We’ve been excitedly following the Scottish Album of the Year Award since it was announced last month. Just this week, a panel of judges met and decided on just ten shortlisted albums from the longlist of 20 Scottish albums, all released in 2011. The winning album will be announced at an awards ceremony at Glasgow Film City on Tuesday 19th June, where each of the shortlisted acts will receive a £1,000 prize, and one luck winner will pocket the sizeable  £20,000 award. All ten shortlisted finalists will receive an artwork from the winner of a unique SAY Award art commission. The art commission, will be created by graduates from one of Scotland’s art schools.
In alphabetical order, the shortlisted nominees are:

• Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat “Everything’s Getting Older”
• Conquering Animal Sound “Kammerspiel”
• Happy Particles “Under Sleeping Waves”
• King Creosote & Jon Hopkins “Diamond Mine”
• Mogwai “Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will”
• Mungo’s Hi Fi “Forward Ever”
• Remember Remember “The Quickening”
• Rustie “Glass Swords”
• Tommy Smith “Karma”
• Twin Atlantic “Free” (public vote winners)

Radio Magnetic and Tennent’s Lager are partnering up for T Break 2012. Find out all the news and then listen online and download live recordings, MP3 downloads, interviews and features from the forthcoming T Break Stage bands and artists.

Tennent’s Lager have announced the T Break 2012 lineup. The Radio Magnetic team are pleased to see a strong group of 16 bands who will all perform on the T Break Stage at T in the Park on 6, 7 and 8 July 2012.

Radio Magnetic will be there to record and film each of the live sets, which you can listen to and watch after the festival. We’ve pulled together a list of Soundcloud tracks from each of the acts appearing on the T Break Stage this year. Check them out.

T Break Stage 2012 Bands

Anderson, McGinty, Webster, Ward and Fisher

Bacchanal Party

Beerjacket

Blank Canvas

Brown Bear & The Bandits

Capitals

Chris Devotion and the Expectations

Crusades

soundcloud.com/crusadesglasgow/pseudo-andro

Davey Horne

Nevada Base

Open Swimmer

Randolph’s Leap

Roman Nose

TeKlo

The Machine Room

The Mirror Trap

Keep you eye on our website, the T Break website and Facebook to find out more about the acts.

tennents.com/tbreak
facebook.com/TennentsTBreak

Following the announcement of the long list of nominees, the candidates for The Scottish Album of the Year are being whittled down to a much more manageable shortlist of ten, with the great Scottish public helping one act onto the list.

The Scottish Album of the Year (SAYA) is a new national prize established to reward and promote the creative diversity of music and art in Scotland. Developed by the Scottish Music Industry Association in partnership with Creative Scotland, the award recognises the most outstanding albums released by Scottish artists in 2011. The SAY Award will place it’s focus on artistic merit rather than sales history, genre or label affiliation, offering £20,000 to the winning album and £1,000 to each of the nine runners-up.

The relationship between music and art is recognised too, with a £20,000 art commission offered to graduates from Scotland’s four principal art schools with the successful candidate going on to create a unique piece for each of the shortlisted finalists.

The list of acts for The Scottish Album of the Year Award is as follows:

• King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine
• Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat – Everything’s Getting Older
• FOUND – factorycraft
• Mungo’s Hi Fi – Forward Ever
• Twin Atlantic – Free
• Bwani Junction – Fully Cocked
• Steve Mason & Dennis Bovell – Ghosts Outside
• Rustie – Glass Swords
• Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die But You Will
• We Were Promised Jetpacks – In The Pit Of The Stomach
• Richard Craig – Inward
• Jonny – Jonny
• Conquering Animal Sound – Kammerspiel
• Tommy Smith – Karma
• Chris Stout’s Brazilian Theory – Live In Concert
• Muscles of Joy – Muscles of Joy
• Fudge Fingas – Now About How
• 6th Borough Project – One Night In The Borough
• Remember Remember – The Quickening
• Happy Particles – Under Sleeping Waves

The eleven strong judging panel will trim the list down to ten with the public being given the chance to vote for one act for 24 hours on 14 May using the SAYA app or through the SAYA website. If the public’s choice isn’t on the shortlist the judging panel will reconvene and cut one of their ten acts to make way for the chosen candidate.

sayaward.com

The Radio Magnetic blog brings you the latest gigs, clubs, festivals and music news from throughout the UK and worldwide.

Soundcloud are set to release a new interface in the next few months. It’s said that the new player will be smaller and neater, but with added sharing controls, such as a repost button that allow’s users to quickly spread their favourite tunes around. Profiles have also redesigned to be cleaner, but will concentrate more on your activity, i.e. what you’ve liked and commented on. There will also be keyboard shortcuts, but the coolest feature to us is the real time notifications, letting the artist know as their content is reposted or liked.

