WITHERED HAND NEW GODS
Edinburgh based folk-rock troubadour Dan Willson aka Withered Hand came late to singing and songwriting at age 30, in a period of reflection between the death of a close friend and the birth of his first child. His critically acclaimed debut album ‘Good News’ was praised for its depth and startling honesty. The follow-up ‘New Gods’ saw a more expansive band sound, aided by producer Tony Doogan and guest appearances from a veritable who’s who of Scottish music.
Eleven meditations on love, fidelity and transience that see Dan Willson’s songwriting hit dizzying heights: ‘New Gods’ is by turns confessional and melancholy, raucous and life-affirming; his trademark dark humour turned down a wee notch; life, in all its many facets, turned up to full. A beautifully executed collection of songs from one of Scotland’s most gifted songwriters.
ERRORS LEASE OF LIFE
Errors are a Glasgow based trio (Simon Ward, Steev Livingstone and James Hamilton), signed to Mogwai’s Rock Action label since 2004. With four studio albums (including 2012’s SAY Longlisted ‘Have Some Faith In Magic’), a remix album, two EPs and a clutch of singles under their belt, Errors have toured extensively selling out shows throughout the UK, Europe, North America, Russia and Brazil along with support tours with bands as diverse as dance legends Underworld and label bosses Mogwai.
‘Lease of Life’ is Errors’ fourth album and the follow-up to 2012’s critically acclaimed ‘Have Some Faith In Magic’. Formulated on the Hebridean Isle Of Jura – where George Orwell wrote 1984 and The KLF are rumoured to have burned a million pounds – it’s a bold work borne by the confidence and ambition of a band to combine the exploration of fresh soundworlds with their most accessible, immediate songwriting yet.
BLUE ROSE CODE THE BALLADS OF PECKHAM RYE
Blue Rose Code is not folk music. Or so he’s been told. Ross Wilson, the Edinburgh-born songwriter who performs under that name, doesn’t write folk songs. But having discovered the traditional music of the British Isles whilst in exile down south, he fell in love with what he heard and those sounds informed what happened next. “I guess that I’m a crossover artist,” says Ross.“I’m just not sure from where I’m crossing over or where I’m going to end up.”
‘The Ballads Of Peckham Rye’, features a remarkable roll call of musicians, legendary bassist Danny Thompson, Karine Polwart, Lau’s Aidan O’Rourke and the lead single from Ballads features Mercury Music Prize Nominee, Kathryn Williams. Folk Radio UK said “An affirmation of love that links human relationships with the natural world. As sublimely paced as Astral Weeks-era Van Morrison.”
PAOLO NUTINI CAUSTIC LOVE
Paolo’s 1.5 million selling 2006 debut album, ‘These Streets’, established the young Scot as a leading talent amongst the new wave of singer-songwriters and second album ‘Sunny Side Up’ not only won the Ivor Novello for Best Album in 2010, but went on to sell nearly 2 million copies in the UK alone. ‘Caustic Love’ further showcases his maverick talent and reveals a maturity as a writer and performer extending far beyond his 27 years.
Obsessed with music since he heard the Drifters aged five, Paolo dropped out of school at 16, performing, roadieing and working as a studio engineer. He was signed to Atlantic Records shortly after his 18th birthday. Nominated for three Brits Awards, Paolo Nutini is one of the most successful and acclaimed artists to emerge from the UK in recent years.
‘Caustic Love’ is the UK double-platinum selling and 4th biggest album of 2014. “The best thing, still, is having an idea, and eventually hearing that idea back through a pair of speakers,” Paolo told the Sunday Times Culture. “When that works, it leads to such fulfilment and joy.”
That joy is all over ‘Caustic Love’. It’s contagious. It’s the sound of someone in love with music. Highlights include the grooving ‘Scream (Funk My Life Up), epic ‘Iron Sky’, the sultry R&B tease of ‘One Day’, the bluesy swagger of ‘Let Me Down Easy’ and the beauty of ‘Better Man’.
SLAM REVERSE PROCEED
SLAM (Stuart MacMillan & Orde Meikle) instigated Glasgow’s underground House music scene in the late 1980s and played an instrumental role in the explosion of UK Techno generally, embarking on a quarter century of exploits that’s left scorch marks on a legion of dance floors and shared their uncompromising vision of Techno with the world.
