SAY 2018 Long List

Last nights at King Tut’s the Scottish Album of the Year Award long list was announced. The SAY Award: “Boasting a lucrative £20,000 prize for the winner and nine runner up prizes of £1,000 each, the award celebrates, promotes and rewards the most outstanding Scottish albums released each year.”

It’s a triumph of the small-scale, richly diverse music scene, with voices like 18 year old Scottish artist Katie Buchan (Best Girl Athlete), sitting next to Kobi Onyame’s hip-hop, and Karine Polwart’s Wind Resistance sound recordings, and relative newcomers Siobhan Wilson and Neon Waltz up against a resurgent Franz Ferdinand and 2014 winners Young Fathers.

The strength of the list is its multiform eclecticism: there’s a strong presence from trad artists jostling next to the spacey dub of Golden Teacher and the sparce spiritual Happy Meals (Full Ashram Devotional Ceremony (Volumes IV – VI).

There’s some notable and controversial absences, but it’s a strong lineup. Here’s the long list:

1. Adam Holmes and The Embers – Midnight Milk
2. BABE – Kiss & Tell
3. Best Girl Athlete – Best Girl Athlete
4. Blue Rose Code – The Water of Leith
5. Catholic Action – In Memory Of
6. Chris Stout and Catriona McKay – Bare Knuckle
7. Elephant Sessions – All We Have Is Now
8. Franz Ferdinand – Always Ascending
9. Golden Teacher – No Luscious Life
10. Happy Meals (now known as Free Love) – Full Ashram Devotional Ceremony (Volumes IV – VI)
11. Karine Polwart with Pippa Murphy – A Pocket Of Wind Resistance
12. Kobi Onyame – Gold
13. Martha Ffion – Sunday Best
14. Mogwai – Every Country’s Sun
15. Neon Waltz – Strange Hymns
16. Out Lines – Conflats
17. Pronto Mama – Any Joy
18. Siobhan Wilson – There Are No Saints
19. The Spook School – Could It Be Different
20. Young Fathers – Cocoa Sugar

The SAY Award Shortlist will be announced on August 23rd before the winner is announced at a ceremony in Paisley on September 6th. Follow the hashtag #SAYaotd to listen to a featured album every day.

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  1. David G says:

    So much better than many other awards (e.g. Mercury)
    Artists here doing it for themselves and producing great original music. Good to see Blue Rose Code, Karine Polwart and Stout / McKay on the list.
    Would be even better if Scotland had a music TV and Radio channel to give a bit more exposure to the talent here.
    Tom Morton on 60° North and Mixcloud may feature a few. Vic Galloway, Roddy Hart and others do on their respective shows.
    Think BBC Alba may broadcast SAY event?

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