Scottish New Music Round-up: January 2025

At the end of last year we missed EPs from PAQUE (Truth Be Told), KATERINA. (Songs I Wrote When I Was 18), and BPK (In Ascent), the solo ambient electronic project of Brian Pokora, as well as singles from racecar (Whenever I), Theo Bleak (You Said I’d Feel It All Again), Beautiful Cosmos (Midlife) and Oyakhire (triedtocall.).

When it comes to January, in the mag you'll find full reviews of new records from Mogwai and Brooke Combe, while first up here, we get stuck into The Human Fear (10 Jan, Domino), as Franz Ferdinand start a new chapter. The first FF album to feature drummer Audrey Tait and guitarist Dino Bardot, and the first to involve keys-man Julian Corrie on songwriting and creative duties alongside original members Alex Kapranos and Bob Hardy, Kapranos says the record is “a bunch of songs searching for the thrill of being human via fears. Not that you’d necessarily notice on first listen.”

Produced with Mark Ralph, who last worked with the band on 2013’s Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action, a lot of classic Franz Ferdinand sounds are present here, but there's a very vintage sound to lead single, and album opener, Audacious. An early marker that things may have evolved a little, The Human Fear is chockful of interesting moments, like the zippy synths on Doctor, the filthy electro of Hooked that's screaming out for an Erol Alkan remix circa 2010, or the gorgeous piano that beckons Tell Me I Should Stay. Then, there’s a Cumbia feel to both Cats and Black Eyelashes, perhaps inspired by Kapranos’s work with pan-continental band Los Bitchos. Still unmistakably a Franz Ferdinand record, on The Human Fear, there’s a sense that the Glasgow band are having fun as they settle into a new era.

A little deeper into the month Edinburgh singer-songwriter and producer Penny Black releases My Skin Brought Me Here (22 Jan). A long time in the works, after a stint in Sweden, where she recorded an album she describes as “unreleasable”, Black spent five years learning to produce and engineer herself, and the resulting effort is excellent. Across 12 tracks, Black’s unique voice channels artists like Kate Bush, Sia and, believe it or not, Shakira, all with a Scottish twang, especially on single You’re No Pedro Pascal as she tells a prospective suitor to 'jog on'. Covering a whole glut of topics, from trauma and sexuality to love, relationships and misogyny, My Skin Brought Me Here traverses a slew of genres too. From piano-led ballads and bubbling electronica to more straight-up pop cuts, Penny Black is surely one to watch.

C Duncan. Image: Harrison Reid.

A couple of days later, C Duncan returns with It’s Only a Love Song (24 Jan, Bella Union). A record exploring the nuances of love, from the opening piano line to Duncan's closing whistle, everything about this record feels timeless as it oozes romance; from the lush, sweeping instrumentation that feels rooted in old Hollywood glamour, to the lyrics, and Duncan’s effortless vocal delivery, layered to stratospheric heights. “I love the idea of something being so romantic that it almost hurts,” Duncan says of the music he loves, and on his new record he embodies that feeling in spades, the music so beautiful you can quite literally feel your chest tightening as you listen. 

The following day, releasing her debut album, Double Lives (25 Jan, Doughnut Music Lab), with a show at Celtic Connections, is Glasgow-based musician, poet and activist Diljeet Kaur Bhachu, ‘Daughter of immigrants, product of colonialism’, as she states on the sub-two minute Educate Assimilate Disintegrate. Recorded with producer John Cavanagh, Kaur Bhachu expertly explores her identity across six songs that bring together gorgeous layers of flute, electronics, poetry and Hindustani vocals. Closing the album with the line, ‘Three decades to love a name’, with Double Lives, 34 minutes should do the trick.

Elsewhere, this month also sees Scottish singer-songwriter Rhona Macfarlane release her coming-of-age debut album, As the Chaos Unfolds (24 Jan), while on the same day two of the biggest names in Scottish folk, Julie Fowlis and Karine Polwart, have joined forces with Grammy-winning artist Mary Chapin Carpenter on Looking For the Thread, out via Thirty Tigers. There are also four outstanding EPs to look out for. In Descent, the beautifully meditative follow-up to BPK’s December release; Born Rotting, the anguish-fuelled and foreboding debut doom-metal release from Gout (17 Jan), and the rich in harmonies and pop grooves of Little Acres’ debut EP, Wait (29 Jan), and the rather sumptuous secret tape, from elusive Glasgow outfit The Healing Power of Horses. They’re releasing the record via No Soap, with a special launch show on 18 January, alongside Dayydream, the songwriting project of Chloe Trappes, who’s releasing her single Fucked Up a few days earlier on the 13th.

Other singles due as the month unfolds include a cover of LCD Soundsystems' Daft Punk Is Playing At My House by Indoor Foxes (8 Jan), Television by KuleeAngee (15 Jan), Actor by Goodnight Louisa (15 Jan), pink and grey by Russell Stewart (17 Jan), Good Girl by Zoe Graham (22 Jan), and Just Kids by Midnight Ambulance (24 Jan).