Closer to home SLAM have curated the ‘Slam Tent’ at ‘T in the Park’ since 1997 and their firmly established monthly club events in Glasgow, ‘Pressure’ at the Arches and ‘Return To Mono’ at the Sub Club, are ranked amongst the best nights out on the planet. Over the last two years, the pair have also developed ‘Slam Radio’, delivering some of the best DJs and music that Techno has to offer to a massive and loyal weekly following.
Not only does ‘Reverse Proceed’ capture where the two are at musically, it’s an extension of their unending fascination with all things Electronic. Drawing on 22 years of experience, Slam delved into the past for inspiration whilst simultaneously heralding future technologies in the production process. Conceptually, Slam wanted to have the human experience in mind when recording and to base the architecture of the album around ‘the sequence’. This led them to a locally built hardware sequencer called the ‘Sequentix Cirklon’ that became the heart of the album. Allowing them to access older machines and also a modern modular synth setup simultaneously, Stuart & Orde merged live manipulation and recording techniques to full potential to bring a soul to the album.
THE PHANTOM BAND STRANGE FRIEND
Signed to Chemikal Underground in 2008, The Phantom Band quickly established themselves as one of the label’s most important acts with their idiosyncratic brand of mashed-up musical chaos. ‘Checkmate Savage’, their 2009 debut, was their strident, critically acclaimed calling card, followed in 2010 by the oblique brilliance of ‘The Wants’. It would be four years before they re-surfaced, not with one but two (anagrammatically linked) long players in ‘Strange Friend’ and ‘Fears Trending’ – reminding us all why we had such a thunderous crush on them in the first place.
Their third LP, ‘Strange Friend’ is perhaps the most straight-up set of recordings The Phantom Band have committed to wax. Fans of their previous critically-acclaimed albums, fear not; those burbling, fluttering electronics that drag their sound through a wormhole and out into the 70’s alongside the soundtracks of John Carpenter and the kosmische of Kraftwerk and Neu! remain; the elements of folk; the woozy organ sounds that knock each song just off-centre enough to feel alien, but familiar enough not to feel lost, are there too.
YOUNG FATHERS DEAD
Young Fathers are three young men from Edinburgh and Liberia and Nigeria, all at the same time. Their journey has taken them through various incarnations and styles but they are still only in their mid 20s. And… and this is important: they’ve chosen to kill the past—their own past, even—to make their own future. In addition to directing their own videos they have made a series of short films for Channel 4, hosted a late night slot on BBC 1Xtra and curated one-off nights in Scotland and London. 2015 saw the release of their new album ‘White Men Are Black Men Too’.
Following on from the acclaimed EPs TAPE ONE and TAPE TWO, their debut album DEAD arrived as an intimate epic, thirty six minutes of…. what? What? You can call it hip hop or rap, but Alloysious, G and Kayus sing more than they chat. There’s the suburbs and the cities of Grey Britain in there, but also Africa. There’s an obsession with the surface texture of sound, the psychedelicist’s love of noise. Equally, the deep, warm, maternal reassurance of bass. But the band also craft hook after hook, instant kid-melodies, piling them up on great reefs of backing vocals. Above all, what they insist on is that their music has to mean something, emotionally. If this is a wake, it’s a celebratory one, full of heart. DEAD won the Barclaycard Mercury Music Prize last September.
KATHRYN JOSEPH BONES YOU HAVE THROWN ME AND BLOOD I’VE SPILLED
Prodigiously talented and criminally underrated; Kathryn is one of Scotland’s best-kept secrets. Her voice possesses the other-worldly quality comparable to Ms Newsom and Björk; but she is by no means of an ilk. Better compared with Anthony Heggarty; she is an artist in every way; unique and soulful, and at the core a beautiful unnerving truth.
Lyrically compelling and sonically stunning, ‘Bones You Have Thrown Me And Blood I’ve Spilled’ evokes a stark, cinematic journey. Written in a period during which life took Kathryn between northern bothies, east coast beaches, the forth bridges and ultimately the east end of Glasgow where she recorded the album – predominantly live – in a week with Marcus Mackay at the Diving Bell Lounge (Frightened Rabbit, Snow Patrol, Sparrow and the Workshop).
TREACHEROUS ORCHESTRA GRIND
Treacherous Orchestra are a brave, loud 11-piece folk big band, influenced by rock as well as traditional Celtic styles: a rousing fusion from the vibrant Scottish scene.
