AS her biography says: “Anyone who has seen Denise Johnson sing will remember it.”
Working frequently with Primal Scream in the first half of the 1990s, she’s the star of the band’s Don’t Fight It, Feel It, from the Scots’ groundbreaking Screamadelica album.
In addition to her work as a solo artist recording her own compositions and covers, she’s recorded with Bernard Butler, Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr’s band Electronic, Ian Brown, New Order, and A Certain Ratio, the hugely influential post-punk band with whom she still tours.
Coinciding with the release of a series of reissues of older work on the Mute label, A Certain Ratio play Glasgow’s Stereo on March 17, where, like all ACR gigs this year, £1 from each ticket sold will go to Artists Against Hunger – a campaign by Action Against Hunger, a charity which works in 50 countries to feed children in times of crisis, such as war, famine or natural disasters.
Ahead of that gig, Johnson heads up the February Fling from Edinburgh arts collective Neu! Reekie! on February 23, which also sees performances from rising Edinburgh four-piece Rituals, BBC Radio 4 Poet in Residence Daljit Nagra, Glasgow-based poet Rob A Mackenzie and The Highflyers aka poet-activists Bonlam Machiha and Bonlat Machiha.
Feb 23, Leith St Andrew’s Church, Edinburgh, 7.30pm, £12, £10 concs. Tickets: neufling.brownpapertickets.com
Mar 17, Stereo, Glasgow, 7pm, £17 plus booking fee. Tickets: bit.ly/ACRStereo
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