2020 At The Howff
howff /haʊf/. A favourite meeting place or haunt, especially a pub.
Bella Caledonia open the doors to The Howff back at the end of March as a response to lockdown. Since then it has become a weekly spotlight on the some of the best new realeases in Scottish music. From choirs to hip-hop, punk to funk, from the debuts to the weel-kent faces, the Howff has shown the diversity and range of our national music scene.
Like many things from this year of pandemic, something new has become the new normal. The Howff will be back every week from 16th January and will continue to be a regular feature for Bella Caledonia well after we have all been vaccinated safely. If you have something coming out in 2021- a new EP or album, a debut single – get in touch with us through the contact details on this website and let us know what’s happening and when.
In the meantime, have a happy New Year and hope you enjoy my look back on ten of the best of The Howff 2020.
Carla J Easton – former lead singer of Scottish popters TeenCanteen, brought her single Get Lost to the Howff in August, the lead single from her 2020 album Weirdo
Colonel Mustard & The Dijon 5 – Summer just wasn’t summer without seeing them at some festival somewhere, but they managed to join us in The Howff with their summer single Ted Dancin http://www.colonelmustarddijon5.com
Trashcan Sinatras felt the lockdown keener than most Scottish bands, as half of them live in California. But they still managed a new single. https://www.trashcansinatras.com/
Adenine self-titled collection of songs was the perfect accompaniment to the summer, as so many of us rediscovered our own landscape. For those locked down, Ailie Robertson brought those landscapes into our homes.
GABO, the 9-piece Glasgow Balafon Orchestra, brought us their debut album Jungle Fever adding some joy in the autumn, we featured the track Ambatayala www.gabosounds.com
10 years on from the debut album, Scottish hip-hop legends Stanley Odd had a productive year. Killswitch was their third single of the year. http://stanleyodd.com/
Becci Wallace return to the studio resulted in my favourite album of 2020 Present Tense, she brought the single Coloured In to The Howff in November
Karine Polwart brought her collaboration project to the Howff – Enough is Enough, a call to creative arms composed with the express purpose of inviting choirs, street bands and community groups to learn it in the hopes of making a musical response to the UN Climate Change Conference in 2021 find out more at http://oimusica.co.uk/cop26/
Bella Caledonia have followed the rise and rise of Shaheeda Sinckler aka Nova Scotia The Truth and we were delighted that her debut album Re-Up deservedly won Album of the Year at last year’s SAY Awards. https://novascotiathetruth.bandcamp.com/
And we cant say farewell to 2020 at The Howff without Texas and Wu-Tang Clan
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