Treacherous Orchestra are:
Ross Ainslie – Bagpipes & Whistle: Ali Hutton – Bagpipes & Whistle: Kevin O’Neill – Flute & Whistle: John Somerville – Accordion: Éamonn Coyne – Banjo & Tenor Guitar: Adam Sutherland – Fiddle: Innes Watson – Fiddle: Barry Reid – Electric & Acoustic Guitars: Duncan Lyall – Double Bass & Bass Guitar: Martin O’Neill – Bodhrán: Fraser Stone – Drums.
PAWS YOUTH CULTURE FOREVER
PAWS are a Scottish rock band comprising of Phillip Taylor, Joshua Swinney and Ryan Drever. In five years the band have organically grown and nurtured a loyal fan base via relentless dedication to releasing new music and touring as much as possible in support of this. Signed to FatCat Records in 2012, PAWS have toured with esteemed rock acts such as Japandroids, We Are Scientists, The Cribs and The Breeders.
‘Youth Culture Forever’ deals with love, loss and the difficulties faced when those two things intertwine. The passion in the subject matter pushed the band to take the albums crafting into their own hands. Recorded at Adam Pierce’s (Mice Parade/ Swirlies) studio in the woods outside of New York City, PAWS produced the album themselves in an attempt to strive for the sound that they had always imagined for the band.
BELLE & SEBASTIAN GIRLS IN PEACETIME WANT TO DANCE
Since forming in Glasgow in the late 1990’s, Belle and Sebastian have: re-invented the pop festival; they signed to a tiny independent label but still beat Steps to a BRIT, before sweeping into the Top 40, then the Top 20. They’ve sold out a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. And, in 2014, they cut an album – their ninth – called ‘Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance’, that blends electro-glide, baroque balladry, and giant-sized Europop hooks. They deserve several accolades, each of which are rare for any band in 2014 – Belle & Sebastian are unique, unpredictable, and fiercely loved.
Belle & Sebastian’s ninth record has been described as the band’s most open album, and it is also their most sonically diverse. Recorded in Atlanta with producer Ben Allen (Cee Lo Green, Animal Collective), it is playful, super-melodic, with lyrical nods to both their past and an optimistic future, and joyful jumps into new musical territories.
As The Sunday Times’ reviewer noted upon its release, “Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance positively swaggers with purpose and creative energy. It is hard – no, impossible – to think of any other band approaching their 20th anniversary and yet still sounding like a brand-new act, yet that is how B&S come across here. A wonderful album.”
MIKE VASSIN THE WAKE OF NEIL GUNN
Mike Vass is a composer and multi-instrumentalist from Nairn in the Scottish Highlands, now based in Glasgow. Best known as a fiddle player and guitarist within the field of traditional music, he was awarded ‘Composer of the Year’ at the Scots Trad Music Awards in 2012. His work integrates traditional, classical, electronic and found sound elements.
‘In The Wake Of Neil Gunn’ is the culmination of a year-long project hatched as I read Gunn’s book ‘Off In A Boat’ whilst recovering from illness in 2013. In May 2014 I recreated Gunn’s 1937 voyage round the West of Scotland and on returning to Glasgow spent the summer writing and recording the album. The music is an instrumental evocation of Gunn’s writing, my time at sea and my journey to recovery. MIKE VASS (April 2015)
IDLEWILD EVERYTHING EVER WRITTEN
Since forming In Edinburgh in 1995, Idlewild have released eight studio albums (two of which debuted in the UK top ten) and 12 top 40 UK singles. Their blend of melodic rock with poetic lyrics has taken them all over the world as a headline act, as well as supporting the likes of U2, REM and Pearl Jam. They are one of Scotland’s most respected & loved bands.
‘Everything Ever Written’ represents a new chapter for Idlewild – both personally and creatively – featuring twelve tracks of alternative rock woven together from strands of Scottish folk, Americana & Hebridean psychedelia. Produced by the band’s guitarist Rod Jones and mixed by John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr.) whom they collaborated with on their 2002 release ‘The Remote Part’, ‘Everything Ever Written’ is Idlewild’s most eclectic output to date.
“The album was predominantly written on the Isle of Mull”, vocalist Roddy Woomble explains. “The record soundtracks a period of transition. Working without time constraints gave the whole thing a creative freedom”.
