Published: 24 May 2017
Twenty outstanding Scottish albums were unveiled tonight as The Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award Longlist to a crowd of eager music fans at the O₂ ABC in Glasgow. Now in its sixth year, The SAY Award is Scotland’s most popular and prestigious music prize, boasting a lucrative £20,000 prize for the winner and nine runners-up prizes of £1,000 each.
‘Live at the Longlist’, a new ticketed event introduced to this year’s SAY Award campaign, saw music fans from across the country gather to enjoy exceptional live sets from previously Longlisted acts Steve Mason, Admiral Fallow and Mungo’s Hi Fi. As the expectant audience held its breath, respected journalist and broadcaster Nicola Meighan announced The SAY Award Longlist for 2017, with all twenty albums showcasing the extraordinary strength and diversity of Scotland's musical output.
The SAY Award 2017 Longlist is as follows (in alphabetical order):
The public can listen to and learn more about each album on The SAY Award Longlist by visiting www.sayaward.com where there will be two featured albums every day from Monday 29 May.
Chosen from almost 300 eligible albums, the 20 strong Longlist was narrowed down by 100 impartial industry 'Nominators'. The Longlist will be whittled down to a shortlist of 10 - one chosen by the public via a 72-hour online vote (12-14 June) and the other 9 chosen by an independent panel of judges (see Notes for Editors for full list of judges).
The SAY Award Shortlist will be announced on 15 June as part of a special BBC Radio Scotland Quay Sessions, before the award ceremony itself takes place on 28 June in the elegant surroundings of Paisley Town Hall in support of Paisley’s bid to become UK City of Culture 2021. The winning artist will pick up a £20,000 cash prize - provided by long-term Award partner Creative Scotland - with the nine runners-up each receiving £1,000. All ten shortlisted artists will also be awarded an exclusively designed artwork created by the winner of The SAY Design Commission.
The SAY Award is produced by the Scottish Music Industry Association (SMIA), in partnership with Paisley for UK City of Culture 2021, Creative Scotland, Black Bottle, TicketWeb and PPL. The award, which was launched in 2012, celebrates, promotes and rewards the most outstanding Scottish albums released each year. Respected by artists and valued by the industry, The SAY Award is responsible for a surge in musical discovery and an explosion of impassioned debate on social media.Previous SAY Award winners are Anna Meredith (2016), Kathryn Joseph (2015), Young Fathers (2014), RM Hubbert (2013) and Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat (2012).
Robert Kilpatrick, Projects and Operations Manager, Scottish Music Industry Association (SMIA), said: “What an incredibly strong, diverse and important list of contemporary Scottish records, all being championed and celebrated through The SAY Award. The announcement of The Longlist is one of the most exciting parts of The SAY Award campaign, and is without doubt when the award is at its most potent. It was great to introduce ‘Live at the Longlist’ this year to allow fans to come along and join us in celebrating the successes of 20 outstanding Scottish albums. Those attending got to hear some great live music from three homegrown and previously long-listed acts. On behalf of the Scottish Music Industry Association, I’d like to congratulate all of this year’s long-listed artists on fantastic album releases.”
Jean Cameron, Paisley 2021 Bid Director, said: “The SAY Award is a fantastic celebration of Scottish talent and we are pleased Paisley will host the SAY Award ceremony for the second time. Paisley is a town already synonymous with talent, so to have The SAY Award winner announced in Paisley’s magnificent town hall is a significant boost to the town and its bid for UK City of Culture 2021. My congratulations go to all acts on The Longlist. We can’t wait to see who will make it to the shortlist and join us in Paisley next month.”
Alan Morrison, Head of Music, Creative Scotland, said:“This year’s SAY Award ranges from acts who burst onto the scene in the 1980s such as The Jesus And Mary Chain to TeenCanteen, who performed as part of Creative Scotland's showcase at The Great Escape only last week. And that’s one of the wonderful things about this prize – emerging artists such as Vukovi, Sacred Paws and Fatherson find themselves standing shoulder to shoulder with Scottish icons such as King Creosote, Mogwai and Teenage Fanclub. It proves that there’s legacy in the music we make here, as these albums reach out to different generations of fans but pull everyone together for one big celebration of Scottish talent.”
Emma Casey, Global Marketing Manager for Black Bottle, said: “We’re delighted to be an official partner of The SAY Award this year. We’re proud of our roots in Scotland and passionate about doing things differently, so it’s great to celebrate the work of these talented Scottish musicians who have all created their own unique sounds.”
