Notebook #14: Three great new Scottish albums

It’s been a while since I did one of these Notebook round-ups of what’s caught my eye in the cultural world. Note to self: do this more often. Today I have new albums for you from three tremendous Scottish acts, reflecting the extraordinary range of music on offer in this pawky wee nation of ours. Don’t just stream them. Buy their downloads or vinyl. Go see them live. Buy their merch. Support Scottish music.

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What I love about the Glasgow music scene is the same thing I love about Glasgow’s visual art scene. The city is full of people whose primary loyalty is to their art. Sure, success and recognition would be great. Some money would be particularly welcome. But they are not interested in following a formula for commercial success. What matters to them is honing their craft in whatever obscure discipline they call their own, even if it is one they have invented. What matters is being true to their vision, true to themselves, true to their art.

How do you describe the music of Anoraq, a Glasgow act with a new mini-album out this month? Well, you let the band do it for you. On their Bandcamp page they say this:

Anoraq weaves field recordings, electronic ambient production and acoustic instrumentation with spoken word and song to explore Scotland's ecological consciousness.

The band are part of a subculture on the Glasgow music scene where atmospheric instrumental music is married with the spoken word. The spiritual home of this tribe is King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, where Anoraq have curated monthly evenings with likeminded souls, under the name Inside Voices.

Anoraq defy easy categorisation. The band is confidently, resolutely, comfortably itself. This is not pop music packaged for the music industry. This is a much more interesting proposition: a handful of prodigiously talented young men using sound and word to explore notions of nature, community and home.

Upfront is the voice of Patrick Romero McCafferty: sometimes speaking, sometimes rhyming, sometimes singing. McCafferty has Mexican and Scottish roots and is a published poet - I can recommend his debut slim volume glass.knot.sun, published by Ignition Press. His writing is meditative, sometimes melancholy, and unfashionably lyrical.

The musical anchor is Tim Martin-Ciubotaru, Edinburgh-born of Irish and Romanian parentage, on guitars. He is joined by Lewis Hall on keyboards and electronics, Shetlander Peter Kay on fiddle, and one of my favourite drummers, Alex Palmer.

Palmer’s drumming is scratchy, restless, untethered, instinctive. It provides the ideal frame for tracks where nothing is settled, where anything can happen.

Anoraq’s soundscapes are expansive and detailed. Fans of Scottish music may pick up traces of post-rockers Mogwai; of Aidan Moffat’s solo albums; of Belle and Sebastian’s A Century of Elvis; of half-forgotten Scottish bands such as My Latest Novel.

Outwith the homeland, the aural collages of Claire Rousay, another magpie of sound, come to mind.

But Anoraq’s audio is all their own.

There is a lightness and spaciousness about An August Work Party that deserves a much wider audience. What I find tremendously appealing about Anoraq is their sincerity. The music business is full of cynics and ironists. Anoraq are the perfect antidote.

This mini-album is just 28 minutes long and it was too short for me. I was left wanting more. The band need a bigger canvas. I look forward to getting lost in it.

Here’s a sample from An August Work Party:

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Way back in 2014 a young woman from Edinburgh appeared on one of the big Saturday night TV talent shows, The Voice. She looked very small on the big stage, dressed in a denim dress and clumpy boots, her hair tied up in a headscarf like the wartime poster of Rosie the Riveter. The young woman was standing next to a clarsach, a Scottish harp.

Was this going to be folk music? Something ancient and Scottish? Not exactly. When she started playing the brows of the judges - who included Tom Jones and Kylie Minogue - furrowed. They knew this song. Only after a few bars did they realise it was a clarsach-accompanied version of Get Lucky, the global dance hit by Daft Punk and Pharrell Williams.

The performer was a teenager called Anna McLuckie. In the 12 years since that TV appearance, the video of her performance has been viewed 12 million times on YouTube.

McLuckie won through to the latter rounds of The Voice but did not capture the big prize. The show was not really designed for someone like her. But nobody could be in any doubt they were watching a unique talent of great promise.