The SAY Award: 2022 Longlist announced

The eleventh annual Scottish Album of the Year Award (aka The SAY Award) is set to take place this autumn for the first time in Stirling, where it will take over the city’s beautiful Albert Halls on 20 October. On the night, one artist will be awarded the title of Scottish Album of the Year following a process which began on 1 July when album submissions opened. 

With 369 eligible albums put forward for the award this year, 100 impartial music industry nominators have now helped whittle that list down to just 20 albums which make up the longlist. Covering everything from folk and trad to jazz, R'n'B, hip-hop, chamber pop and more, this year's longlist also features a good mix of old and new names; nine newcomers are up for the award this year, with 11 returning artists, including one former winner, back in the running for the £20,000 prize.

Among the newcomers up for the 2022 award are Edinburgh singer-songwriter Annie Booth, for her stunning second album, Lazybody, released on the Last Night From Glasgow label on 19 November last year. Meanwhile, fellow Edinburgher Hamish Hawk has also been longlisted for his most assured record to date, Heavy Elevator, which topped our The Skinny's Scottish Albums of 2021 writers' poll. 

From solo singer-songwriters to a whole host of them, all female and non-binary collective Hen Hoose are up for the award this year for their debut, Equaliser. The album includes contributions from the likes of Carla J. Easton, AMUNDA, MALKA, Karine Polwart, Emma Pollock, Elisabeth Elektra, Susan Bear and the late Beldina Odenyo. Welcoming their nomination, Hen Hoose say: “It is an absolute honour to have been Longlisted for the SAY Award this year. Equaliser has been a real labour of love. It has brought together likeminded individuals with a common goal, created a wonderful supportive community and it has given us an opportunity to showcase the talented women and non-binary writers and producers based here in Scotland."

Stirling’s ambient neo-folk outfit Constant Follower have also landed a spot on the longlist for their debut album, Neither Is, Nor Ever Was, released last October via Shimmy-Disc and Joyful Noise Recordings, while Duncan Lyall’s Milestone – a record which has already received a nomination for the 2021 Scots Trad Music Awards – is up for The SAY Award too. Glasgow’s Walt Disco are nominated for their debut album Unlearning, which we described earlier this year as “gritty, melodramatic and a little bit batshit”, while Edinburgh producer Proc Fiskal is in the running for his second album, Siren Spine Sysex; we cited "the scale and depth of emotion he wrings from" the album's "wonky and chaotic rhythms" as "the record’s greatest achievement”.

A couple of jazz-focused records round out the list of new nominees for 2022. Seonaid Aitken is nominated for Chasing Sakura, a record originally commissioned by the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival in 2021, alongside Rebecca Vasmant’s With Love, From Glasgow. Vasmant says: "I have watched in awe, for many years, the artists who have come through the SAY each year, and always dreamed of one day, making my own album and it being considered, and now that it’s here, it feels absolutely crazy. This all feels like a wonderful dream, and I have the amazing musicians who played on the album, who have now become family, to thank first and foremost. I’m wholeheartedly honoured, happy, and as I always say – BUZZING!"

Previous SAY Award nominees back in the running for 2022 include Aberdeen R'n'B singer-songwriter AiiTee, Glasgow-based Ayrshire rapper Bemz, Edinburgh musical polymath Callum Easter, Glasgow's politically-fuelled Declan Welsh and the Decadent West, Glasgow-based hip-hop artist and producer Kobi Onyame and the Isle of Skye's trad-electro fusion outfit Niteworks, who all receive their second nominations. Scottish producer and composer Andrew Wasylyk, Mercury Prize-nominated jazz pianist Fergus McCreadie, singer-songwriter and self-professed witch Kathryn Joseph and Glasgow goth-pop outfit The Ninth Wave have all been nominated for a third time, while chamber-pop artist C Duncan's latest album Alluvium sees him nominated for a fourth time. 

The SAY Award's Creative Director Robert Kilpatrick says: "As Scotland’s national music prize, The SAY Award exists to celebrate the cultural impact and contribution of our nation’s recorded output. 2022’s Longlist presents a dynamic and diverse collection of albums which spans multiple genres and showcases both established and rising talent from across the country. Despite the turbulence of recent times, the enduring impact and resonance of the album format remains. As vehicles of both self-discovery and connection with others, their power to ground, inspire and unite us is perhaps more important than ever."

The shortlist for The SAY Award 2022 will be announced on 6 Oct, following a three-day public vote from 3-5 Oct from which music fans will elect one of the longlisted artists directly to the shortlist. Read the full longlist for this year's SAY Award below. As well as the main Scottish Album of the Year Award, two other awards will also be given out at the ceremony in Stirling on 20 October. The Modern Scottish Classic Award is voted for by this year's shortlisted artists, and the Sound of Young Scotland offers prize money and support to an artist at the beginning of their career; the inaugural awards in 2021 went to Frightened Rabbit's The Midnight Organ Fight and LVRA respectively.

The SAY Award 2022 Longlist

AiiTee – Better Days
Andrew Wasylyk – Balgay Hill: Morning In Magnolia
Annie Booth – Lazybody
Bemz – M4
C Duncan – Alluvium
Callum Easter – System
Constant Follower – Neither Is, Nor Ever Was
Declan Welsh and the Decadent West – It’s Been a Year
Duncan Lyall – Milestone
Fergus McCreadie – Forest Floor
Hamish Hawk – Heavy Elevator
Hen Hoose – Equaliser
Kathryn Joseph – for you who are the wronged
Kobi Onyame – Don’t Drink the Poison
The Ninth Wave – Heavy Like a Headache
Niteworks – A’Ghrian
Proc Fiskal – Siren Spine Sysex
Rebecca Vasmant – With Love, From Glasgow
Seonaid Aitken – Chasing Sakura
Walt Disco – Unlearning

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The SAY Award ceremony takes place at The Albert Halls, Stirling, 20 Oct

sayaward.com