Over three decades as the unassuming but pivotal figure behind some of Scotland’s most iconic pop, Jim McCulloch delivers his debut solo album. When I Mean What I Say will be released on Violette Records on 21 May 2021. Lush and textured, delicate and intriguing, it is immersed in the melodic tapestries of Laurel Canyon but rooted in Jim’s life in his hometown of Glasgow.
Bursting onto the influential mid-80s Scottish scene with the BMX Bandits, making his mark with The Soup Dragons and then with Superstar, Jim’s albums as Green Peppers identified a songwriter committed to the detailed sculpting of melody and expression. His craft and presence, both as a composer and performer, are felt on his contributions to the critically lauded collaborations between Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan. And in summer 2020 the second Snowgoose album, his psyche-folk project with Anna Sheard, was met with considerable acclaim.

The musical project for Italy born, London-based, multidisciplinary artist Francesca Brierley, heka has been exploring the indie music world for quite a few years now.
She debuted with a series of double-singles releases in late 2017 , then released her debut ep other drugs via Juicy Records in 2019, and delivered the standalone single “redwoods (a few interesting facts about sequoias)” .
Francesca/heka is the latest signing to a new label based in the North West of England, Balloon Machine Records, founded by Paddy Kinsella and Philip Moss in 2020. To date, the label has released the music of Bristol based herbal tea (the project of Helena Eve Walker) and London artist Laura Fell.
Heka forthcoming EP, the first for Balloon Machine Records, will be titled (a) and will contain the lead single (a) wall, which was released in March featuring Jemima Coulter’s trumpets , and the new song (a) dab.

“Caring About Something Utterly Useless” is FLeUR second album, out in February on Bosco Rec. The music of the experimental duo, formed by the Turin-based Enrico Dutto and Francesco Lurgo – the latter moved to Milan long ago – focuses on the dialogue between electronic programming and the human warmth of the hands playing guitars and keyboards, which blend together to the point where the two components become symbiotic and their respective edges merge, so that the digital sounds turn into breaths and the electric walls raised by the strings become synthetic roars. The seven songs on the record become a coherent whole thanks to the production of Emilio Pozzolini, member of port-royal (small, great heroes of Italian dreamy electronics).