Scottish Album Of The Year

You have until May 28th to vote for your favourite album in the longlist, plus you can listen each album at http://www.sayaward.com/the-albums/ (this piece was written several weeks beforehand).

A couple of weeks ago, the 20 strong ‘longlist’ of nominees for the third Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Awards were announced. For the uninitiated, these awards are essentially a Scottish version of the Mercury Awards; i.e. the one that has some credibility and albums you’d actually want to listen to. And this year’s selection has a whole host of albums that you should listen to, with awards host (and Radio Scotland champion of new music) Vic Galloway commenting that “this is possibly the strongest list the award has seen yet.”

Previous winners RM Hubbert and Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat beating off stiff competition from big label acts show that SAY doesn’t follow others and go for the obvious. It’s another fine selection of albums, and whilst unlikely to bother said Mercurys, they are easily as good as the albums on that esteemed list. What is again striking is the variety that’s on display, with Frightened Rabbit of the opinion that “Scotland’s music scene is amongst the most productive, creative and energetic of any country in the world and this award list serves to highlight that fact.”

Although indie albums tip the balance, the list also features hip-hop, electro, folk, rock and the obligatory (but far from token) jazz and classical albums. I do wonder what would happen if Scotland produced half a dozen world class jazz or classical albums each a year (not an impossibility), would the longlist reflect that?

The spirit of adventure is rewarded this time around, all conquering Chvrches synth-pop debut The Bones of What You Believe has come home, whilst Mogwai continue their leftfield journey with their French TV soundtrack Les Revenants, Boards of Canada go from strength to strength with Tomorrow’s Harvest, young upstart Adam Stafford’s Imaginary Walls Collapse channels the spirit of Beck’s Odelay, and says “In this increasing culture of music as a disposable commodity, events like the SAY Award give us a chance to debate and discuss the importance of the album as a collected work of art and give little or esoteric artists like me the chance to reach a wider public.” Steve Mason’s majestic concept piece Monkey Minds In The Devil’s Time might become his first ever award win (Beta Band included), “it would be amazing if the only award I ever won for music came from the country of my birth.”

The inspirational Edwyn Collins caps his creative green patch by making the list with Understated and Glasgow indie royalty The Pastels’ Slow Summits is included. Biffy Clyro are this year’s big name act although I’d imagine, in keeping with the spirit of the awards, they won’t win. Emerging Scots indie stars Adam Holmes and The Embers, Kid Canaveral, The Phantom Band’s Rick Redbeard and Roddy Hart & The Lonesome Fire are all acknowledged, indicating that the future is most definitely bright for Scottish music. Already attracting acclaim are Camera Obscura, the only act in the list to have an Edinburgh tourist attraction named after them, and Frightened Rabbit. Last year’s SAY winner RM Hubbert is back again with his latest album Breaks & Bone, the stunning conclusion to his Ampersand Trilogy.

Hip-hop again features in the SAY longlist, with a pair of albums, Hector Bizerk’s self released Nobody Seen Nothing was a winner at the Scottish Alternative Music Awards, and Young Fathers Tape Two has lead to them being snapped up by top US label Anticon, with the follow up release already doing well Stateside. For such a small nation, Scotland has an impressive array of world class artists, Tommy Smith’s Scottish National Jazz Orchestra are a big band of international renown and their tribute to Duke Ellington is something special, and there are two classical albums on the shortlist, much acclaimed Dunedin Consort’s Six Brandenburg Concertos is a stunning piece of baroque, and Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s second Berlioz release features prize-winning mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill (“She’s up there among the best sopranos in the world so we are delighted this nomination will bring her more attention here in her home country.” says the orchestra’s Caroline Dooley), showing why they’re regarded as one of the world’s finest chamber orchestras. John Butt from Dunedin Consort makes the point that “It is also a great privilege to be considered for this award among all genres of music, beyond the purely classical scene. Hopefully it will help to show the richness and range of musical production and performance now coming out of Scotland.”

Each year I do wonder if we really need a Scottish album award when there are loads of awards out there already, be that all the specialist genre specific awards, or the national awards – and equally, does it marginalise our music? Making it a sort of ‘not good enough for the proper awards’ consolation prize. After my initial caution I then check out the longlist and find myself agreeing with Creative Scotland’s (agreeing with Creative Scotland??!! – Editor) Caroline Parkin who says that: “It’s great to see such a diverse range of genres on the long list and we hope that each nominee will see an increase in fans and sales as a result.”

Info: Tip up here to listen to nominees: http://www.sayaward.com

Original feature appears in Leither Magazine May 2014

SAY Album Review #3 – Scottish National Jazz Orchestra

Duke Ellington is one of the towering figures in jazz, and there are tributes to him every year both live and on record, and the latest in this long line is by the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. The orchestra are considered to be one of the finest big bands in Europe so it makes sense that they’d tackle the music of one of the finest bandleaders and composers of all time, in his heyday The Duke lead the big band.

