Scottish New Music Round-up: November 2022

October was an absolute ride of a month for Scottish music. Following on from releasing I Saw and announcing their forthcoming album, Heavy Heavy, due next February, Young Fathers briefly broke the internet when pre-sales went live for their 2023 Glasgow show, with seemingly all tickets disappearing within about two minutes. After a brief panic in the office, tickets were secured by many of us, and we were finally able to get on with our day. Phew!

As well as new music from YF, October brought a new project from CHVRCHES’ Iain Cook and Sons and Daughters’ Scott Paterson, who together are Protection, released debut single Still Love You. Dundee producer CUTLIST released Almanac, his debut album of ambient, downtempo techno, and Ian Humberstone released his new album Black Water. Plus there were a whole gaggle of singles from the likes of Billy Got Waves (Slow 10’s & 9’s), Rosie H Sullivan (What a Life), Susy K (Keep On Going), Hound (Take Off), Post Coal Prom Queen (Free Radio Phobos), Hampi (Devil’s Moon), Maria Saraiva (Send a Sign) and Dutch Wine (April).

For November, the release that's stuck with us the most is Alliyah Enyo’s staggeringly beautiful Echo’s Disintegration. Originally birthed as a live recording at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Edinburgh in 2021, the live recording of which acts as the record’s B-side, there has been no loss to the feeling of ethereal grandeur by taking its five tracks inside the walls of Glasgow’s Green Door Studio. Reel-to-reel tape loops provide a quality hard to capture nowadays in recordings; fractured vocals, warm echoes, a comforting sense of being present.

Alliyah Enyo by Miriam Cradock

Despite there being no discernible lyrics across the album, the pain and loss you can feel in Enyo’s vocal play is remarkable, making the album's closer – the gorgeous and captivating The Healer (reworked by Naafi) – all the more effective in its bid to offer closure on a period of Enyo’s life that, merely from listening to these works, feels like it’s been a lot. The eventual gut-punching beat of the song is a giddy and much-needed reminder that life goes on and with time comes healing. Due on 4 November via Somewhere Between Tapes, Echo's Disintegration is an absolute masterstroke of a record which demands your undivided attention.

While The Healer might offer closure for Enyo on Echo’s Disintegration, Hailey Beavis’s entire debut album does the same for her, offering the letting go of seven year’s worth of weight. Due on 4 November via OK Pal Records, on I'll Put You Where the Trombone Slides, Beavis beautifully bottles memories of people, love and pain, ultimately giving her the power to open them up when she wants – or she can screw the cap on tightly and chuck them in her bag for later, avoiding leaks.

Storytelling is a key feature of Beavis's music, but her greatest power is her all-at-once folk/country/pop chops, and the way she's able to adapt her voice, chameleon-like, to the mood of each song. From the fist-in-the-air anthemic opener Anything That Shines, to the more vulnerable and pained New Heat, I'll Put You Where the Trombone Slides is as glorious as the metallic leggings she wears in her press photos.

On the same day, Lomond Campbell releases his latest album via One Little Independent Records. Under This Hunger Moon We Fell is the final instalment in Campbell’s tape loops series. Each of its ten tracks were created starting with 140 tape loops – taken from his previous Lost Loops album – stacked in a multi-track project to be whittled down until something vaguely musical came to the fore. The result is an atmospheric body of work as dramatic and fantasmagorical as the winter Hunger Moon of the title.

For the most part instrumental, that Campbell has created music so vivid in the imagery it conjures is astounding. Phonon for No One somehow evokes heavy clouds clambering down mountainsides, while in the delicate piano of Sister Rena you can feel those clouds dissipate. The Mountain and the Pendulum offers up the kind of cathartic release Jon Hopkins is so good at capturing in dance music, but also leans into the squelchy rhythmic plod that Anna Meredith is a master at exploring. What's more, repeat listens always offer something new on this beautifully cinematic record.

In the November issue you'll find reviews for our album of the month, Andrew Wasylyk’s Hearing the Water Before Seeing the Falls, as well as Kapil Seshasayee’s Laal. Also this month, bis release Systems Music For Home Defence (18 Nov), while Romanian-born, Scotland-based singer-songwriter Lizabett Russo releases While I sit and watch this tree, volume 2 (4 Nov). Michael Timmons is back with the more experimental Pastel EP (18 Nov) and Rachel Jack releases Grief is the Price (11 Nov), while debut EPs come from Kilgour (So Far, 5 Nov), Russell Stewart (Into View, 18 Nov), Humour (Pure Misery, 25 Nov) and No Windows (Fishboy, 25 Nov). There are also new singles from Megan Black (Just For Fun, 4 Nov), Zoë Bestel (Utopia, 11 Nov), Josephine Sillars (Spend Time Wasting, 18 Nov), Teose (Do You Miss Me?, 18 Nov) and more.