JUST REALISED…..

……that it’s the end of the first month of 2017 and I never ever got round to sharing with you my favourite record of 2016.

For the first half of the year, I had assumed it was going to be Adam Stafford who would have taken the honour for his wondrous work Taser Revelations which was without any doubt my most played album across the entire year; there was also going to be an honourable mention for Emma Pollock whose In Search Of Harperfield was as classy and enjoyable as anything she had ever recorded in her time with The Delgados and was way superior to her previous two solo efforts.

But in mid-July, Ette released their debut LP Homemade Lemonade which in due course proved to be the one that I fell most for last year.  I wasn’t alone as a number of other Scottish-based bloggers and professional writers (i.e. those who get paid by magazines and newspapers for offering their opinions) also gave it the highest possible praise.

Ette is sort of the solo project of Carla Easton, one of the four members of the all-girl Glasgow band TeenCanteen. She teamed up with multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer Joe Kane and in just five days they recorded a damn-near perfect, diverse and intelligent pop album.  All ten tunes are memorably catchy, tipping their hat to all sorts of all genres and influences – I hear, among others, the girl-groups so beloved of Phil Ramone mixing it up with Clare Grogan, Kate Bush, Kylie, 80s synth bands, bubblegum, rap and the occasional hint of folk-rock that so many bands from Scotland are proving so adept at.

I was also delighted that it came out on Olive Grove Records, a label that has been on the go for a few years now thanks to the hard work and dedication of Lloyd Meredith, one of the real unsung heroes of the music industry in Scotland; at long last, his label has what I hope is proving to be a reasonably decent selling record after so many top-quality releases over the past five or so years have sold in relatively small numbers.

https://olivegrove.bandcamp.com/artists

No mp3s with this posting – I encourage you all to spend your money on this very fine record which comes in eye-catching pink vinyl (or digitally if you prefer things that way).  Here’s a promo for one of the songs.

I was lucky enough to see Ette at a tiny venue in Glasgow for the gig that launched this album – and had the privilege of actually working on the merchandise stall that night as an Lloyd needed an extra pair of hands given that just about everyone who was at the gig also bought the album such was the quality of the performance from Carla, Joe and the band they had put together for the evening.

Enjoy.