We don’t know the exact date for this relaunch yet, but keep your eyes on Soundcloud for updates. We’ll certainly be making good use of the new features.

soundcloud.com

Firmly placed as one of the most exciting producers to blend elements of footwork, acid, juke and bass music, Bristol’s Addison Groove has just released his debut album Transistor Rhythm on Modeselektor’s 50weapons imprint. The LP features 13 all-new productions and boasts collaborations with Africa Hi-Tech’s Mark Pritchard and Spank Rock.

We’ve got one copy of the Transistor Rhythm CD and an Addison Groove t-shirt to give away. To be in with a chance of winning simply answer the question below. Answers in the comment box.

Competition

What is the name of Addison Groove’s alter ego?

Rules & Biz

1. By entering the competition you agree to subscribing to our newsletter.
2. The prize is one CD copy of Transistor Rhythm and one t-shirt.
3. Competition will run until 6pm on Monday 24 April. The competition winner will be notified by 6pm Tuesday 25 April.
4. You must tell everyone how much you LOVE Radio Magnetic!
5. By entering this competition you agree to our terms and conditions

The Radio Magnetic blog brings you the latest gigs, clubs, festivals and music news from throughout the UK and worldwide.

A collaborative project between Aidan Moffat (Arab Strap) and FOUND, the Edinburgh based band/arts collective is to be shown as part of the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art. Gemma Brown finds out all about it.

The project is called #UNRAVEL and is a new Interactive Sound Installation which allows the audience to try and unravel the truth about the narrators life through different records from his own collection. The installation will be exhibited at SWG3 in Glasgow and will be open to the public from Friday 20 April until Monday 7 May. As well as this spectacular art installation Aidan and FOUND will be performing rare interpretations of the songs from the installation. This gig will be held on Saturday 21 April, 2012 at SWG3 and will include support from MIAOUX MIAOUX, S-Type and some of our own Radio Magnetic DJs.

The Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art is a festival that takes place in venues all over Glasgow every two years. This year’s festival will run from Friday 20 April till Monday 7 May. The festival showcases impressive visual art pieces and informs the public of what is going on with contemporary art in Glasgow and where to find it as well as showing world class exhibitions from international artists. Full details of the festival, exhibitions and shows are on the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art website.

#UNRAVEL is the first collaboration between FOUND and Aidan Moffat, both are signed to Glasgow Independent Record label Chemikal Underground. The installation consists of a record player with ten familiar 7” singles from the pop past; these are then chosen by the audience and once a record begins to play the installation ignites a number of self playing acoustic instruments that are situated throughout the gallery. The instruments will build a soundtrack to the story being told by the narrator who has a different memory related to each single.
The singles are different every time they get played, this means the story varies each time depending on audience size, time of the day, what is being said on Twitter at that moment in time about the installation. Aidan Moffat was responsible for writing the ten stories and their different variations whilst FOUND provided the music compositions to become the soundtracks. This looks to be an exciting and innovative creation within the visual arts – Don’t miss this opportunity to see this unique collaboration.

As well as this impressive art installation FOUND and Aidan will be performing live interpretations of the #UNRAVEL songs. This will take place in SWG3 on Saturday 21 April (Record Store Day) and there will be deals on tickets for the #UNRAVEL gig. The gig will feature support from Radio Magnetic DJs along with RM’s chief audio engineer, S-Type and Chemikal Underground new boy, Miaoux Miaoux and will be a great and entertaining end to the day. Full details of the gig are on Facebook.

I would highly recommend that if you are a contemporary art fan that you go see the #UNRAVEL exhibition as it is a piece of new and avant-garde work in the visual arts industry. The whole International festival is an opportunity to see these styles or work and I suggest going to view more than one show. The #UNRAVEL gig will also be a great night and will provide rare performances from both FOUND and Aidan Moffat so come join us.

foundtheband.com
aidanmoffat.co.uk
unravelproject.com 

The Radio Magnetic blog brings you the latest gigs, clubs, festivals and music news from throughout the UK and worldwide.

Breton are filmmakers-turned-musicians who come from the squat culture in London and see themselves as more of a multimedia arts collective than a mere band. They make films, remixes and music of their own, all from their own South London studio dubbed BretonLABS.

Their debut album, Other People’s Problems, combines disjointed, ambient electronics with an indie-rock sensibility. Samples are cut and chopped, dub influenced bass shudders tracks and are accompanied by hazy, incomprehensible vocals. Stand out tracks like Ghost Note and Edward the Confessor with its 808 percussion and blunt synths make this a brooding and impactful record. Breton harks back to an early Massive Attack with their DIY, of-the-moment style, making for a slightly messy and at yet totally wondrous record.

