Interesting Things festival returns to Stirling
As Stirling's avant-garde all-dayer Interesting Things returns for its third year, we find out how Scotland's smallest city has become an unlikely home for musical discovery
When you think back to summer festivals gone by, what are some of your favourite memories? Sure, the headliners might have been a draw, but what about those special moments when you take a chance on an unknown outlier only to discover something truly inspiring? Often, your most treasured experience comes from that spirit of uncertainty. It's precisely that spirit of discovery that sits at the heart of Stirling's adventurous Interesting Things festival, returning this month.
Now in its third year, Cultural Programmer David Weaver came to his role at the Tolbooth, the festival's home venue, with a plan already taking shape. “You want to reflect the community and be supportive of what’s happening here, but I was also really aware that there was a thread of experimental music in Stirling historically.” No stranger to diversity, Weaver was part of the founding team behind core. festival, a celebration of metal and hardcore hosted in some of Glasgow's most unlikely venues. But, as he admits, it’s not always about the big city spaces.
“I'm from north of Inverness. I didn't have anything to look forward to. I want people in Stirling and the Forth Valley to not have to go to Glasgow and Edinburgh.” And why would we when there are countless innovative spaces to explore right on our doorstep? Weaver still remembers attending Blue Weekend in Stirling as a student and finding himself beneath an underpass watching an artist speaking over a recording of a concrete block tumbling inside a washing machine. "I didn't necessarily enjoy it," he laughs, "but I was inspired by it."
If there’s a theme around this year’s Interesting Things programming, it could be disruption, stemming from Weaver seeing headliner Lullahush at last year’s Other Voices festival in Dingle, Ireland. “He did this incredible set with a full live band and amazing visuals in an aquarium, taking traditional sounds and sampling them. He annoys old trad folk musicians!” That eagerness to recast well-worn techniques is an ethos that fellow festival performer and intersectional cellist Simone Seales brings into their work.
Their debut solo record Dearest, part classical composition, part spoken word and part improvisation, evokes the performer’s first queer relationship. But bringing this project to stage required a leap of faith, as they explain. “In a recording studio, you can loop things and overdub, and it doesn't take as much time. The challenge for me is letting myself take time and trusting that the audience is curious enough to hear what happens next.” Curiosity over comprehension is a central tenet for another of the acts booked at this year’s Interesting Things festival.
Scottish Alternative Music Award-nominated Susannah Stark & Band will bring her record Minor Gestures to life, a body of songs that daringly reconnects with her Gaelic heritage. “It’s rewarding to be able to express yourself in another language,” she reasons. “I hear from audiences who enjoy that element even if they didn’t understand, and then people who do have a totally different experience!” And for Weaver, those memorable connections are precisely what the Stirling-based all-dayer taps into. “[We’re] building an audience that might know a few acts, but also trust what's going on and are willing to see and find something new and exciting.”
Weaver has seen that openness transform artists as well as audiences. He remembers speaking to Scottish songwriter Kathryn Joseph after The Netherlands’ Roadburn Festival, where she admitted she'd considered giving up music before playing. The freedom of performing in an environment without stylistic restrictions, he says, left her inspired. It's a philosophy that resonates with Seales, who sees their performance as a collective moment rather than an individual output. "Being on stage is a place where I can invite people into my world.”
That world might involve a level of improvisation more commonly seen in free-form jazz spaces, with Seales encouraging audiences to share an “emotion” for them to riff on in real-time. Testing the concept while opening for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, they recall: “My friend who was hosting had, for some reason, said that I speak Welsh. I was learning! Someone shouted the Welsh word for milk," they laugh. "I'm lactose intolerant, so I said, 'This is how milk makes me feel,' and started playing." Stark is equally thankful for this level of audience engagement when it comes to her musical expression. "The best gift anyone can give you is their attention."
In an era where mainstream music festivals often boast the same names across the summer circuit, Interesting Things offers something fresh alongside the familiar, an off-kilter approach that Scotland’s smallest city has long since championed. "There's definitely a weird dark heartbeat in Stirling," Weaver says. "It's just letting that flourish."
Interesting Things takes place at Tolbooth, Stirling, 15 Aug