The Skinny's Scottish Albums of 2024

#10 Andrew Wasylyk & Tommy Perman – Ash Grey and the Gull Glides On
[Clay Pipe Music, 30 Aug]
Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman's debut collaborative record, here’s what we said upon the album’s release earlier in the year: "The Tay estuary, situated on Scotland’s east coast, may not quite be as luscious as the Mediterranean. But through the imaginative minds of Dundee-based creatives Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman, anything is possible. […] Hopeful, forward-thinking and brimming with imagination, the Tay estuary could be paradise with this as its soundtrack."

#9 Becky Sikasa – The Writings and the Pictures and the Song
[Self-released, 8 Mar]
The Writings and the Pictures and the Song saw Becky Sikasa receive consecutive shortlist nominations for the Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award. It’s yet another bold work of tender heart-on-sleeve soul as she tackles love in all its many forms: romance, friendship and self-love. As we type this, Sikasa is just finishing her German tour before heading off on a few dates with the one and only Nile Rodgers. She’s got a bright future for sure.

#8 Savage Mansion – The Shakes
[Lost Map Records, 16 Feb]
Glasgow outfit Savage Mansion's fourth album since 2019 is their most authentic yet, brimming with catchy choruses that linger in the memory for days. It saddens us then that before playing recent shows at The Hug & Pint they announced that they might be their last shows for a while… let’s hope that album closer The Second Life, “a sad song about a relationship that has to end even though neither party wants it to,” wasn’t a forewarning.

#7 Malin Lewis – Halocline
[Hudson Records, 3 May]
Named after the visible layer of water formed between saltwater and freshwater, Skye bagpiper, fiddler, instrument maker and composer Malin Lewis released the SAY Award-nominated Halocline back in May. They said: “As a trans person, I inhabit a similar in-between space, rich with its own vibrant and colourful culture [...] From childhood, I envisioned sounds that conveyed the joy, intrigue and queerness of the world; Halocline offers a glimpse into this lifelong pursuit of expression.”

#6 Clarissa Connelly – World of Work
[Warp Records, 12 Apr]
Scotland-born, Denmark-based Clarissa Connelly captured the ears of our writers this year with her third album – and first on Warp Records – World of Work. Inspired by French Philosopher Georges Bataille’s L’érotisme, it fuses together Nordic folk song, Celtic myth, medieval grimoires, modern pop and experimental composition as Connelly explores its two main characters of ‘work’ and ‘desire’.

#5 Walt Disco – The Warping
[Lucky Number, 14 Jun]
Almost exactly two years on from releasing their debut album, Glasgow’s Walt Disco returned with the ultra catchy, disco-fuelled You Make Me Feel So Dumb, the lead single from their sophomore record The Warping. Here’s what we said about the album: “Where the ultra-glam outfit’s previous Unlearning personified the panache of a West End musical, The Warping dances about in time and place.”

#4 Hamish Hawk – A Firmer Hand
[SO Recordings, 16 Aug]
Released after the cut-off for the 2024 SAY Award, Hamish Hawk’s latest LP A Firmer Hand will no doubt follow in the footsteps of his last two records, so expect to see it up for the award in 2025. Here’s what we said earlier in the year: “A Firmer Hand is an album in which Hawk daringly takes a searchlight to the complexities of the relationships with men in his life and, by extension, to the complexities within himself. The result is dazzling."

#3 rEDOLENT – dinny greet
[Post Electric, 17 May]
Beating Mercury Prize-nominated artists like Barry Can't Swim and corto.alto, rEDOLENT's long in the making debut album dinny greet was this year's surprise winner of The SAY Award. Combining impeccable drumming, tumbling electronic motifs and Robin Herbert’s unique pogoing vocal as he pieces together snapshots of his life, from debilitating mental health issues to teenage misadventure, dinny greet was a breath of fresh air in the Scottish release calendar.

#2 Arab Strap – I’m Totally Fine With It Don’t Give a Fuck Anymore
[Rock Action, 10 May]
Shortlisted for the 2024 SAY Award, I’m Totally Fine With It Don’t Give a Fuck Anymore was the Glasgow duo’s eighth studio album, despite how Aidan Moffat feels about it. “As soon as we started this it felt like album two. It definitely feels like a fresh start from where we used to be.” According to Moffat, it’s a record “about the difference between a tangible world and intangible world and which one you choose to believe and engage with.”

#1 TAAHLIAH – Gramarye
[untitled (recs), 18 Oct]
On Gramarye, Glasgow artist TAAHLIAH shows true artistic maturity as she blends glamour, emotion, and vulnerability through pop-driven motifs. When we spoke to her, she said: “The message I want to get across is that what I’ve been through has made me the person that I am today – and that’s someone I really like. The lyric at the end of [the] outro song [Holding On / Let Me Go] – ‘And I’ll keep holding on even if you let me go’ – is not holding on to that person or that relationship, it’s more about holding on to yourself, understanding who you are and taking that forth into wherever you go.” Wherever TAAHLIAH goes next, we’re excited for it.