If Breton stick to these principles I feel they are a band, sorry multimedia arts collective, that will be around for a long time.

bretonlabs.com
soundcloud.com/bretonlabs 

Being from Glasgow makes it difficult not to love Hudson Mohawke, a man who has been repping the city  on the world stage for a while now.

Since 2008 when the Ooops EP dropped on LuckyMe, Ross Birchard’s productions have gone from strength to strength.

With outings on The Pleasure Principle and All City Records, not forgetting of course a slew of excellent releases alongside his full length debut on Warp records, Hud Mo has effortlessly asserted himself as one of the most sought after producers in the UK at the moment.

Now it looks like our boy from Glasgow has gone and contributed to Kanye West‘s new track Mercy which dropped over the weekend.

The track sees Kanye alongside Pusha T, Big Sean and 2 Chainz, with Hud Mo having an “additional instruments” credit on the track.

It looks like Mr Mohawke is just one step closer to total world domination which sounds alright to me.

The track is now available to buy from iTunes.

Check out Hudson Mohawkes’ Soundcloud page here

and Kanye West’s official website here.

The Radio Magnetic blog brings you the latest gigs, clubs, festivals and music news from throughout the UK and worldwide.

The Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award is not far away from revealing its longlist of 20 albums that will be eventually whittled down to just one on Tuesday 19 June when the winner of the inaugural Scottish Album of the Year Award will be revealed.

This new national prize, which has been established to reward and promote both diversity and creativity of music and art in Scotland and celebrate the most exceptional albums released by Scottish artists, has been developed by the Scottish Music Industry Association, in partnership with Creative Scotland. The SAY Award will place its focus on artistic merit rather than sales figures, genre or label affiliation, offering £20,000 to the winning album and £1,000 to each of the nine runners-up. The links between art and music will also be celebrated with a £20,000 commission offered to graduates from Scotland’s four principal art schools, one successful graduate producing an original unique artwork for each of the shortlisted finalists.

The choice of which albums deserve to enter the 20 strong longlist will be the job of 100 impartial ‘Nominators’, including our very own Andy McColgan, who have been invited by the SMIA to participate and drawn from genres and sectors across the music industry and the arts.

Each nominator will pick a total of five of their favourite eligible releases from 2011 and rank them in order of preference (1st = 10 pts; 2nd = 8pts etc.) before sending their ‘Top 5′ to the SMIA for collation and scoring.

After all of the Nominators’ submissions have been calculated and verified by an independent auditor, the 20 highest-scoring albums will be announced as The SAY Award Long List.

What’s even better is that courtesy of the SAY Award App and through the SAY website, you can instantly access this Long List and over the course of four weeks from Monday 16 April, you’ll have the chance to listen to all twenty albums.

Every weekday from Monday 16 April one album from the long list will become the Album of the Day: available to stream in its entirety (and free of charge) for 24 hours. Oh and even if you miss an album through the week don’t worry because you’ll be able to stream all five albums that have been played over the week on the Saturday and Sunday.

While you listen away to the top 20 albums the 11 judges will be deciding based solely on musical and artistic merit which of the 20 album long list deserves to go on the 10 album shortlist.

But there is power in your lugs too! As you will have the chance to pick a band to be placed on the shortlist for 24 hours on Monday 14 May. During this time you can vote for your favourite album from the Long List with the album receiving the most public votes securing a place on the Short List. If the Judging Panel’s Short List does not include the public’s choice then they’ll have to relegate one of their choices in order to make way for the public’s favourite.

The judging panel will then be asked to get back round the table one last time for the award ceremony on Tuesday 19 June, when they will choose a winner of the inaugural Scottish Album of the Year Award.

High Sheen is a new Scottish record label formed from the depths of Glasgow rich and diverse club music scene. The label was set up by Sam Murray and Ben Martin and their first release, the imaginatively named High Sheen, is a collaboration between HaHaHa, Raksha and Mia Dora and is set to be released on Monday 16 April.

To celebrate the release, XLR8R are giving away the track Intercourse by HaHaHa & Raksha. Here’s what they had to say about it:

Between the droning string samples, percolating percussion, and infectiously pitched piano chords, it appears HaHaHa and Raksha have put together what the kids nowadays are calling a “big tune”. If this is what High Sheen is willing to offer up for free, we’ll be eagerly awaiting what else the label has in store – XLR8R

HaHaHa & Raksha – Intercourse Free Download

With big plans in mind, High Sheen looks set for a glistening year ahead.

twitter.com/highsheen
soundcloud.com/high-sheen-recordings
High Sheen on Facebook