Jonathan West, Director of Marketing & Artist Services, TicketWeb, said: “It’s great to be back supporting The SAY Award for the 2nd year. This year’s list really shows the enduring quality of contemporary Scottish music. Alongside new releases from legendary artists like Teenage Fanclub, Mogwai & The Jesus & Mary Chain you’ve also got amazing bands like TeenCanteen doing it for the very first time. Whoever ends up taking the crown it’s going to be a cracking record that wins.”
Adam Holmes and The Embers 'Brighter Still'
Brighter Still is the second album from Adam Holmes and features his band The Embers, along with vocals from Eddi Reader. Recorded at Gloworm Studios in Glasgow, the songs combine textures of folk and soul music with lyrics that resonate for every person in themes of love, loss, uplifting happiness and beautiful sadness.
C Duncan 'The Midnight Sun'
The second album by singer/songwriter C Duncan was written and recorded entirely in his flat in Glasgow and takes on a more electronic and dreamy sound than his debut. Inspired by the 1960s cult sci-fi television series, The Twilight Zone, it is ominous and sometimes brooding whilst still maintaining the choral soundscapes and breezy characteristics of his first album.
Ela Orleans 'Circles of Upper and Lower Hell'
Circles Of Upper and Lower Hell is the grandest, deepest work to date by Polish-born, Glasgow-based sound artist and composer Ela Orleans. The seventh album under her own name, Orleans’ expansive vision, loosely based on Dante’s Inferno but infused with deep personal experience, incorporates sound art, orchestral textures, synth pop and electronic music to construct a world equally peppered with loss and inspiration.
Fatherson 'Open Book'
Open Book is the second studio album from Fatherson. The album was recorded at the legendary Rockfield Studio in South Wales with Scottish producer Bruce Rintoul, and mixed by Adam Noble (Placebo, Nothing But Thieves, Don Broco) the record showcases the band's ability to craft beautiful, emotional, uplifting, well-wrought songs that take their time to do their magic.
Frightened Rabbit 'Painting of a Panic Attack'
Ever since Scott Hutchison started releasing music as Frightened Rabbit more than a decade ago, his emotionally honest and incisively worded lyrics have been among the project’s most beloved qualities. Over the course of five albums, including their new Painting of a Panic Attack, Frightened Rabbit’s frontman has made poetry of his misery, and still somehow managed to make it sound anthemic.
Honeyblood 'Babes Never Die'
Babes Never Die' was recorded at London’s Fish Factory studio in the winter of 2016 by acclaimed producer James Dring, whose work with the likes of Jamie T and Gorillaz made him an intriguing choice for the duo. The urgent lo-fi charm that defined their debut still pulses from its core but the evolution that’s taken place is undeniable.
The Jesus and Mary Chain 'Damage and Joy'
The Jesus And Mary Chain released their long-awaited new album ‘Damage and Joy’ on March 2017, the first album since ‘Munki’ was released back in the summer of 1998. Fronted by the Reid brothers, Jim and William, The Jesus And Mary Chain first reformed to play the Coachella festival back in 2007. Despite regular touring – most notably a 2015 world tour which revisited their landmark album ‘Psychocandy’ – it took some time before they could agree on a plan to record a much-mooted seventh album.
King Creosote 'Astronaut Meets Appleman'
King Creosote, one of our most beloved voices, released his new record Astronaut Meets Appleman on the 2nd September 2016. It explores the tension and harmony between tradition and technology – between analogue and digital philosophies – and also invokes a feeling, King Creosote (otherwise known as Fife’s Kenny Anderson) says, of “being caught between heaven and earth”.
Konx-om-Pax 'Caramel'
Tom ‘Konx-om-Pax’ Scholefield’s Caramel is quite a different record from the dark, mould-pocked ambience of his debut ‘Regional Surrealism’. Although it’s primarily a beatless album, it’s one with a big smile on its face. ‘Caramel’ has a lightness and energy, an unrepentant joyful cheesiness even - like the rave piano and spiralling arpeggios of ‘Cosmic Trigger’ or the big beatless build up of the title track.
Meursault 'I Will Kill Again'
I Will Kill Again' was intended to be a direct follow up to 'Something for the Weakened' - a straight-up rock album. That record never got made, the live band dissolved and Neil started to play solo under the name Supermoon. In most cases, the songs became unrecognisable from their previous incarnations, but the lyrics and themes remained. Loosely, it's about the idea of villainy within a narrative and people's willingness to portray themselves as antagonists within their own story.
