pint, celebrating two decades of commissioning in a context of funding cuts and an existential threat to the Scottish cultural sector.

In Intersections, one writer shares their nostalgia for part-time work and its formative influence. We also meet Liminal Event, the team fostering community by taking music and dance to the great outdoors, from Arthur’s Seat to walk-in bothies. Finally, we close with The Skinny on… MC Hammersmith, a comedian who got his start in the improv societies of Edinburgh University and therefore makes perfect sense in an issue featuring a student guide, even if he does try to turn the interview into acoustic foam panel sponcon.