This album is a live recording that spans the spectrum if Ellington’s career, and you can see the changes in style from the various phases in The Duke’s musical journey. As the album began I was unsure and thought that this was maybe just the token jazz album of this year’s awards, but this album really swings and I really got into it.  The album/concert features a load of Ellington favourites, and is performed by a world class orchestra with some cracking solos, the horns standing out, and guest pianist Brian Kellock is on top form in the playing role of the jazz legend.  As no single man can take the place The Duke, it’s down to Scottish jazz hero Tommy Smith as MC and bandleader, and you can tell that he knows that this performance is something special.

Sometimes I have issues with studio recordings of certain jazz sounds, and I think them being polished and over produced loses something, but this live recording is full of energy and enthusiasm, with the crowd savouring every note.

This might not be the place to say it, but I’ve never really gotten into Ellington, was always more of a Miles Davis Quintet guy, and then the jazz funk stuff, but this album makes me want to go back and properly give The Duke the time and respect he deserves from us music fans.

Soundbite: The Spirit of the Duke is Truly Triumphant!

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – Hidden Orchestra Interview

Why don’t you record an orchestral piece? Why don’t you record with just traditional Scottish instruments? Why don’t you score a film? Why don’t you do remixes for other acts? When is the bluegrass concept album? Why don’t you make a cameo appearance on River City as the house band in The Tall Ship? When I got the nod to interview Hidden Orchestra main man Joe Acheson I’d yet to hear his new album Archipelago so subconsciously assumed it would be great and was already preparing questions regarding their next move. Fortunately I got Joe to bring me back to the present.

So. Hidden Orchestra is the solo studio project of composer/producer Joe Acheson, making ‘music that incorporates and redefines elements of jazz, classical, rock, hip-hop and electronica to form a deeply original and cohesive whole’.

The group’s profile has been steadily increasing since their debut album Night Walks came out on the hip Tru Thoughts label in 2010. For Acheson, releasing his new work to the public is “a bit like sending your child for their first day at school – you have high hopes and want only the best for them, but basically you’ll be happy if people just like them and they don’t get bullied too much.”

If you like that, you’ll like this

I became aware of the group after a number of ‘if you like this, you’ll like this’ emails for the debut album, and snapped it up just after I moved to Edinburgh in Autumn 2010. Although it’s far from noticeable in the music, to learn that part of the album was recorded in Leith was rather exciting and immediately (albeit irrationally) made me like the band even more.

Prior to this, Acheson was already making music under his own name, and although essentially a solo project (which is still the case), the core quartet of the live act is formed around the duelling drum kits, percussion and electronic pads of two drummers and piano, with Acheson on bass and electronics:

“I wanted to make it clear in our name at gigs that we were a group on stage, not just an individual – so we became Joe Acheson Trio, and then Quartet. This understandably led to people frequently bracketing us as a jazz band, which was never the intention. So the idea came to release the music under the banner of a fictitious collective, giving me a clear channel through which to create all that particular kind of music in a single devoted project. It’s also a reference to hidden orchestras in orchestra pits at opera/theatre/old movie halls – and seemed appropriate for the kind of abstractly narrative music.”

I was curious as to what led Acheson to producing such music, and my assumptions of a jazz buff background were off the mark. “I have no background or training in jazz, and I don’t really have either the technical or improvisatory skills on any instruments. It’s more something that I have just incorporated into the sound through being a fan and a listener – but I am no more a jazz musician than I am a dubstep producer, a hip-hop DJ or a classical composer.”

Acheson tries to let tunes evolve naturally, although his use of samples is fascinating, collecting “tiny samples of single notes or chords, little hair-raising instances from a whole variety of musical sources, where composer or musician had captured something universally beautiful, even if just for an instant – it could be the way a certain string is plucked, or the hiss on the recording, and so on”, and in the studio he’d use “instrumental improvisation as the source material for the sampling, and then apply recreations of different recording conditions (such as sampled reverbs, vintage microphones and techniques, and so on).”

Where’s Wally?

With Night Walks and even more-so Archipelago, Hidden Orchestra have been producing gorgeous soundscapes that sound universal, and to an extent, timeless. I was curious to find out if there were any Scottish influences, however subtle, in their recordings, “a lot of the material for this new album found its origins in a large commission I had a couple of years ago, which was creating music in the Hidden Orchestra style, but also with a distinctly Scottish feel for which I incorporated some elements of traditional folk melodic shapes, rhythms, harmonic progressions, and instruments – clarsach, whistle, accordion, fiddle, and so on…” Listen closely, consider it an audio ‘Where’s Wally’!

Archipelago sees their sound evolving, being both darkly menacing yet with joyful flourishes and the funkiest of drum breaks. The sophisticated pallet only enhances this engrossing, powerful work, which is packed with the deftest of musical twists and turns.

I did get round to asking Acheson about future plans and projects, “there are several very exciting possibilities on the horizon for Hidden Orchestra in the next couple of years, involving staging some spectacular immersive live shows and orchestral collaborations… It all depends on the response to this album really, so I am trying to wait a bit longer before getting too carried away with fanciful ideas.”

Maybe next time I’ll get round to asking about that bluegrass record!

Archipelago is OUT NOW.

Listen to Joe Acheson’s mixtapes here.

Originally appeared in Leither Magazine October 2012.