Joe Creely

Edinburgh

Contributor at The Skinny

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Articles

Counterflows 2025: The Report

2 weeks ago | theskinny.co.uk | Joe Creely

Counterflows starts with a scream. A stop-start surge of a grinding, piercing sound somewhere between the internal monologue of a knackered old Dell and a tone that’ll be familiar if you’ve ever had a wasp trapped in your hoover. What we’re hearing is the combined forces of Weston Olencki and Laura Cocks, whose Music for Two Flutes makes for the opening of this year's festival.
Dustin Wong album review: Gloria

4 weeks ago | theskinny.co.uk | Joe Creely

Album title: Gloria Artist: Dustin Wong Label: Hausu Mountain Release date: 1 Apr Dustin Wong’s guitar has sounded further and further from anyone else’s with every year of his venerable career. This is to the extent that you could easily think his last few records were the work of someone dealing more readily in the more abstract end of electronics than anything with strings. He pulls it back a little on Gloria.
Lucy Liyou album review: Every Video Without...

1 month ago | theskinny.co.uk | Joe Creely

Album title: Every Video Without Your Face, Every Sound Without Your Name Artist: Lucy Liyou (루시 리유) Label: Orange Milk Release date: 21 Mar Lucy Liyou (루시 리유) has always created with particular vulnerability, the sound artist centring real intimacy amidst her cavernous soundscapes. But on her latest record she pushes this further than ever.
MIKE @ Room 2, Glasgow: live review

1 month ago | theskinny.co.uk | Joe Creely

The night beings with Pretty V, aka #Smokesito (and a good few names before that). The Wakefield multi-hyphenate has been building his own singular, ever-evolving sonic world for years now, to the point that he feels like something of an underground godfather while still in his early 20s. He truly has something in person as well; I’m seeing a chunk of his set from round a corner and still he’s a magnetic presence, never more so than on a howling take on Alyx on my Balenci.
Jim Hosking on Ebony & Ivory – The Skinny

1 month ago | theskinny.co.uk | Joe Creely

Paul McCartney pouts across a grey sea at an approaching rowing boat. Some mysterious figure clambers off, with three suitcases in his arms and a fur coat around his shoulders. It’s only Stevie Wonder, who has paddled across from America intent on a visit to Paul at his cottage on the Mull of Kintyre. So opens Jim Hosking's Ebony & Ivory.
Man Rei + Ugnė Uma @ Glad Cafe, Glasgow: live review

1 month ago | theskinny.co.uk | Joe Creely

You could be forgiven for assuming tonight's lineup would lean towards the portentous, with both artists on the bill having something of the shadowy mystique that can go hand in hand with self-importance, and the threat of a studied indifference that can be all grand on record, but really tedious to be in a room with. Opener Ugnė Uma is anything but, in a set that properly elevates her recorded output.
Colin Self - respite ∞ levity for the nameless ghost in crisis

2 months ago | theskinny.co.uk | Joe Creely

Album title: respite ∞ levity for the nameless ghost in crisis Artist: Colin Self Label: RVGN Intl. Release date: 21 Feb On their first album since 2018’s debut Siblings, Colin Self returns with a vast, ecstatic take on grief; sublime in moments, rather limp in others.
A Certain Killer / A Killer’s Key

2 months ago | filmhounds.co.uk | Joe Creely

The hitman has been an eternally interesting archetype to filmmakers, from the earliest film noirs to the last two films of Linklater and Fincher, two of American cinema's pop-auteur elder statesmen. This is no truer than in Japan, with the likes of Suzuki's Branded to Kill and Woo's The Killer sitting as two of the country's major cult classics. Less is known in the west of the parallel work that was going on as Suzuki was working, that of his seemingly more straightforward contemporaries.
Titi & Ale Hop album review: Mapambazuko

Jan 21, 2025 | theskinny.co.uk | Joe Creely

Album title: Mapambazuko Artist: Titi & Ale Hop Label: Nyege Nyege Tapes Release date: 24 Jan Congolese guitarist Titi Bakorta emerged in 2023 with his deeply idiosyncratic debut, one rooted in a wonky vision of pop, but with something otherworldly and spectral in its idiosyncrasies. Here, in line with Nyege Nyege Tapes’ typical pursuit of collaboration, he joins with Peruvian composer Ale Hop, last seen crafting squelched, juddering sonic landscapes with Laura Robles.
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

Dec 1, 2024 | theskinny.co.uk | Joe Creely

Film title: On Becoming a Guinea Fowl Director: Rungano Nyoni Starring: Susan Chardy, Elizabeth Chisela, Henry B.J. Phiri Release date: 6 Dec Certificate: 12A On Becoming a Guinea Fowl opens with Shula (Chardy) driving down a dark road in Zambia wearing headwear straight out of a 2009 Lady Gaga lookbook.