Prose A leisurely visit to a contemporary arts exhibition turns into an unexpected encounter. The Businessman’s Bluetooth cut out just as he was passing the glass door. His study, adjacent to John Lewis, was a minute away, but objects and materials glinted behind the wall-as-window. The art took the Businessman’s gaze, suspended it, stopped the …
Prose A sharp snapshot of a seemingly mundane moment suffused with delicate poetry brings this simple act of delivery to life. I remember the flowers, mainly. Whatever else was in the van blurs back to the junction end of Bedford Road. Its back doors had gaped open, wound-like. The man standing inside seemed hell-bent on …
Prose With his unmistakeable bite, Ian Macartney imagines Aberdeen as a dystopian abyss and in turn reflects upon the nature of the place. Aberdeen City Council are delighted to announce our next endeavour. After the unprecedented success of Development, our efforts will be bolstered two-fold, into the avenues of perpetuation and negation. We must continue ascension, while …
Poetry Macartney’s poem fascinates itself around the violent journey of a snail across foliage and the total power the observer enjoys. Scared static on a sliced leaf the snail’sback-borne spiral cog spluttered, started sudden, slid toencrusted wood,body a full mouth kissing the groundscaled anticlockwise towards leaf-lit tops, other shells above beset in grooves like pale …
Poetry In this imagist imagining of the granite city, Aberdeen Synonyms describes the city through a plethora of different fragmentary aspects. Chunk of gold-granite. Smoothness.Shortbread beach not yet crumbled.Birds of paradise round the gulf.Stag with crystal-heather antlersand an oak scalp, pawing earth. A monument for somethinglovely. Sunlight. Cathedral town,communion on every corner.Anarcho-communist campus.The perfume of …
Non-Fiction In this essay concerning two local musicians, The Glamour of Mica lays the groundwork for a new genre: Aber-disco. SIDE A This isn’t going to be a conventional music article because I know the two musicians I am about to discuss. So, from the get-go, I have probably already broken a bajillion journalistic standards …
Non-Fiction This essay, from soon after the launch of this website, explores the ideas of the ‘Cutesy Weird ‘ so important to the Spectra festival of 2020. I Sianne Ngai came to mind when watching Designs in Air’s multi-site work Creatures from the Deep (2020) at this year’s Spectra festival What was being depicted here …
Non-Fiction Ian Macartney muses upon Melodius Phunk ‘s multi-media performance, which combines live vocals and piano with haunting sections of video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaZzxtC0pEE&ab_channel=Re-Analogue&fbclid=IwAR3YeDzcYU4SOVerUX0mA1LQ9elg7D6PiNNfdi3ZV88cXicn_7jlVnFddqk Of all the Re-Analogue luminaries, Samm Anga (melodious phunk) is perhaps the most provocative, poignant, at times polarising – and patient. A summer after the designated finish for the collective, the co-founder’s enrapturing …
