The SAY (Scottish Album of the Year) 2017 Award has launched, with the search for a successor to Kathryn Joseph, Young Fathers, RM Hubbert, Moffat/Wells, and last year’s winner, Anna Meredith.

The organisers are now encouraging artists, labels and the general public to nominate eligible albums released between 1 April 2016 and 31 March 2017 on The SAY Award website.

After the nominations are in, 100 impartial ‘Nominators’, chosen from press, radio, music venues and retail, in jazz, classical, traditional folk and elsewhere in the arts, will consider titles from the SAY Eligible album List, and each rank in order their five favourite albums.

The 20 highest scoring albums will make up The SAY Award Longlist for 2017, announced on May 24th. The Longlist will then be further whittled down to a shortlist of 10 albums, including one chosen by the public during a 72-hour vote (12-14 June)

The other nine will be decided by a judging panel, to be announced on June 15th as part of a BBC Quay Sessions show, before the judging panel will select the winner at an award ceremony on June 28th at Paisley Town Hall, in support of Paisley’s bid for Paisley 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, while the nine 9 runners up will each be awarded a £1,000 prize, as well as an exclusively designed piece of artwork from the SAY Award Design Commission.

To nominate an album, please visit The SAY Award website for guidelines and more information: http://www.sayaward.com