HOT 100 2010 5
LUCKYME Capital label goes international
‘This was the year we figured out how to do things properly,’ says Dominic ‘Dom Sum’ Flannigan, the Edinburgh-based co-director of record label LuckyMe. The sometime graphic design agency is run by a loose collective of 20 Scots, including acclaimed young electronic artists Hudson Mohawke and Rustie, and fellow founder Mike Slott. You could even call it a multinational now the members are based as far afield as London and New York. ‘In 2010 we consolidated things by running our business more as a label,’ says Flannigan about an organisation that has operated less formally for half a decade, its core members having met at Glasgow School of Art. ‘In the past, we made our living from doing lots of design work and live events, whereas this year we did fewer clubs and put out more records.’
Already these lower-key releases have been critically welcomed. They include the debut double EP Cool World by Glasgow band American Men (pictured); tracks by New York electronic artist Machinedrum, the label’s first non-UK signing; and more recently, work by Jacques Greene (who also has work forthcoming on Night Slugs) and Montreal’s Lunice.
‘So in the space of a year we released everything from math rock to electro to hip hop to house,’ says Flannigan. The Blessings, his group with longtime production partner Martin ‘Fine Art’ Flyn, also released a record this year, this time on Nod Navigators, an offshoot of Amsterdam label Kindred Spirits. From LuckyMe’s point of view, though, Flannigan’s abiding memory is of one of the more grand-scale events his label has put on throughout the year: its showcase set at Barcelona’s SONAR festival in June. ‘It was amazing,’ he says. ‘We played to something like 8500 people in a primetime Saturday night slot against the headliners of the festival. We’re talking about artists like Dizzee Rascal and The Chemical Brothers, and we still managed to pack out the arena we were playing in.’ (DP)
4 3
34 THE LIST 16 Dec 2010 – 6 Jan 2011
DAVID SHRIGLEY Stark, dark scribbler extraordinaire
The monochrome art brut of this Glasgow- adopted illustrator/artist can now be found scrawled across duvets, doodled over birthday cards, or, as of this year, collated in a shiny Canongate-published ‘best-of’ book entitled What The Hell Are You Doing? Shrigley’s scribbly, deformed depictions of noses being punched, and egg-headed babies reaching for swords are definitely not to be dismissed as puerile pictures
though. Beneath their death metal exterior often beats a marshmallow heart, with a poignancy and grotesquely cute humour that makes his prolific output a constant source of enjoyment. His 2010 highlights included a solo show of self-aware stuffed animals, insulation-filled waders and made- up utensils at the Kelvingrove as part of Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art; a List magazine takeover; various eclectic DJ sets; a noble battlecry for the Save the Arts campaign (including a brilliantly straightfoward short film laying the issues on the line) and a nicely irreverent animated ad for Pringle. More, please. (CS)
ALASDAIR GRAY Polymath won’t slow down
It’s nearly 30 years since Alasdair Gray published Lanark, his groundbreaking first novel, which led Anthony Burgess to hail him the ‘greatest Scottish novelist since Walter Scott’. The writer and artist is now 75 years old, but if you thought the advancing years would lead to an easing in his work rate, you’d be wrong. In fact the novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright and painter seems busier than ever. Having published his collected works for the stage, A Gray Play Book, at the turn of the year, Gray went on to
collect his beautiful and intriguing portraits, paintings, posters and murals in the impressive coffee table book, A Life in Pictures. Collected Verse, meanwhile, brought together his published poetry with new works. The enduring relationship between the two major strands of Gray’s creative output, writing and painting, was celebrated with gusto in the highly acclaimed exhibition Gray Stuff at Edinburgh University’s Talbot Rice Gallery. The collection of sketches, cover designs, theatre posters, murals, diaries and log books provided a fascinating insight into the artist’s working process and a loving testament to Gray’s industry and endless curiosity. (AR)