The Scottish Music Industry Association (SMIA) has today announced the inaugural longlist for The Scottish Album of the Year Award (SAY). Featuring the twenty highest scoring titles to emerge from the award’s exhaustive nomination process, the list champions an eclectic range of extraordinary albums and artists. From jazz to reggae soundsystems via folk, electronica, house, rock, dub, modern classical (and everything in between), The SAY longlist provides an exhilaratingly diverse snapshot of Scotland’s musical landscape and establishes the award as one of the UK’s most exciting and progressive arts prizes.
The Scottish Album of the Year Longlist is (in alphabetical order):
· 6th Borough Project “One Night In the Borough”
· Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat “Everything’s Getting Older”
· Bwani Junction “Fully Cocked”
· Chris Stout’s Brazilian Theory “Live In Concert”
· Conquering Animal Sound “Kammerspiel”
· FOUND “factorycraft”
· Fudge Fingas “Now About How”
· Happy Particles “Under Sleeping Waves”
· Jonny “Jonny”
· King Creosote & Jon Hopkins “Diamond Mine”
· Mogwai “Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will”
· Mungo’s Hi Fi “Forward Ever”
· Muscles Of Joy “Muscles Of Joy”
· Remember Remember “The Quickening”
· Richard Craig “Inward”
· Rustie “Glass Swords”
· Steve Mason & Dennis Bovell “Ghosts Outside”
· Tommy Smith “Karma”
· Twin Atlantic “Free”
· We Were Promised Jetpacks “In The Pit Of the Stomach”
As well as featuring critically acclaimed albums from the likes of King Creosote and Jon Hopkins (with their Mercury nominated ‘Diamond Mine’), it also demonstrates the success of the award’s egalitarian approach. The Happy Particles album, ‘Under Sleeping Waves’ was previously only available as a download from their Bandcamp page. Muscles of Joy’s eponymous debut was released on vinyl only, with handmade sleeves. Now via this unique opportunity, both albums will be awarded CD manufacturing runs with production costs covered (in the short-term) by the SAY Award, ensuring both artists can capitalise on any heightened profile and have their CDs racked alongside other nominated titles.
Andrew Dixon, Chief Executive of Creative Scotland said: “In such a nation of music lovers, it’s no surprise that The Scottish Album of the Year Award is such an eclectic and entertaining list and brimming with talent. In this Year of Creative Scotland, the Awards are a brilliant way to raise the profile of our musicians. Congratulations to all of the artists!”
Stuart Braithwaite, Mogwai: “We’re extremely honoured and proud to have made the long list for the inaugural Scottish Album of the Year Award. There is an abundance of great music being produced in Scotland every year and I hope that this new award helps us celebrate it and share it.”
King Creosote: “Jon Hopkins and I are proud as punch to end up on the long list for the newest and coolest of prizes, the SAY Award. Of all the awards ‘Diamond Mine’ has been nominated for and subsequently lost, losing this one will smart most.”
Chris Stout: “I am delighted to have made the long list of this exciting new award for Scottish Album of the year. To have an award which represents all music types equally is a great step forward in the way our music is presented to the wider public. I hope and believe this award will go from strength to strength and continue to bring more awareness of the huge wealth of music we have in this country”
Steven Kane, Happy Particles: “We are completely astounded that we managed to make this list at all, considering we put the album out ourselves on bandcamp and had little publicity surrounding it. I think it goes to show the SAY award is not just another ‘pat on the back for the lads’ type award.”
Richard Craig: “To be nominated is both an accolade and a much appreciated recognition of my work on INWARD. The longlist will be a vital juncture allowing artists to reach a wider audience and bringing attention to the independents like myself who work in Scotland.”
Rustie: “Super happy to be considered for this award, recognition is always nice but this is particularly special as it’s from my homeland.”
Ziggy Campbell, FOUND: “FOUND are truly flattered that ‘factorycraft’ has been long listed and is keeping company with some albums from 2011 that we personally consider to be absolute belters. We’re also delighted to be part of an initiative that will help advance the value of music in Scotland.”
Graeme Clark, 6th Borough Project: “The nomination was a real surprise for us to be honest. I’ve never considered the impact of our music in Scotland as we tend to get more interest elsewhere, so it’s really nice to feel that something has clicked at home too.”
James Scott, Conquering Animal Sound: “With ‘Kammerspiel’ coming out at the start of 2011, it’s really cool that the judges have remembered it, and nominated us for this award. Scotland is a small place, but is home to a wealth of artistic talent, it is exciting to see this award come to life, celebrating musical and artistic talent in this country. We’re really pleased to be nominated for the first award, hopefully the first of many!”
Aidan Moffat: “Scotland’s not very good at blowing its own trumpet, but it’s about time we had our own award to celebrate the overabundance of brilliant and diverse music we make every year. For such a small country we produce an inordinate amount of great – and very successful – music, and hopefully this award means that we can be unashamedly proud about it for a few weeks every year.”
Tommy Smith: “I am so very honoured and flabbergasted to be considered for the long list. This recognition will go a long way to cradling the miniscule and spontaneous genre I represent. Many congratulations to the SMIA for supporting Scotland with this brave new initiative. I wish everyone great success and many thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Ross McNae, Twin Atlantic: “We are extremely honoured to be on the long list of contenders for the inaugural Scottish Album of the Year Award. This is a fantastic platform for Scottish artists who are sometimes overlooked for more UK wide accolades. We hope this award that will grow to rival the UK’s more established awards.”
Doug Paine, Mungo’s Hi Fi: “We have generally shunned the music industry establishment as much as it has ignored us. So we were surprised and pleased to hear that we had been nominated for Scottish Album of the Year. At a time when Scotland is becoming known for its vibrant reggae scene and given how Jamaica has been largely overlooked in the great homecoming, it is a great opportunity to celebrate our rich cultural links with the Caribbean.”
Remember Remember: “That our latest collection of cosmic jams is considered to be amongst the best Scottish albums of the year is a quite unexpected bolt from the blue but we are all thrilled and excited to have been included in the Long List.”
Bwani Junction: “Great for Scottish music and chuffed that ‘Fully Cocked’ measured up against a formidable longlist.”
Muscles of Joy: “Muscles of Joy are delighted to be on the long list of the new SAY Award, and we are very appreciative of the platform and support that an award like this has been established to provide. Thanks to Dep Downie for pushing us to make the record! There is an amazing amount of original music happening in Scotland right now. We made our LP on our own terms with no idea of how it would be received, which is an ideal scenario, it would be great if more people could get the chance to do that. We were lucky to get a small but essential amount of funding from Creative Scotland.”
Upcoming key dates:
May 14th – The public can vote for their favourite album from the longlist via The SAY Award website (www.sayaward.com) and a specially designed app. The public’s choice will earn a guaranteed slot on the shortlist.
May 17th – This longlist will be reduced to a shortlist of ten, by a panel of judges.
June 19th – The winning album will be announced at a prestigious ceremony in Glasgow Film City earning a grand prize of £20,000. The nine runners-up will each receive £1,000. All ten shortlisted finalists will receive an artwork from the winner of a unique SAY Award art commission which celebrates the enduring links that exist between music and art. The commission, valued at £20,000, will be offered to graduates from Scotland’s four principal art schools with the winning graduate (selected, in this pilot year, from Glasgow’s School of Art) producing ten artworks to be donated as prizes for the shortlisted finalists.
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