Scottish New Music Round-up: March 2026

Before we get into March, last month we missed another plant-based record from Brian d’Souza, aka Auntie Flo, with Sunflowers coming out on limited edition cassette tape via Music to Watch Seeds Grow By. And at the end of the month, Glasgow alt-rock five-piece Sister Madds released Are You Hungry? There was also a glut of singles from the likes of Day Sleeper, Lizzie Reid x Hamish Hawk, Carla J. Easton, Broken Chanter, Kohla, pedalo, Azamiah, rahul.mp3, San Jose and Lucia & The Best Boys x Lauren Mayberry.

On 13 March, The Foot & Leg Clinic (fka The Wife Guys of Reddit) return with Sit Up For Rock and Roll via Bingo Records, which sees the four-piece doing things differently as they've been forced to slow down. Bringing together myriad facets of slacker indie, angular art-rock, psych, baroque and more, the band told us “it's an album shaped by change on a personal and societal level... There are songs about the bad insurancemen burning down Glasgow's listed buildings, childhood friends, the allure of the endangered craftsperson, and how to reckon with artistry in a body that doesn't feel like yours anymore.”

Overflowing with ideas, you’ll find loads of inspiration coming from Welsh bands like The Bug Club across its 13 tracks, which flit between wonky, boisterous, tender and silly ('Wriggle, wriggle') with elastic guitar lines, rubbery basslines and fuzzed-out walls of sound that surprise and delight in equal measure. With its rich instrumentation, and restless nature, it’s an album with a twinkle in its eye that will keep you on your toes and make you ‘stand up, sit down for rock and roll.’

On 6 March, experimental jazz and skronk outfit Taupe return with waxing | waning. Out via Minority Records, it states its case early with the mind-bending Lemonade Tycoon, a five-minute assault of drums, guitar, bass, electronics and sax that expertly jostle with one another, always feeling dangerously close to falling into a pile of limbs on the floor. As the album evolves it continues to stretch out of shape in unexpected, often unnerving ways, like a pure wool jumper you’ve accidentally put through the wash feels tight, scratchy and uncomfortable, although you still want to wear it.

A couple of weeks later, Edinburgh-based singer-songwriter Étain wears her heart on her sleeve on The Well (20 Mar). Written over the course of a ten-year period, from her teenage years in County Leitrim to her life in Scotland now, there’s a delicate vulnerability to be found across its 12 tracks that, amongst other things, explore relationships, independence, writer’s block, nostalgia and more, culminating in Is Do Ghrá, the first song Étain wrote in Irish as a teenager.

On 13 March, Glasgow dream pop outfit Dayydream release Trace via No Soap, and seconds into opener Every Time feels like being lulled into the sweetest of daydreams; the rich, glowing instrumentation takes its time, lingering, it seeps into your skin slowly like moisturiser, and then Chloe Trappes’ vocals kick in: ‘I would swim across / Any sea, anywhere / If you asked / I would, I swear’ and there’s such emotional heft in her crushing delivery, you’re locked in for the 24-minute runtime. Nothing here is complicated, but everything feels intentional and is astoundingly beautiful – even the way the album peaks in the middle on the more shoegaze-y Proximity feels considered, making the record feel remarkably cohesive.

On their debut EP, Epeepee (20 Mar), Glasgow’s premier Cowboy Hunters have more than a few ideas on how to solve all your problems amid the state of, well, everything. Sounding fed up and furious, across its five tracks the punk pair ‘need money for drugs’, demand that you ‘shag slags not flags’, ‘serve cunt not countries’ and invite you to ‘get cunted’ over a pint, or five with them in the face of everything being ‘fucked’. It’s a full throttle, high energy assault that’ll make you laugh, despair and want to go set something on fire.

The following week, genre chameleons Clay Rings release Day After Day (27 Mar). Its four tracks offer up playful indie, a zombie hoedown and a bossa nova alt-indie Scottish Hinds cut, while on the title track, dreamy arpeggiated guitar lines rise and fall in the song's first half, but by the end it unexpectedly transforms into an almost Pink Floyd-esque psych number, with big fuzzed out guitars, providing a great showcase of Eve Scrimger’s vocals as they change from emotional and tender to wailing in the blink of an eye.

Also this month seek out All Inclusive (26 Mar), the debut EP from Grow Up. Setting you up for what to expect with its opening rhyming couplets, ‘Holding hands in the park, dance like dickheads in the dark / Overthinking in my head / Watch Below Deck in a bed,’ All Inclusive is wordy, impatient, threaded with humour and ultimately bags full of fun. There are also albums due this month from Brian Molley and Kyle Falconer as well as EPs from Julia’s Bureau and Niamh Corkey, with singles expected from SHHE, Bottle Rockets, Pippa Blundell, Juan Laforet, Sports Frock, Flair and more.