SAY Award 2017: Shortlist revealed
The ten albums on the shortlist for the 2017 Scottish Album of the Year Award have been revealed ahead of this year's ceremony
Strike A Match, the debut album from Glasgow/London duo Sacred Paws earns a place on the shortlist, as do the sophomore albums from Honeyblood (Babes Never Die) and C Duncan (The Midnight Sun). There are also nominations for Here’s My Heart Come Take It by singer-songwriter Rachel Newton; I Will Kill Again, the latest album from Meursault; RM Hubbert's highly collaborative Telling the Trees; and Mogwai's soundtrack for Mark Cousins' nuclear history documentary Atomic. At the more experimental end of the scale, there are shortlist nods for Polish-born, Glasgow-based composer Ela Orleans for her album Circles of Upper and Lower Hell, and Konx-Om-Pax's new album Caramel.
Future Echoes, the latest album from Pictish Trail (aka Johnny Lynch of Lost Map records), won this year's public vote to complete the 2017 shortlist. Lynch said: "Wow. Surprised, confused, humbled and mildly aroused to have won the popular vote for the Scottish Album Of The Year Shortlist. Thank you to all those that voted for Future Echoes, and to all those who forgot to vote but who would have voted for a different album. I couldn’t have done it without you."
Read the full list of nominees, and listen to each of this year's shortlist albums, below.
The SAY Award winner will receive a cash prize of £20,000 and each of the other shortlisted artists will receive £1,000. Each shortlisted nominee will also receive a unique SAY Award designed and produced by the winner of the SAY Design Commission; a prize supported by Renfrewshire Council’s new business investment hub InCube to create the awards for the shortlisted artists.
This year's SAY Award judging panel includes writer and broadcaster Stuart Cosgrove, Roland Gulliver of Edinburgh International Book Festival, Caroline Winn of the biennial Glasgow International art festival, author Amy Liptrot, and The Skinny's music editor Tallah Brash. The winner of the SAY Award 2017 will be announced at an award ceremony at Paisley Town Hall on 28 Jun.
The SAY Award 2017 shortlist:
C Duncan – The Midnight Sun
Ela Orleans – Circles of Upper and Lower Hell
Honeyblood – Babes Never Die
Konx-Om-Pax – Caramel
Meursault – I Will Kill Again
Mogwai – Atomic
Pictish Trail – Future Echoes
Rachel Newton – Here’s My Heart Come Take It
RM Hubbert – Telling the Trees
Sacred Paws – Strike a Match