Scottish New Music Round-up: March 2024
March into March with excellent new music from Stephanie Lamprea, Dancer, Siobhan Wilson, EYVE and more
We didn’t miss much in February’s issue – only the comeback of the century from Glasgow alt-pop three-piece LYLO! Coming out of a six-year hiatus, the band reappear with swanky new single Hush from their upcoming third album Thoughts of Never. The chorus of this track was written and performed by Esmé Dee Hand-Halford of The Orielles – the first of many collaborations to come on this glistening new record. Read our Spotlight On… with drummer Justin Allan to dig deeper into this long-awaited return.
February also brought in a slew of gorgeous EPs from Lacuna (Greenhouse Baby), SHEARS (Now We're Getting Somewhere) and Anna Secret Poet (Psychogeography), alongside singles from Bikini Body (Mr. Tinnitus), Gallus (Wash Your Wounds), Junk Pups (Trophy Wife), Possibly Jamie (Love, to all my boyfriends), Dara Dubh (My Raincloud), Sludge Gloom (Havisham), Ben Chatwin (Sawtooth), Sister Madds (Here We Go Again), Pleasure Trail (Is It Not Safer In The City?) and tonnes more.
The month of March kicks off with an otherworldly collaboration between Glasgow-based Colombian-American soprano Stephanie Lamprea and composer Tom W. Green, titled Don’t Add To Heartache (1 Mar). Commissioned by Edinburgh arts organisation Hidden Door, this album is an impassioned exploration of sound, space, and the relationship between nature and humanity. On the opening track We come into the world…, Lamprea sets the scene with a swooping drone, over which she layers gorgeous falsetto embellishments and a robotic monologue in which she describes an Edenic world. The near ten-minute Imprints of our Botanizing is an animalistic adventure – a symphony of sporadic gasps and rasping exhalations; kookaburra-esque vocal pitching and toad-like organ croaks; intermittent static and excitable synthwork.
Complementing the immersive foley work on tracks like Udaviti Se and Inversnaid is the avant-garde instrumentation from flautist Richard Craig, saxophonist Richard Scholfield and violist Katherine Wren – a compelling trio who pile on the atmosphere in spades. Top to bottom, Don’t Add To Heartache is a fiercely inventive body of work that urges listeners to consider their relationship with nature in an increasingly artificial world.
Dancer. Photo: Anthony Gerace
Moving further into the month, Glasgow post-punks Dancer offer up their debut album 10 Songs I Hate About You via Madrid label Meritorio (15 Mar). The lead single from this release, Passionate Sunday, is a woozy twee ballad about being absolutely skint but still finding ways to let your hair down. The raw, rattly bass from Andrew Doig; chirpy guitar sounds from Chris Taylor; punchy drums from Gavin Murdoch and matter-of-fact vocals from Gemma Fleet (Current Affairs) come together to build a delicious sonic palette. With titles like When I Was a Teenage Horse and International Birdman cropping up across the record, it’s kind of impossible not to be intrigued by this off-kilter bunch.
On the same day, Elgin native Siobhan Wilson releases Flowercore Vol.1 via Olive Grove Records and her own Sufrecs label, the first instalment of the Flowercore double-album. This introductory half of the project feels like the first breath of spring in the Scottish moors, the score emanating from the heather-covered hills as a highland calf awakes and shudders off the cold morning dew. Even without the overt Scottishness of Wilson’s rendition of Floors O’ The Forest with Ross Ainslie on the bagpipes, this album is a meticulously crafted love letter to Caledonia, its enchanting fauna and magical allure.
Ghost Pipe Flowers completely encapsulates the deep mysticism of Scotland, with Wilson’s spectral vocals dancing on a bed of twinkling glockenspiel and powerful strings. Clovers White is another highlight, beautifully dynamic and cinematic to its core – a delicate and slightly spooky tune that wouldn’t sound out of place on the Coraline soundtrack.
The following week sees the release of Sista! Beyond the Sky isn’t the Limit (20 Mar), the second EP from Glasgow-based Zimbabwean singer-songwriter-rapper EYVE. EYVE’s vocal delivery on the lead single Um, Indecisive is guttural, taking no prisoners each time that glorious chorus hook comes back around. Tracks like Gotta go (to Therapy) are steeped in themes of self-discovery, a driving desire to abandon toxicity and embrace a chosen family. EYVE says that the ballroom scene is where she “found family in Glasgow”, and the ballroom ethos of unapologetic self-expression is certainly carried throughout the EP in tracks like But baby that's your cure, alongside noughties R'n'B influences on tracks like Can’t Touch This and Fantasise My Heart.
Other exciting releases include the second album from Dundonian synth-pop savants Echo Machine (Accidental Euphoria, 15 Mar), Joesef’s Permanent Damage (Live at 45) (16 Mar) – the stunning live edition of the Glasgow alt-pop heartthrob’s critically acclaimed debut album – the second part of Union of Knives’ double-album release Start From the Endless (19 Mar), and Glasgow Eyes from The Jesus and Mary Chain (turn back a page for more on that). You can also expect a plethora of singles from the likes of Midnight Bike Rides (Cape Horn, 1 Mar), Oyakhire (Bad & Good, 8 Mar), Finn Layers (Late Stage Capitalism, 11 Mar), Scunnurt (Lemon Tree, 14 Mar), Amateur Cult (Eyes, 14 Mar) and Jane Francis (Reborn & Grown, 29 Mar).
Listen to our Music Now: New Scottish Music playlist in the player above – follow on Spotify, updated every Friday