Scottish Live Music Highlights: September 2022

Music festivals are still going strong into September which kicks off with Intercultural Youth Scotland’s Scotland In Colour festival. In association with the Pianodrome, the all-dayer will take place at Edinburgh’s Old Royal High School (3 Sep) with a youth showcase taking place during the day and rising talent like Bemz, Billy Got Waves and 4Tune playing the evening event. On the same weekend, Dandelion Festival is headed to Inverness (2-4 Sep) featuring King Creosote, Songhoy Blues and Tank and the Bangas.

A few days later, Dunfermline welcomes back its Outwith Festival (6-11 Sep), which includes a massive all-day music event on the 10th featuring the likes of Fatherson, Pulled Apart by Horses, Memes, Chef, Medicine Cabinet and more. The following weekend is owned by Glasgow’s Freakender (17 Sep) who celebrate their fifth anniversary with Bikini Body, Memorabilia and Sweaty Palms all set to play. Head north to Aberdeen for the final weekend of the month (22-25 Sep) and you’ll be treated to True North. Taking place across multiple venues in the city, things kick off with Aberdeen’s own AiiTee at Wonder Hoose, welcoming the likes of Los Bitchos, Gentle Sinners, Django Django, Nitin Sawhney and Emma Pollock over the four-day festival.

Superorganism

Back in the central belt, the unnerving and mesmerising Aldous Harding plays Glasgow’s City Halls (2 Sep), and South London producer, multi-instrumentalist and rapper Wu-Lu celebrates his debut album LOGGERHEAD at King Tut’s (4 Sep), before the divisive Arcade Fire play the OVO Hydro (5 Sep). Deeper into the month, fresh from supporting LCD Soundsystem in London back in June, ex-Klaxons keyboardist James Righton plays Broadcast (16 Sep), before Canadian post-rockers Godspeed You! Black Emperor bring the meat to Barrowlands (18 Sep). On the same day, across town you’ll find multi-limbed pop troupe Superorganism at SWG3, before Daveed Diggs' clipping. bring their unique brand of experimental, doom-laden hip-hop to the same venue (21 Sep). As the month rolls on, in Glasgow you’ll find The Big Moon (Òran Mór, 23 Sep), Soccer Mommy (QMU, 24 Sep) and Angel Haze (Stereo, 25 Sep), as well as recipients of our Album of the Month, Jockstrap (Stereo, 30 Sep).

At the other end of the M8, frequent MF DOOM collaborator Bishop Nehru plays Sneaky Pete’s (4 Sep), with quirky and catchy alt-indie offerings at the same venue later in the month from Coach Party (13 Sep) and Courting (20 Sep). On the same day, Glasgow supergroup duo Gentle Sinners, composed of The Twilight Sad’s James Graham and Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat, play Summerhall, while Bristolian singer-songwriter Katy J Pearson brings her new album Sound of the Morning to Voodoo Rooms.

There’s lots happening on a local level this month too, with Ruby Gaines playing The Hug & Pint (1 Sep), Rudi Zygadlo at King Tut’s (8 Sep), Susan Bear at Mono (15 Sep), Andrew Wasylyk at CCA (16 Sep) and Uninvited at the Garage Attic Bar (30 Sep). Meanwhile in Edinburgh, We Were Promised Jetpacks play La Belle Angele (10 Sep).