TheDrouth

7th February 2024

SENSE AND SENSITIVITY:
Killing History
Owen Dudley Edwards

Putting the writing and rewriting of state affairs by politicians in a long and broadly detailed context, Owen Dudley Edwards wonders if 'The self-destruction of the would-be partisan is becoming a literary form in UK political life'? Reviews of new books by Theresa May, Chris Bryant and Rory Stewart.
23rd January 2024

WELCOME TO THE SHIPWRECK by Rory Olcayto

Rory Olcayto's assessment of the Glasgow problematic is highly controversial and has been doing the rounds and garnering much critical attention. The straight-talking, complacency-busting analysis and vision for a metropolitan city cannot possibly please everyone, and that, it seems, is precisely the partisan, feather-ruffling intention of the former Architects Journal editor. It was, indeed, first delivered as a talk to the Royal incorporation of Architects in Scotland. Here it is now as a readily accessible text: a provocation to civic and urban action.
9th January 2024

THE PARTISAN NECROPOLIS by Chris Leslie

Mostar’s Partisan Memorial Cemetery - The most significant anti-fascist architectural landmark in the former Yugoslavia has been neglected and left as a ruin for decades. Having survived the 1990s Bosnian war, the Partisan Memorial Cemetery in Mostar now faces its biggest threat – and possible disappearance – as neofascists are intent on destroying the necropolis and all it stands for....
2nd November 2023

LAOCOON AND LOSS
by
Murdo Macdonald

From Classical Antiquity through Michelangelo to Verlaine, via Godard and Tarkovsky and an essay-load of other makers, Murdo Macdonald shows us how the whole gang of western clever clogs in turn feel the pain of Laocoon - for if art shows us anything it is this: that nothing exists for sure, except the torture of the knowledge that is so, and will be so forever.
22nd October 2023

CLAIRE M SINGER-
ROAMING FREE
by
Neil Cooper

First in a scheduled triptych of albums, composer Claire M Singer's Saor, will be released digitally and on CD by Touch on 3rd November. Neil Cooper talks to her about her composing and playing career in, and her love for organs and organ music.
14th October 2023

In Praise of Sturdy Buildings:
A Report for Wyndford Residents Union
by
Fraser/Livingstone Architects

In all campaigns and struggles with authorities it is important that the process is documented and made accessible so that lessons can be learned. This is no mere footnote to the struggle of the Wyndford Residents Union to save their homes from the wrecking ball. They commissioned Fraser/Livingstone Architects to produce a Report on the condition of the estate to respond to those reports produced by the authorities. We're delighted to reproduce that Report here with an introduction/preface by Malcolm Fraser.
7th October 2023

Frances Lightbound’s
TECTONICS
by
Pia Singh

'Things in process ... objects out of place and time.' Frances Lightbound's exhibition Tectonics at the John David Mooney Foundation in Chicago, reconfigures and re-enacts the languages of architectonics and manages to refuse the colonial configurations of power and brute strength in structural materials and components. Pia Singh reviews and finds a striking refinement in these rare and enigmatic arrangements.
29th September 2023

PULLED BACK, MOVING FORWARD:
on Kim Moore’s ‘A Song We Destroy To Spin Again’
GREG THOMAS

For Greg Thomas, the music in Kim Moore's new release with Blackford Hill is at once a physical thing which moves, an image, and a word provoking profound affect. There is something 'urgent' here, he writes.
29th September 2023

SINGING FROM THE SAME HYMNBOOK by Louise Rodgers

Music to galvanise and control: a sonic authoritarianism? Louise Rodgers examines how powerful groups, institutions and individuals throughout history have hitched music to their social programmes.