Scottish New Music Round-up: September 2024
Summer is over and September is overwhelming for new Scottish music. We celebrate releases from Hen Hoose, Joe Hearty, LUSA, Zerrin and more!
There's so much happening this month, we've no space to tell you what we missed last month, soz. Across the website you’ll find complete thoughts on new September releases from Nina Nesbitt and Gurry Wurry, while the posthumous album from SOPHIE is honoured in the September issue. Below, I’ll cover as much of everything else as I can, which, dear reader, is A LOT!
A real treat to help kick off the autumn season is EP2 from songwriting collective Hen Hoose. Due on 5 September, it’s the second release in a three-part series that features collaborative works from Karine Polwart and The Anchoress, Susan Bear and Jill Lorean, and Nightwave and SHEARS among others. The following day, there's a lot coming out. Joe Hearty – formerly of Stonehaven’s finest, Copy Haho – releases his brand new EP, Antenna. Calling to mind artists like Jens Lekman, jaunty piano lines, bright synths, and strings are perfectly paired with Hearty’s rich timbre as he “explores the embodied experience of navigating queer life” across its seven tracks.
LUSA is the new project from Niteworks’ Innes Strachan. Alongside Beth Malcolm, Donald Macdonald and Ruairidh Graham, the quartet release their debut album, The Colour of Space. A sidestep from the Gaelic-electro of Niteworks, but its influence can still be heard on this record that explores different nooks and crannies of dance music, still sounding very much rooted in Scotland.
It’s hard to ignore a record that includes your namesake in its tracklist (hello Talla Reservoir!), and so we haven’t. The debut instrumental album from guitarist Christopher Haddow, An Unexpected Giant Leap is a real work of depth and beauty, and a masterclass in spaciousness and shapeshifting. Due via Errol’s Hot Wax, it’s chock-full of surprising left turns; the way the title track flickers, blips and swells is bliss. Open Wider the Door from Boab is similarly surprising. The new solo project from Sweaty Palms frontman Robbie Houston sees technical precision take a backseat to raw emotion for a record of true vulnerability and introspection. Filled with lots of interesting flourishes, and deeply affecting moments, it's guaranteed you’ve never heard Houston sound like this before.
Still on the 6th, led by Czech-born guitarist-composer Honza Kourimsky, Edinburgh jazz outfit Mahuki release their debut album Gratitude (Bridge the Gap), Broken Records frontman Jamie Sutherland releases his second solo album, the deeply personal The World As It Used To Be (Frictionless Records), and Glasgow singer-songwriter Murdo Mitchell releases Cheap Hotels (Drabant / Sony Music Norway).
Image credit: Laura Prieto
From one solo project to another, on 13 September Damn Teeth and Thin Privilege frontman Paul McArthur releases his self-titled debut solo record as Praise Team. Inspired by memory and growing up on the west coast of Scotland, Praise Team (Diminishing Returns Records) is an accomplished record of intrigue, written and constructed on the hoof in the studio, with McArthur on every instrument. Leave No Shadow, the debut solo record from Modern Studies’ Emily Scott as Chrysanths also arrives 13 Sep on Chemikal Underground. Swirling string arrangements, meandering drums, delicate, twisting piano lines and Scott’s crystalline voice come together like a romantic daydream, albeit one built in reality where sadness also has its place.
For a mostly instrumental record, Proximity Mantra, the debut from The New Human (Bricolage), also manages to convey a lot of emotion and heart across its ten tracks, very much rooted in the nostalgia of 90s and 00s IDM. Fresh from a move to Edinburgh from the States, indie-pop artist Alas de Liona is introspective on the Rod Jones-produced Gravity of Gold. There’s the debut self-titled record from Martin John Henry's new project Jewel Scheme (Gargleblast), and Lost Map’s Pictish Trail releases Follow Footsteps featuring Summer Redux versions of three tracks from 2022’s Island Family.
18 September brings us Talking to Myself, the latest chamber pop-indebted EP from Glasgow-based Australian musician Zerrin. There’s a level of intimacy to Zerrin’s music; similar to the way Mitski pulls you in closer, so too does Zerrin. With astonishing control, these four tracks cautiously duck and dive, soar and twist as she tackles topics like self-preservation and grief with meticulous precision.
The end of the month brings the debut album Umbelliferæ (27 Sep) from composer and songwriter Kate Young. Beginning its life as a commission for Celtic Connections, the record is inspired by plantlore and the ancient medicinal uses of wildflowers in the British Isles. Its 12 tracks were guided by Young’s chromesthesia, where she can experience colour in sound, making for a unique collage of style as, alongside a string quartet, she traverses chamber music, folk, indie-pop and even Bulgarian folk song.
Other releases to look out for this month include Astrid WIlliamson’s Shetland Suite (Incarnation Records) and Erland Cooper’s Carve the Runes Then Be Content With Silence (Mercury KX/Decca), both due on 20 September. Morven and the McArdles’ Red & Black EP arrives on the 22nd, while strobe light specimens from Edinburgh-based "queer club chameleon" sweet philly (Paradise Palms Records) is due on the 27th. There are also new singles from Katherine Aly, Moni Jitchell, Theo Bleak, Josephine Sillars, Thundermoon, Saint Sappho, Possibly Jamie, NATI. and Constant Follower to name but a few, and we’re sure a lot more will come to light as the month rolls on.
Listen to our Music Now: New Scottish Music playlist in the player above – follow on Spotify, updated every Friday