Music to our ears: the songs of 2018
Our best of Scottish soundtrack for 2018 is an eclectic and subjective journey into hip hop, alternative, dance, house, electronica, indie, punk, post-grunge, post-rock, nu and old folk and often a combination of some or all. It’s a mix of the known, litt
50 Django Django: Marble Skies
The earworm title track from the third studio album by the Edinburgh art rockers. The album reached number 25 on the UK Albums Chart in January 2018.
49 Sweaty Palms:
The Illusionist
The exciting Glasgow garage-y post punks say the title of this dark beauty was inspired by the Norman, the Illusionist which they describe as “Kelvingrove’s finest”. It may be a wind-up.
48 Kathryn Joseph: From When I Wake The Wants Is
The swooping title track from the second full-length release from the award-winning Scottish singer-songwriter creates, like the album, a wider sonic tapestry from the simple piano and vocal approach.
47 Zoe Bestel: Blankets In Iceland
This 20-year-old Galloway-based singersongwriter with a ukelele-bent and a heart-melting voice creates a bittersweet but nevertheless spellbinding paean to a relationship that never happened from the album Transience.
46 Chvrches:
Get Out
The now “mainstream” Glasgow synth pop combo appear to be too popular to get on certain Best Album lists with their third outing Love Is Dead, but there is no getting away from the sheer addictiveness of their best tunes. This is most definitely one.
45 Hank Tree:
Now Your Colours Sing The Glasgow alt-folk combo led by ex-State Broadcasters’ Fergus MacDonald is a gorgeous outsider anthem from their first EP, ably assisted by a Chile producer and record label and a video using footage from the littleknown 1985 Hungarian movie Naerata Ometi about a girl who struggles with first love and bullying in a Soviet orphanage.
44 Mother Night:
The Shaman
A sparklingly off-kilter threeand-a-half minutes mixing synth pop, noise rock and psychedelia with hints of MGMT and Klaxons from a new three-piece from Lewis who describe what they do as “pagan pop”. It is a first taster of a new album, A Lifetime Of Uninhibited Pleasure, nine tracks of what they describe as pagan pop, which will be released in the new year.
43 ABillz: Antics
Neatly constructed and smooth as silk grime from this fresh young Edinburgh drill rapper.
42 Farzane Zamen: Forbidden Voices
The producer and singer-songwriter is the ultimate underground musician, as a censored voice from Iran who has taken flight musically while in artistic residency at the UK at the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA Glasgow).
41 Meursault: Carry On Carrion One of Scotland’s most underrated artists, Edinburgh’s Neil Pennycook followed up the corking 2017 album I Will Kill Again with a limited edition semiofficial LP F*** Off Back To Art School & Other Stories, from which this is the gripping piano-led atmospheric highlight.
40 Zoe Graham: Industrial Strength The Glasgow singer-songwriter develops quirky but charming folky stylings on this compelling gem. It needs a health warning that explains that once hear it, you could end up singing”For the love of god, where did I go wrong”, at home and work.
39 The Motion Poets: A Girl Like This
The new Edinburgh indie-grunge quartet inject bits of blues, new wave and Britpop into one of their first compositions. 38 Gerry Cinnamon: She Is A Belter
(GBX & Sparkos Remix)
The 33-year-old mini-singing phenomenon from Castlemilk saw his shows at the Glasgow Barrowland and O2 Academy this year sold out in minutes. The guitar-led original of this is given a ceiling punching singalong pop dance makeover with the help of DJ George Bowie that undeniably gets underneath your skin, although with repeated listens, admittedly, might actually make your skin crawl. However, it is most definitely a belter. 37 Mogwai:
We’re Not Done
The closing track from their first proper feature film score for the movie Kin is out of step with most of their past output as a straight-ahead earworm four-minute indie pop song although it features typically chiming guitars and a Joy Division-deep bass section Peter Hook would drool over. 36 Young Fathers: Border Girl
Where the award-winning Edinburgh combo combine their avant-garde approach with a dance floor-friendly, bass-heavy, part chant part sung sensual gospel pop sensibility. 35 Laps:
Who Me?