HAPPY MEALS APÉRO
Happy Meals is the Glasgow-based duo of Suzanne Rodden and Lewis Cook, life-partners since high school finding expression in cosmic form. Originally from the Scottish borders, Rodden and Cook (also of The Cosmic Dead) began Happy Meals in a flurry of experimentation at Glasgow’s creative hub The Green Door Studio. Initially the result of a free music production course, ‘Apéro’ sees the pair embark on a blissful voyage into a love-fuelled, outward-looking hedonism. Both artists operate machines and sing but it’s the dominating Franco-Scottish lingua-franca of Suzanne Rodden that imbues a sense of seductive fun to the album.
Happy Meals first recorded statement, ‘Apéro’ is an instant rush of Kosmiche-disco, utterly addictive and inviting. The epic Crystal Salutation welcomes the listener in with analogue synths delayed into the horizon before Electronic Disco ushers in distorted drum machines and Rodden’s disco-at- sunset vocal. Album stand-out Altered Images is a pop-masterpiece, mixing French / Italo disco, acid basslines and a sense of Scottish optimism. Age Of Love is unabashedly the feeling of being up until day-break, with layered synths climaxing all-around. Retro-futuristic visions abound on the beat-less Visions Of Utopia before closer Le Voyage reprises back the cosmopolitan disco, playing out the perfect club night in ecstatic fashion. It’s an enchanting, inclusive vision; everyone is invited, the future is bright.
MOGWAI RAVE TAPES
Eight studio albums, two soundtracks, a live album and two remix albums into their career, Mogwai celebrate their twentieth anniversary in 2015 and have never stopped taking their music in fresh, surprising directions. Formed in Glasgow in 1995, Mogwai are one of Scotland’s most compelling and restlessly inventive musical exports and with the longlisting of ‘Rave Tapes’ (one of the biggest selling vinyl releases of 2014), they’ve featured in three out of the four SAY Awards to date.
‘Rave Tapes’ is the eighth studio album by Mogwai and their second on Rock Action, the label they set up almost 18 years ago to issue their debut 7in single, Tuner/Lower. Clocking in at just under 50 minutes, the 10-track album is a lustrous collection mined from the same quarry as its predecessors, wreathed in painterly textures underpinned by increasingly electronic beats.
FATHERSON I AM AN ISLAND
Formed in Kilmarnock, Fatherson are an alternative-rock band known best for their distinct brand of soaring, melodic anthems and blistering live show. The band have toured throughout the UK, Europe and US, sharing stages with acts including Enter Shikari, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Idlewild, Frightened Rabbit and many others, gaining a legion of loyal fans along the way. They’ve also become a firm favourite on the festival circuit, playing to a capacity King Tut’s Wah Wah Tent at T in the Park 2014, a string of shows at SXSW in Austin, Texas and numerous Summer Festivals including Rockness, Belladrum and Wickerman.
Fatherson’s debut contains exactly the kind of propulsive, anthemic indie-rock that their fans have come to expect from the band. Entitled ‘I Am an Island’, the album’s a reflection on the feelings of isolation lead singer and songwriter Ross Leighton believes to be common to us all. Recorded at Glasgow’s Gorbals Sound studio with producer Bruce Rintoul in only 18 days, the record pulls on the band’s live appeal and raw energy, while also showcasing their ability to craft delicate, melodic and mature songs.
Released as the first offering from A Modern Way recordings, ‘I Am An Island’ reached number 5 in the UK Independent Album Breakers Chart, 11 in the Scottish Album Chart and 22 in the UK Independent chart.
THE TWILIGHT SAD NOBODY WANTS TO BE HERE AND NOBODY WANTS TO LEAVE
From their powerful debut ‘Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters’, to the discordant and unsettling follow up ‘Forget The Night Ahead’, the militant krautrock of ‘No One Can Ever Know’ and their stunning live collaboration with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, The Twilight Sad have never been a band to sit still. ‘Nobody Wants To Be Here And Nobody Wants To Leave’ marks the opening of a new chapter and as the critical acclaim rolls in, it’s clear this has proven to be an incredibly successful venture for the band.
Each of the albums prior to ‘Nobody Wants To Be Here And Nobody Wants To Leave’ saw the trio tackling new sounds and ways of writing, their latest work draws from their entire career. Opting to stay in Glasgow, the album was produced at Mogwai’s Castle Of Doom studio, engineered by live soundman Andrew Bush, mixed by Peter Katis (also responsible for Fourteen Autumns), with touring member Johnny Docherty playing bass.
