Scottish New Music Roundup: October 2023

Before we get into October releases, here are a few beats and bobs we missed last month. At the very start of September, Glasgow indie-pop outfit Fauves released their MGMT-indebted debut album, Favourite Shade, and there were EPs from GRAVELLE (Restless Dream), Sixpeace (Index Fun!) and Thundermoon (We’re Still Here). When it came to singles, we enjoyed new cuts from Bobbi Arlo (Ode to Ü), SHEARS (Figure Me Out), Raveloe (Clouds Are Release) and Lewis McLaughlin (Getting Better), as well as It’s So Easy, the debut single from Get Wrong, a brand new project from The Spook School’s Adam Todd and Martha’s Naomi Griffin.

This month, there are a few big hitters coming your way. In our October issue, you’ll find us in conversation with MALKA and Carla J. Easton, celebrating MALKA’s late September release, and Easton’s Sugar Honey, due on 20 October. Rising talent in the Scottish jazz scene corto.alto's debut Bad With Names is our album of the month – read our five-star review here.

On 2 October, Edinburgh outfit Broken Records release their fifth album, The Dreamless Sleep of The 1990s. Tackling 'the profound experiences of life and death', it's a beautifully pieced together record, rich in instrumentation and the poetic lyricism of frontman Jamie Sutherland. At the other end of the month, PAWS release their self-titled fifth album too (27 Oct). Opening with an industrial thwump and a yowl from Phillip Jon Taylor before the chug of Helen Back kicks in, stick around and you’ll quickly realise that PAWS is by no means a one-note record from this much-loved emo pair, that's buoyed by moments of swirling electronica, anarchistic sentiments, gorgeous instrumentals, and a beautiful guest turn from Jane Blanchard.

Long-plays aside, several shorter releases have caught our ear this month. In the closing bars of Just Like You, the opening track of Theo Bleak’s Pain EP (31 Oct), you can feel that pain as she ramps her vocals up to 11, sounding both anguished but in control in equal measure. The juxtaposition between moments like this and Bleak's softer, breathier vocals is nothing short of thrilling, and the strength and power she shows on the confrontational It’s Not Doing Me Any Good gives us goosebumps: “I wrote this about my old band’s manager cos I hope he goes to hell,” she says in the single’s accompanying press release. Pain is a cathartic fist in the air, made by Bleak for Bleak as she bids farewell to an old chapter in her life. It also highlights how much of a master she is at a delivering a gut punch through song structure; powerful codas are by far her secret weapon.

From one powerful voice to another. Much like Lucy Dacus, Katie Gregson-MacLeod is a wizard when it comes to storytelling through music, with the kind of vocal warmth that pulls you in immediately. At the utterance of her first words on opener September, you find yourself hyper-tuning in, turning the volume up so you can really listen. There’s an unequivocal personable nature found across Big Red (13 Oct), which musically peaks and troughs, capturing a romantic period in Gregson-MacLeod’s life, solidifying her as one to watch. With a record released on the same day, another voice that has us excited belongs to Glasgow's Pippa Blundell. Landing somewhere between ANOHNI and Liz Green, atop gentle and spacious guitar lines, Blundell's captivating storytelling shines bright on Sisters, an EP about the women in her life. Also on the 13th, cortnë releases Florescence. Packed with emotion, pleasing chord progressions and harmonies, it could easily soundtrack a coming-of-age film.

At the end of the month, songwriter Celine Brooks and musician Gareth Dickson, together known as Budgee, release Pell-Mell (27 Oct), 'five bittersweet dialogues about re-framing and cultivating intimate love without the obligation for the traditional trappings of romance or family.' There’s a sincerity and warmth found across the record, as alt-folk and Americana-indebted instrumental parts twinkle and shuffle beneath Brooks’ gorgeous vocals, calling to mind the likes of Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval or Katy J Pearson.

More jazz can be found this month too from Edinburgh outfit Eloi, who release their Bloom Again EP towards the end of the month, littered with complex time signatures, exciting brass stabs and soothing elastic honeyed vocals. And at the more experimental end of jazz, Josef Akin’s Chimera EP arrives on 19 October, dripping in caramel brass tones, warm keys and expert vocal turns from Anoushka Nanguy and India Blue.

Celebrating their tenth anniversary, Lost Map presents Weird Wave arrives on 6 October, featuring members of Pictish Trail, L.T. Leif, Kid Canaveral, eagleowl and Meursault. Then, Dancer release the super fun As Well (13 Oct), on the 20th Barry Can't Swim releases When Will We Land? and Lloyd's House release The Masochist. On the 27th, Declan Welsh and the Decadent West release 2 and Starsky-Rae releases his Why Am I So Green? mixtape. And there’s a whole sack of singles coming your way too from Conscious Route (Amorphous Shape, 5 Oct), Hound (Holding Out, 6 Oct), Bemz (G.O.M. Gyallie On Me, 6 Oct), Peter Johnstone (Sad Cowgirl Playlist, 18 Oct) and wojtek the bear (second place on purpose, 20 Oct).