(Any Ways Mix)
This tribal fusion of minimal electro, dub, house and trip-hop from the Glaswegian duo Alicia Matthews and Cassie Ezeji created a buzz in the US after it was Rihanna’s personal selection for her New York Fashion Week show. 34 Nieves:
Spirit
The Glasgow-based alt/indie folk band formed five years ago but have hit their stride on the ear-opening debut album Exist And Expire, from which this is an anthemic highlight complete with choral oh-oh-oh sucker punch finale. 33 Sega Bodega & Tash Tung: kisses 2 my phone
Glasgow-raised producer Salvador Naverrete’s twists and deconstructs a Drake-like grime-y jam with some Burial-style atmosphere loops to dazzling effect. You may call it a banger. 32 Spare Snare: Photograph Me Properly
Dundee lo-fi legends and John Peel regulars reinvented themselves for a 13th album with the help of renowned indie producer and Big Black frontman Steve Albini who made sure they were looking and sounding excellent on this delightfully tongue-in-cheek gem. “No chins or lines”. 31 Sophie: Immaterial
Bringing the experimental to electronic dance music, the Scots-bred producer does not just riff on Madonna’s Material Girl, she creates body lift surgery on it. 30 Slime City:
Same Genes
In which the no-wave new Glasgow combo, that consists of three men called Michael, turns a song by The View into a discordant manic Devopop thrill monster. It’s far more diverse and enthralling than the original. 29 Sly Roli ft Stxner Kid Easii: Cash
Young Glasgow producer and 20-yearold Larkhall hip hop newcomer aka YPSSKE create a sophisticated DIY (very) Rated R bump and grind monster on their Rolin’ Stxne collaboration. 28 Toby Flynn:
Vegas
Seventeen-year-old Toby Flynn, from Nairn, is a bit of a find. The producer, songwriter and singer has been making music since the age of 13. This minimalistic simple-is-good standout track from a promising debut outing Happy People On Late Night TV has an eloquently cutting wannabe sentiment. 27 Tomskiii: #SingleMums Hip hop is full of attitude. Elsewhere young rapper Tomskiii will be waving a bottle of Bucky while R Rating his way through the most R Rating of hoodie gang diss raps. So to produce a genuinely emotional love rhyme to your mum is hugely dangerous because it is easy to come over cringeworthy. But with a simple beat, a beautiful piano loop and emotionally honest rhymes, Tomskiii, from Motherwell via Carnoustie, produces a song “dedicated to the women that make this world go round” and shows he has more to give than just gangsta bravado.
26 Solid Blake: Contract
A brooding, twitchy, techno-influenced concoction from the Glasgow-based and Copenhagen-raised producer that Cabaret Voltaire might have produced had they been born 28 years ago.
25 North Atlantic Oscillation: Downriver Sam Healy’s previous incarnation Sand has always been a favourite. This year the underrated Edinburgh artist has created a fresh slice of classy hypnotic weirdness under another guise mixing pop, rock, folk and electronica.
24 The Reverse Engineer: Drome
Dave House is an imaginative Edinburgh-based experimental sound artist who specialises in incorporating found sounds and field recordings into his aural sculptures. This sevenminute jewel is a hypnotic collision of abstract and form with dance floor textures.
23 Sweaty Palms: Captain Of
The Rugby Team
An explosive R-rated garage rock anthem rant from the four-piece Glasgow combo’s debut LP about everyday misogyny that carries a contagious hook that will take over your brain. “You are a sorry ...”
22 Young Fathers:
Holy Ghost
The video to this mesmerising cut from their third album was made by Oscar Hudson who won Best Director at the UK Music Video Awards last year, and delivered footage that rapper/ producer Graham “G” Hastings dubbed “Shot in Infra-Dead”.
21 Pelts:
Another Place
Graham McCarey and Natasha Radmehr at their best in this boy/girl vocal joust over a dark and gorgeous indie pop paean of the type Snow Patrol used to make. Glasgow six-piece as Deacon Blue of iffy folk, perhaps.
20 Aidan Moffat & RM Hubbert ft Siobhan Wilson: Cockcrow
A Scottish Fairytale Of New York for 2018 with national treasure Moffat playing The Pogues’ Shane MacGowan and Wilson playing Kirsty MacColl, in a soaring emotional wringer of a song about an ageing relationship.
19 Buffet Lunch:
Do You Like My Trousers?
Delightfully and hilariously wonky Pavement vs Half Man Half Biscuit anthem about purchasing clothing by the four-piece Edinburgh post punk combo. “I bought them at the shop.”
18 Stone Bench and BorodaBeat: My Way
A fiendishly catchy fusion of old and new school, marrying rock guitar, hip hop beats, tight rhymes, a punch-the-air punchline hook and an irresistible scratch finale from Edinburgh’s Elmi Tha Mos’Hi, Konda & Blasfima Sinna. As far from Frank Sinatra as you can get.
17 Lists:
Haven Lea
Rapturous strings swell behind a golden falsetto in this folk-infused beauty from the mysterious Arran/Edinburgh singer-songwriter who is a previous favourite on this annual playlist.
It had two million plays on Spotify as of October.
16 Crystal:
Heaven
The Glasgow-based four-piece came to prominence when they won a contest to support Paolo Nutini at one of his Edinburgh Hogmanay shows in 2016. Two years later and they have produced a classic catchy grunge epic about someone battling the inner turmoil of questioning their belief system.
15 Sophie:
Is It Cold In The Water?
The Scots-bred producer comes over like a warped Annie Lennox with an equally warped effect-laden synth on one of the many highlights on her scrape-thestars debut album.
14 Colin Macleod: Dream
Classy cinematic beauty with flicks of Springsteen and Blue Nile from the singer-songwriter who overcame a childhood aversion to sheep to take up farming on Lewis.