HONEYBLOOD HONEYBLOOD
Honeyblood are Stina Marie Claire Tweeddale and Cat Myers. Releasing their eponymous debut in July 2014 on FatCat Records, with nothing extraneous, their music is driven by tightly-bound instrumentals and laced with the sheer strength and beauty of Stina’s voice. In November 2014 they headlined NME’s New Breed tour with Superfood, following their own sold-out European run, finishing the year supporting Catfish at The Bottlemen on another sold out UK tour. Earlier this year they headed Stateside for six weeks to support the legendary Belle & Sebastian, before returning to the UK for a jam-packed festival season.
Recorded at legendary producer Peter Katis’ Tarquin Studios (The National, Interpol) in just ten days, ‘Honeyblood’ is an accomplished and delightfully fierce record. “Peter was the perfect match for us,” says Stina. “He perfectly managed to capture our live performance in the studio.” ‘Honeyblood’ pulls in elements of lo-fi punk rock, unfettered indie pop and a deep seated passion for classic rootsy song crafting that help give the album something of an undeniable feel.
THE AMAZING SNAKEHEADS AMPHETAMINE BALLADS
Hailing from Glasgow, the Amazing Snakeheads – Dale Barclay, William Coombe & Jordon Hutchison announced themselves to the world, in the summer of 2013 with a ferocious 84-second long 7” strut called Testifying Time. The band’s reputation was quickly sealed with a series of lightning strike gigs with jaw dropping displays of the redemptive powers of rock’n’roll. They look like they sound; part bike gang, part all-seasons barfly; all pomade, shades, denim, leather and signet rings. On stage, they’re an uncompromising force of nature with Dale appearing possessed and the power of rock’n’roll pulsing through every sinew in his body.
Dale sees both record and band as a product of their environment: “What I’m after is truth and honesty in our music. Glasgow is a huge thing for us. I was born and raised here, William too. When I sing, I sound like where I’m from. I cannae sing any other way and that’s the truth.” They are collectively the sound of Glasgow at night.
‘Amphetamine Ballads’ is the soundtrack to the dark corners of nightclubs and those dimly lit alleyways off the main drag. The smell of smoke and liquor pervades everything. Recorded at night time at The Green Door Studio in Glasgow, this is a subterranean record – an album that can show you round the parts of a city that come alive after dark.
KING CREOSOTE FROM SCOTLAND WITH LOVE
In 1994 Fife’s Kenny Anderson conceived his micro-label Fence and treated us with an alt-pop alter-ego: King Creosote. Since then, Anderson has become of Scotland’s most acclaimed, and most prolific, singer-songwriters: a squeezebox Casanova with a cosmic wordplay fetish; a seafaring pop heart-breaker whose voice leaves gentle devastation in its wake. King Creosote was short-listed for the inaugural SAY Award in 2012 and 2011′s Mercury Prize thanks to ‘Diamond Mine’, his sublime collaboration with Jon Hopkins.
‘From Scotland With Love’ was created in collaboration with director Virginia Heath and Producer Grant Keir as an audio-accompaniment to a poetic documentary film of the same name, released for 2014’s Commonwealth Games. Featuring archive footage but no narration or interview, the film works around themes of love and loss, war, resistance, emigration, work and play, and is driven as much by the music as it is the images. For the first time King Creosote found himself being able to write from other people’s perspectives, such as the female characters found in the archive (the ‘fisher lassies’ inspired the moving track Cargill, for example).
The Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award is an ambitious new national prize established to reward and promote the diversity and creativity of music and art in Scotland.The Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award is a prestigious and exciting arts prize developed by the Scottish Music Industry Association to celebrate, promote and reward the most outstanding albums released by Scottish artists between (for this year only) January 2014 and March 2015. Inaugurated in partnership with Creative Scotland, The SAY Award promotes a longlist of twenty albums which, in turn, is reduced to a shortlist of ten in advance of the award ceremony when the winner is announced.With a first prize of £20,000, nine runners-up prizes of £1,000 and a Graduate Design Commission valued at £2,500, The SAY Award is a hugely ambitious arts prize that reflects the cultural importance of music in Scotland, celebrates its links with art and design and rewards the extraordinary wealth of artistic talent we seem to effortlessly produce on an annual basis.The SAY Award this year, has been an SMIA production in partnership with Creative Scotland and PPL. Our media partners are The List and The Skinny.
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