ADAM BEATTIE is an Aberdeenshire balladeer with a dark, twangy musical beauty and an unflinching way with a starkly observed lyric.
You may not know him as a solo artist, but he’s been busy in a collaborative sense if you follow the folk world; he’s one quarter of the band Pica Pica, alongside Josienne Clarke, Sonny Johns and Samantha Whates; and as if that wasn’t enough he’s also a member of Hibernian supergroup Band of Burns, whose debut studio set, The Thread, out next month, is already garnering critical accolades.
But he’s also decided to spread his wings under his birth name, and is releasing his own album, Somewhere Around the Bend, on November 27th – in announcement and celebration of which he’s today dropped the title track. You can watch the blurry, noir video below.
You’ll find finely crafted songwriting with Telecaster twang, off-kilter castanets, perfect for a Scottish film-maker with a Lynchian vision. Think past-midnight ceiling fans clearing the smoke; red walls, tumblers slopping a generous dram.
“I met the love of my life, but we were far too young / I said we’d meet ten years later, but she never rung,” confesses Adam, as muted chords chug and a warm and unadorned guitar invokes the troubled, romantic swoon of Chris Isaak.
On the album we are promised that he “mourns long-loved venues, gone forever; freewheeling, pre-brexit European tours and missed opportunities for romance”; and furthermore that this is “a way of life he refuses to let die.”
“‘Somewhere Round The Bend’ refers to the imagination stretching back into the past and forth into the future,” he says.
“The songs are intended to all transport you into their own unique world; they are all set in a very different time and place.”
Apparently Brian Eno has gone on record as saying ‘can I please buy two albums?’ – hey! C’mon Brian, steady; that’s one less for the rest of us.
To keep abreast of Adam’s forthcoming album, check back regularly here at Backseat Mafia; and follow Adam on Facebook, at his website, on Instagram and Twitter.