13 Nieves:
Exist and Expire
The title track from the Glasgow alt-rock combo is a delightfully overblown but successful attempt at an old school U2-style epic.
12 Kathryn Joseph: There Is No God But You
The Inverness-born singersongwriter continues to touch the stars with this disturbed, devastating and emotional song featuring a whirlwind piano apparently written in response to a serious illness in her family.
11 Anna Meredith and Scottish Ensemble: Stoop (Spring V)
The most compelling cut from the London-born and Edinburgh-bred composer’s twists on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons marries discordant electronics with ferocious strings. “I’ve treated it as if Vivaldi and I were doing a collaboration,” she says.
10 Young Fathers: Turn
“Don’t you turn my brown eyes blue,” goes the Kayus Bankole falsetto, between warp-speed Alloysious
Massaquoi and Graham “G” Hastings rhymes. “I’m not like you, I’m nothing like you.” And so they prove it on their third exhilarating album.
9 Salt House: Charmer
The folk trio of multi-instrumentalist Ewan MacPherson, violist/fiddler Lauren MacColl and singer-songwriter Jenny Sturgeon recorded this and their latest album in the restored Telford Church on the Berneray, an island and community in the Sound of Harris. Robert Burns’s Now Westlin’ Winds is the inspiration for this spine-chilling nature love song. I swear you can sense the tranquillity and bristling fresh wind of the island beach.
8 Walt Disco: Drowning In Your Bed
This most glamorous of Glasgow bands, barely out of their teens (if at all) are a euphoric mix of Duran Duran flamboyance and The Smiths’ swagger. This unpredictable block rocking riff barage anthem throws in an urgent police siren and brings the longneglected saxophone back.
7 Sophie: Infatuation
The inspired experimental-pop producer summons up the ghosts of Prince in this less-is-more atypical cut from the debut album usurped by madly warped falsetto and a perverted dream pop sensibility.
6 Zoe Bestel:
Eye For An Eye
The soothing, soaring voice of the 20-year-old songstress from Dumfries and Galloway hides the fact this is a melodic teardop about the 2015 air strikes in Syria. “Will we ever change? Or is this what we’ve become.”
5 The Proclaimers: Angry Cyclist
Thirty years after 500 Miles the indefatigable Leith boys have created a spine-tinglingly relevant and passionate anti-bigotry anthem not just with cuttingly observed words, but lush, driven instrumentation and that crucial breast-beating Reid twins singalongability that makes this their Letter From America for 2018. “Old prejudice hasn’t gone, new energy drives it on.”
4 Lazy Money:
Bore
This starts like Love-era Roddy Frame stuck in a room with Portishead, but this 4.39-minute swooning and arresting break-up ode throws whiffs of trip hop, rap, R&B, a haunting violin and just when everything feels safe, a shattering bilious rant. It’s the standout track from the debut EP from Toby Flynn, 17, Marc Britovsek, 20 and Kirsty Brown, 18, from Nairn.
“Bore is a personal favourite, it was written around a voice memo Kirsty sent me,” said Flynn. “Kirsty and
I are not in a relationship, but the song is very much written to appear like we are – we chose to base it off of previous relationships we have been in.”
3 Sega Bodega & Jasper Jarvis: Daddy
This could easily do for the Glasgow-raised producer what Come To Daddy did for Aphex Twin, both in sound and vision. This mutates dancefloor beats and time signatures with what sounds like Polynesian chants, jagged Death Grips vs industrial effects and explosions for his harshest, hardest yet most exhilarating three-and-a-bit minutes yet.
2 Ela Orleans:
The Cave
The Glasgow-based Pole has garnered a reputation for the avant garde, and this experimental approach has turned a little-known Gaelic song into a spellbinding mournful piece from her Displaced and Adjusted audio-visual composition, marrying addictive, ghostly electronic loops with the beautiful voice of Ainsley Hamill and the sensitively delivered percussion patterns of Alex Neilson. Call it Gaelictronica, if you like.
“The lyrics are Gaelic traditional folk songs or poems,” said Orleans. “I appropriated them and added music, taking them sometimes quite far from the original.”
1 Blanck Mass:
Odd Scene
It will not be to all tastes, but this is the most extreme, out-there, exhilarating and inventive track I have heard for some time, let alone this year.
This five-minute sonic masterclass from the former F*ck Button, Edinburgh’s Ben Power, mashes electro drone with hardcore punk and black metal before exploding in glorious gothic splendour. And when you think it is all done, a thrashing finale. It makes Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails seem like Justin Bieber.
It is taken from an experimental EP that Power, known for his strictly electronic arias, says may well be a one-off and won’t be featured in any forthcoming releases.
“I grew up in punk and hardcore bands so this kind of thing comes as second nature,” he said. “I like to constantly keep things moving sonically so this isn’t necessarily a shape of things to come, but more the shape of things right now.”