Scottish New Music Round-up: July 2023

You know the drill; things we missed in June first. In the midst of last month’s heatwave, local artists served up some sizzling singles – check out the new releases by Sixpeace (Make It Worth It), Free Love (All the Same to Me), Water Machine (Water Machine Pt. II), Post Coal Prom Queen and Pallmer (Cosmo Canyon), Apostille (Saturday Night, Still Breathing), Ruby Gaines (How It Looks), Snows of Yesteryear (Deer Across My Path), neverfine (Voices), Lucia & The Best Boys (So Sweet I Could Die), BIN JUICE (Packet Ham), Saint Sappho (In Your Hands), SHEARS (I Look at You (It’s Over)), Cortnë (Angel), Carla J Easton (Blooming 4U), and Declan Welsh & The Decadent West (First To Know), just in time for them to open the TRNSMT main stage. If this treasure trove is a bit too massive to plunder by yourself, you can find a lot of these gems on our Music Now playlist on Spotify.

Back to the present, Current Affairs drop Off the Tongue on 14 July via Tough Love Records. The aptly-named tastemakers take the scathing social commentary of punk, and stitch it to a resurrected, goth-rock sound. Joan Sweeney has a voice like an energetic revolutionary, shouting lines about the fragmentation of the left, criticising the state of things while still offering friendship, solidarity, and hardcore tunes. Tireless guitar solos and drumbeats showcase strenuous practice on behalf of the band, while still sounding disruptive and who-gives-a-fuck. Their ethos is stated across track titles – Reactor; Riled; Get Wrecked.

When we shone our spotlight on Carsick Charlie back in January, Joseph Innes was embarking on an ambitious tour on the back of only one (very good) single. An emergent artist with such momentum is exciting, and his inaugural EP Angel (28 Jul) has been worth the anticipation. Masterful guitar work and hauntingly beautiful vocal performances might pull listeners back in time to a transcendent place of nostalgia and longing. Carsick Charlie is unlikely to make you as nauseous as the sobriquet suggests, but the cloudy, heartbreaking world constructed in these songs might bring a tear to your eye.

On the same day, Last Night From Glasgow introduce their newest act BRENDA with an eponymous album so slick with post-punk splendour you might mistake it for an authentic 80s artefact. Poppy backing vocals, danceable synths, and confrontational-yet-cool lyricism can be found across the record, and these virtues are sure to be in ample supply on the night of their album launch at The Glad Cafe (28 Jul), with support from Casual Worker. Litty Hughes, Apsi Witana and Flore de Hooge are the three component parts of BRENDA, which they describe as: “Every woman you have ever met, seen, heard, loved, lost.” Having met, seen, heard and loved this band’s debut release, we sure hope we don’t lose BRENDA any time soon.

BRENDA. Credit: Teddy Coste

Deadbeat (28 Jul), the new EP by Alice Faye, pulls from a different kind of historical genre. Faye’s mighty voice, with a classic piano accompaniment, brings to mind music hall or variety ballads, depicting romantic tales with a more modern dimension than her early 20th century influences. The line 'I don't want you / But I don't want you to be alone' from Slice of Me characterises the conflicting feelings that give the record its complexity. While her songs sound like they might come from the brassy depths of an ornate phonograph, we think they might play even better from the stage at Glasgow’s Mono, on 8 September.

Throughout the month, keep an eye out for Otherworld, the debut album from Celestial North (7 Jul), which serves up angelic vocals and ephemeral dance hits. Lomond Campbell’s Interference Patterns (28 Jul) triumphs in its intricate techno soundscapes, and on the same day, you can catch some cerebral compositions in Dot Allison’s Consciousology, a record which showcases the seasoned Scottish singer’s electronic and acoustic expertise. In A Dream of Love (Jul 19), Maxwell Weaver leaps between music decades past with a jazzy, big-band sparkle, and In My Mind There’s a Room (21 Jul) by Mull Historical Society features written contributions from authors Ian Rankin, Jacqueline Wilson, and Scottish poet laureates Liz Lochhead and Jackie Kay. On the 26th, Swiss Portrait gives us The Crippling Pain of Happiness, where the composer’s dreampop sensibilities open the gate for discussions of mental health and isolation over lockdown.

Other releases include Where The Clouds Go Swimming (14 Jul) by Joe McAlinden, and elsewhere on the site you'll find a full review for Meursault’s self-titled sixth studio album. For July’s shorter listens, check out EPs 520 by Ant Thomaz (7 Jul) and Know Enough to Get By by Stuffed Animals (7 Jul), or there's new single Rest and Be Thankful from Edinburgh five-piece waverley. (19 Jul).