Modern Studies 'Swell To Great'
Working throughout the year at Pumpkinfield – Pete’s rural Perthshire studio – the band shaped a set of Emily’s skeleton songs, drawing largely from the salt and spray of the sea. This communal arts-und-crafts-werk resulted in their debut LP ‘Swell to Great’ (named after an organ stop), which was released on Song, by Toad Records of Edinburgh, Scotland in September 2016.
Mogwai 'Atomic'
Constructed entirely of archive film, Atomic is an impressionistic kaleidoscope of the horrors of our nuclear times - protest marches, Cold War sabre-rattling, Chernobyl and Fukishima - but also the sublime beauty of the atomic world, and how x-rays and MRI scans have improved human lives. Mogwai’s soundtrack encapsulates the nightmare of the nuclear age, but its dreamlike qualities too. It is the latest in the band’s series of impressive soundtracks and scores, following acclaimed albums Les Revenants (The Returned) and Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait.
Pictish Trail 'Future Echoes'
Pictish Trail’s spectral songs are filtered through a sun-warped pop lens, where mesmerically-melodic guitar patterns collide with sampled gurgles and blissed-out vocals figure-skate over sine-waves of glacial synth. Future Echoes is a very personal musing on mortality, the death of friendships and the finality of things and represents the most confident, cohesive and pop-savvy collection of music Pictish Trail has written to date.
Rachel Newton 'Here's My Heart Come Take It'
Here's My Heart Come Take It is a bold combination of traditional folk song and original composition set in a contemporary soundscape. Experimenting and improvising in the studio combined with a considered choice of material has resulted in a very personal and heartfelt piece of work.
RM Hubbert 'Telling The Trees'
Returning to the collaborative format that saw him reconnect with a host of old friends and pick up a Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award for 2012’s Thirteen Lost & Found, RM Hubbert is back, and at the vanguard of another extraordinary ensemble of musicians and songwriters. In many ways a reflection and reconfiguration of his earlier, award-winning album, Telling the Trees highlights the remarkable lyricism and musicianship of his individual co-writers whilst managing to cohere into a dazzling masterwork for all concerned.
Sacred Paws 'Strike A Match'
London/Glasgow duo Sacred Paws’ uplifting debut album, Strike A Match, was released in January 2017 via Rock Action. A vibrant collection of pop gems, Sacred Paws’ first full-length features ten complex yet instantly infectious songs, fitting perfectly between uplifting indie-pop and intricate post-punk. Strikes A Match was produced by Tony Doogan (Mogwai, Belle & Sebastian, Teenage Fanclub) and Sacred Paws at Castle Doom, Glasgow and mastered by Frank Arkwright at Abbey Road Studios.
Starless 'Starless'
Starless is the lushly orchestrated debut album from Paul McGeechan. An epic and unique album - widescreen in scope and ambition, featuring such illustrious collaborators as Paul Buchanan (The Blue Nile), Karen Matheson (Capercaillie), Julie Fowlis and Chris Thomson (The Bathers). The album was recorded with the stunning Prague Philharmonic Orchestra resulting in an emotional soundscape with references ranging from Ennio Morricone to The Cocteau Twins and David Sylvian.
Teenage Fanclub 'Here'
Here was recorded in Provence and Pollokshields, mixed in Hamburg, and mastered in London. The band worked on it slowly until they were happy with it, and then they put it out. Since their inception in 1989 and now, not much has changed, they’re still doing the same thing, in much the same way as they always have.
TeenCanteen 'Say It All With A Kiss'
Sticky cherry-cola-kissed harmonies, talking toms and stomping beats in a new Wall of Sound, TeenCanteen's début album 'Say It All With A Kiss’ was released to critical acclaim via Last Night From Glasgow Records. Recorded in mono and produced by Stephen Watkins, the album features Aurora Engine and The Cairn String Quartet.
Vukovi 'Vukovi'
Scottish quartet VUKOVI mix heavy rock riffs with melodic, catchy vocals to create a sound that is as intense as it is fun. Fronted by the feisty Janine Shilstone, they are best known for their raucous live show and their self-titled debut lived up to the hype with critical acclaim internationally as well as on home turf.
