Scotland in the 80s release an album entitled ‘The Dreary Heather Club’.

The “quarantine band” are a duo – “two Fifers, no drums” – consisting of Mike Lennie and Andy McDiarmid, the pair hailing from Scotland’s “second favourite Newburgh [third Worldwide]” i.e. the one on the east coast just south of the Tay.

The lo-fi recording – largely made using a phone’s voice recorder and Garageband – contains 13 tracks, and is available to download via bandcamp.

Previously Lennie was a member of Dundee acts Gong Fei, and then Pensioner, whose Mark Keiller would form Fat Goth. Lennie, however, departed to Finland, only returning just before lockdown in the UK commenced.

The new long-player is, however, the first recorded work by McDiarmid, as Lennie explains. “Andy’s always been a massive music snob and bedroom musician but this is the first time he’s released anything into the wild.”

Aside from its two core members, Scotland in the 80s are for this release aided and abetted by Avril Smart of The Strangers Almanac, Markku Essel (of Helsinki act Poverty Bar), Donny McCracken, Hayley Grant, Andy Lennie, Ryo Tamura, Hugh, Moira Stewart and the News and Followed by the Weather (some of which may be aliases).

Self-released, and described as “something we did to pass some time at the start of the end of the World”, the album is free to download, but with the option to donate money, all of which will go to the Minnesota Freedom Fund.

More at the Scotland in the 80s on Facebook.