Paolo Nutini is the big wonner in the run-in to 2023’s Scotish ALbum opf the Year aAward.

The Paisley=born singer-songwriter was the winner of the public vote which helped whittle 20 longlisted albums down to the fial 10 from which the winner will be announced in Stirling on October 26th.

Among the nine other acts on the shortlist are Andrew Wasylyk, Hamish Hawk and Cloth, although Kapil Seshasayee, The Snuts, Comfort, Free Love, Su-a Lee, and Constant Follower’s collaboration with Scott William Urquhart are among the releases deemed surplus to requirements by the mysterious judging panel.

Coincidentally, Paolo Nutini’s 2006 debut album ‘These Streets’ has been announced as the winner of 2023’s Modern Scottish Classic Award (chosen by this year’s other Longlisted artists).

And the five finalists for The Sound of Young Scotland Award have also been revealed; an award which will allow the winner the means to create their debut album. In alphabetical order, these are: Danny Cliff, Pearling, Pippa Blundell, No Windows and Queen of Harps.

The SAY Award Shortlist for 2023 in alphabetical order is:

Andrew Wasylyk – Hearing the Water before Seeing the Falls
Becky Sikasa – Twelve Wooden Boxes
Bemz – Nova’s Dad
Brìghde Chaimbeul – Carry Them With Us
Brooke Combe – Black Is the New Gold
Cloth – Secret Measure
Hamish Hawk – Angel Numbers
Joesef Permanent – Damage
Paolo Nutini – Last Night In The Bittersweet
Young Fathers – Heavy Heavy

Robert Kilpatrick, Interim CEO and Creative Director of the Scottish Music Industry Association (SMIA) said: ,“Congratulations to the 10 incredible albums that have made The SAY Award Shortlist, as well as to our Sound of Young Scotland Award finalists and this year’s Modern Scottish Classic Award winner – Paolo Nutini’s iconic debut ‘These Streets’. This is a fantastic representation of the strength and diversity of Scottish music; past, present and future.”

The SAY Award winer for 2023 will be announced at a ceremony at the Albert Halls, Stirling, on October 26th – tickers are on sale now via www.sayaward.com.

Martin John Henry releases a new track, ‘Northern Strangers’, accompanied by a video by, filmmaker Kris Boyle.

The song is part of a soundtrack curated by Boyle, who has made seven new videos to accompany new musical works by Auld White Label, Babygod, Robert Dallas Gray, Haunted Stars and M. John Henry.

The filmmaker gave each musician a title or phrase as a starting point with no other brief, while making the videos separately, not hearing the music until after most of the films were made – resulting in a collection of paired visual-audio works, each of which is open to “the chance encounters of harmony or contrast”.

The entire project can be viewed here and the tracks, with all proceeds going to SAMH, can be downloaded here.

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Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat and James Graham out of The Twilight Sad’ have announced their debut album under the Gentle Sinners monicker – the now-confirmed partnership perhaps the worst-kept secret in Scottish indie music.

The ten track long-player, entitled ‘These Actions Cannot Be Undone’, will come out on 13th May, digitally and on CD, with a vinyl edition to follow in September via Rock Action – the label for which their bands both record.

Out now is a brand new track ‘Face To Fire (After Nyman)’, the follow-up to single ‘Killing This Time‘ from last November. James Graham says of the new song: “I wrote ‘Face to Fire’ the night Aidan sent over the music for it, I recorded it the next day. I had written down the words ‘fearlessly terrified’ on my phone a couple of days before.

“My anxiety had started to take over again,” he continued, “throughout my life I’ve been so scared of simple interactions with people yet I’m able to project my innermost feelings to the world on a regular basis.

“It doesn’t make sense to me. I’d been feeling physically ill for a few years, tired all the time and I had tried everything to feel better with no success.”

Moffat explains the band’s name: “‘Gentle sin’ is a wee phrase I’ve always liked. In the play it’s part of a flirtatious kiss, where the rules of etiquette are broken with a cheeky wink, sort of like a Shakespearean Sid James moment.

“But with a different kind of sinning in mind, I thought it really suited the songs we were making too, i.e. mistakes and disasters without pity or malice.”

Graham also explains how the partnership came about: “A couple of days before I left (from Glasgow to a new home in the North-East of Scotland, presumably closer to his beloved Aberdeen FC) Aidan and I met up and walked around Queens Park. I mentioned to him I wanted to do something outside of the band but had no idea on how to go about it.

“I wasn’t expecting him to suggest working together, I was just looking for some advice as I’ve loved everything he’s done in his solo career. Hearing what he’d done inside and outside of Arab Strap, I could see that they both complimented each other and helped him exercise different ways of writing.

“I wanted that. I wanted to try new things, I wanted to see what else was inside me. He suggested we work together and that he had some music he could send me. I said yes straight away.”

Moffat was similarly keen to take on a new challenge. “I really wanted to try something I’d never done before,” he explains, “which is make music for other people to sing to, and that sort of became a theme of the album”.

“If we hadn’t done it before, we should definitely do it now. So you can hear a lot more range in James’s voice than usual, for instance.” With the pair having – as Moffat puts it – “no idea whether or when we’d play live again, or when any of our other bands’ next plans could happen,” they immersed themselves in a process of writing remotely, sending music and vocal tracks back and forth, and coming up with a set of songs that form the forthcoming release.

“The subject matter was hard but writing it was easy,” Graham summarises. “Working with Aidan has been a dream. Most of these songs were written and recorded within days. It all just came very naturally and I never questioned the words or the feelings that came out of me.”

‘These Actions Cannot Be Undone’ tracklisting:

1. Waiting For Nothing
2. Killing This Time
3. Let Them Rot (ft. AKG)
4. The Cries
5. Date & Sign
6. Rent Free
7. Shores of Anhedonia
8. Face To Fire (After Nyman)
9. Don’t Say Goodnight
10. Landfill

More at gentlesinners.com.

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