24 May: ‘Live at The Longlist’ – The SAY Award Longlist Announcement at the O₂ ABC
29 May 29 – 11 June: The SAY Award Longlist Promotion
12 June – 14 June: The SAY Award Public Vote
15 June: The SAY Award Shortlist Announcement
19 June – 25 June: The SAY Award Shortlist promotion
28 June: The SAY Award Ceremony
The SAY Award is a Scottish Music Industry Association (SMIA) production, in partnership with the National Lottery through Creative Scotland’s Open Project Fund, Renfrewshire Council, Black Bottle, TicketWeb and PPL. The SAY Award is delighted to support Paisley’s bid to be UK City of Culture 2021.
Stuart Cosgrove (Writer/Broadcaster), Caroline Winn (Glasgow International), Roland Gulliver (Edinburgh International Book Festival), Amy Liptrot (Writer), Claire Gevaux (Help Musicians UK), Tallah Brash (The Skinny), Lauren Martin (Red Bull Music Academy), Andy Hannah (Line Of Best Fit), David Scott (University of the West of Scotland), Barry Price (Sub Club), Stephanie McWhinnie (TV Producer), John Williamson [CHAIR] (University of Glasgow)
The Scottish Music Industry Association (SMIA) is a trade body based in Glasgow that was set up in 2008 to foster, promote and serve the best interests of Scotland’s music industry. Their membership encompasses individuals and organisations working across all sectors of Scotland’s music industry, including artist managers, promoters, record labels, studios, artists, distributors and more. The SMIA has two core objectives, to both strengthen and champion Scotland’s music industry, and they do this through a variety of projects each year. These projects include training events such as workshops and master classes, sector meet-ups, and their biggest project, The SAY (Scottish Album of the Year) Award, Scotland’s national music prize. The SMIA also lobby government on behalf of its members, as well as offer informal support, such as by doing introductions to new contacts and companies.
Paisley’s bid for UK City of Culture 2021 will use the town's unique and fascinating story to transform its future — by putting the town in the international spotlight, attracting visitors, creating jobs and using culture to make people's lives better.
The one-time global textile hub and birthplace of the Paisley Pattern is also home to stunning architecture, an internationally-significant museum collection, Glasgow Airport, University of the West of Scotland, West College Scotland, PACE Theatre Company and a thriving contemporary cultural scene.
The UK City of Culture competition is run by the UK Government. The shortlisted cities will be announced in spring 2017, and the winner at the end of the year. Find out more about our story at www.paisley2021.co.uk
Creative Scotland is the public body that supports the arts, screen and creative industries across all parts of Scotland on behalf of everyone who lives, works or visits here. We enable people and organisations to work in and experience the arts, screen and creative industries in Scotland by helping others to develop great ideas and bring them to life. We distribute funding provided by the Scottish Government and the National Lottery. For further information about Creative Scotland please visit www.creativescotland.com.
Follow us @creativescots and www.facebook.com/CreativeScotland
Black Bottle is an official partner of The SAY award. The blended Scotch was created in Aberdeen in 1879 by former tea blender Gordon Graham, and has always done things a bit differently. In addition to its iconic black glass bottle, its use in cocktails has always been encouraged. Black Bottle drinks will be served at the SAY Award Ceremony, including four unique cocktails each one carefully created to be paired with one of the live performances. www.blackbottle.com
TicketWeb started in 1995 as small group of music fans who wanted to build a truly DIY ticket site dedicated to shining a light on the freshest new acts. After launching in the U.S., Canada, the UK & Ireland we soon became the go-to ticket seller for independent promoters and venues on both sides of the Atlantic. Two decades later and we’re still proud to be part of that scene but now we also work directly with the artists who fill those venues to make it even easier for real fans to get into their shows. Find out more at http://www.ticketweb.co.uk.
Founded in 1934, PPL is the UK music industry’s collective management organisation (CMO) for tens of thousands of performers and record companies. We license recorded music in the UK when it is played in public (shops, bars, nightclubs, offices etc.) or broadcast (BBC, commercial radio, commercial TV etc.) and ensure that revenue flows back to our members. These include both independent and major record companies, together with performers ranging from emerging grassroots artists through to established session musicians and influential festival headliners.
PPL has a market-leading international collections business, with 83 agreements in place across 39 countries, helping members to maximise their revenue when their repertoire is played overseas. We collected £197 million in the UK and internationally in 2015 and paid over 71,000 performers and record companies. http://www.ppluk.com/
Alice Sawyer / Shauna McGregor at Genuine PR on alice@genuinepr.com / shauna@genuinepr.com or call 0141 243 2621
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