Musicians create songs for Scotland’s mythic beasties

MUSIC

Rumer, The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Friday

The Pakistan-born British singer hits the road again, which means another chance to hear live one of the warmest, most welcoming voices in pop. Rumer also has an ear for a good song, and she’s written one or two of those herself. We’ll be the ones at the back calling for Slow.

EXHIBITION

k.364, DCA, Dundee, from today

Scottish Turner Prize-winner Douglas Gordon unveils the UK premiere of his film installation k.364, which takes in trains and history and the power of music as it follows two Israeli musicians of Polish descent on a journey through Europe and the music of Mozart. The exhibition runs until August 7.

FICTION

Thrown, Sara Cox, Coronet, £14.99

The tagline reads “Four women. One pottery class. Things will never be the same again.” The Radio 2 DJ (and former The Great Pottery Throw Down presenter) makes her debut as a novelist with this novel about friendship and pottery. Marian Keyes likes it, and you can’t get any better endorsement than that.

MUSIC

Tales of the Tribe, Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Thursday

Subtitled “Songs for Scotland’s Mythical Creatures,” Tommy

Smith and the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra team up with

Phil Cunningham, Julie Fowlis (above), John McCusker and Michael McGoldrick for this companion piece to Smith’s Glasgow International Jazz Festival commission, Beasts of Scotland. Also featuring the poetry of Meg Bateman, Christine De Luca, Peter MacKay and Tom Pow, this sounds like just the kind of expansive project suitable to mark the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra’s 25th anniversary celebration. The show will transfer to Music Hall, Aberdeen next Friday and to the Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh next

Saturday.

FESTIVAL

Aye Write, Mitchell Library, Glasgow, until May 22

Everyone who is anyone in the world of books is heading to Glasgow over the next couple of weeks now that the Aye Write festival is back at the Mitchell Library. This week’s guests include Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie (tonight, 9.30pm), Bernard MacLaverty, above, (tomorrow, 3pm) and civil rights attorney Clive Stafford Smith (Friday, 6.30pm). And that’s just the tip of the literary iceberg, with many more names to follow between now and the end of the festival on May 22.