Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2021 Part 4 (25-1): From Mogwai to Biffy Clyro & even Elton John

This best of Scottish soundtrack in this Covid-hit 2021 is an eclectic and subjective journey into hip hop, alternative, dance, house, electronica, indie, punk, post-grunge, post-rock, nu and old folk even jazz and often a combination of some or all. 

It's a mix of the known, little known and the unknown, immediate pop anthems and challenging left-field projects.

The final list painstakingly compiled over the year was whittled down from a not very shortlist of over 200.

This is the final chapter.

Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2021 Part 1 (100-76)

Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2021 Part 2 (75-51)

Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2021 Part 3 (50-26)

Part 4- 25-1

=25 Slow Bones - Ziyi

A fascinating four-and-a-half minute collision of electronic, jazz, hip-hop, rock and dance music on top of a tribal chant from the mysterious and promising new Perthshire producer aka Ross Fraser.

=25 Kami-O - Kayastha

Exciting Glasgow-based DJ & grime producer deftly moulds together flavours of dubstep, and haunting south and east Asia influences on his exquisitely executed debut album Biren, one of my LPs of the year, and this mesmerising, transcendental track of kaleidoscopic wonder will take you into a whole new world.

24 Auld Spells - That's The Way It Goes 

Coming over like a laid back Jesus and Mary Chain possessed by Nick Cave, this classic-sounding five minutes from the 2019-formed Edinburgh-based quintet has a killer payoff.  It is described as “about forgiveness and new beginnings but delivered with a bit of a knife twist.”

23 C Duncan - Alluvium

Skyscraping return from one of Scotland's most inventive art-popsters.

The 2015 Mercury Music Prize nominee who made a name for himself with his bedroom productions and a trademark choral vocal, sounds like he has created a heavenly harmonic theme song for a lost 60s James Bond film and had a wee word with John Barrie.

22 Mogwai - Drive The Nail

The 7m highlight of the deserved SAY Award-winning tenth studio album by the band who define post-rock and their darkest offering. This soft-LOUD-soft-LOUD to layered distortion button doesnt surprise but remains mesmerising.

21 Eliza Shaddad - Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

Covers are for talent shows aren't they.  So the fact the daughter of a Sudanese astrophysicist and a Scottish diplomat has decided to cover a classic most notably recorded by The Animals should be left with all the many many rehash mistakes, right?  Wrong.

What makes this startling reimagining stand out is that it sounds like she wrote it itself, and comes in a minimalist, ethereal, quirky package, with haunting strings, crashing orchestrals and a floating whistle which is as far away from The Animals as is possible.

The only way the two crossover is the familiar 'don't let me be misunderstood' hook.  

In truth it has more in common with the original Nina Simone recording, which is probably less familiar.  And it has helped that it is the end credit song in the first episode of hit Netflix show Behind Her Eyes. Truly wonderful.

20 Broken Chanter - Extinction Event Souvenir T​-​Shirt

The powerful highlight from Catastrophe Hits, the  second album from Kid Canaveral's David MacGregor, which talks about a self-inflicted rush towards the apocalypse but provides hope.

"When the world ends there’ll be someone there trying to sell you merch. I’m not entirely pessimistic about our chances as a species, but the damning evidence continues to mount," he says.

=19 Steg G ft Solareye - Enemy in the Mirror

It's rare that hard-hitting hip hop actually gives me the shivers. This highlight from the inspired Steg G, aka Steven Gilfoyle, who was the winner of the 2019 Scottish Alternative Music Award for Best Hip Hop, hits all the right buttons and unlike a lot out of this genre is far from predictable.

It is supported by intelligent melting pot instrumentation, from a haunting piano, to a floating rock guitar, shimmering strings, the rasping rhymes  of a potent Solareye from Stanley Odd and even an earworm chorus.  

But the second track off the glorious Live Today album packs a punch in the message - an affecting and effective reflection on self-hate and the comedown after a hard night with Solareye's emotive poetry baring all with indiscretions and regret.  In a word - magnificent.

=19 Ewan McVicar - Tell Me Something Good

The Ayr producer exploded on dancefloors and on TikTok with this insanely infectious house anthem sampling the Rufus and Chaka Khan’s hit of the same name written by Stevie Wonder.  At last check it had over 30m on Spotify making it the most streamed track on this list.

18 Ouijan -Infrno

There should be more noise around this new R&B singer-songwriter-producer from Alloa as there has been about Joesef. 

The smooth soul vocals here are accompanied by waves of ambient echoing weirdo warp-electro and a deftly defined dynamic.  He is currently working on an album type project for next year.

17 Biffy Clyro - Dum Dum

This opening track from the latest album The Myth Of The Happy Ever After made at the trio’s home studio on a farm in Ayrshire is a true eye-opener.

The usual squall of guitars have gone from this towering and affecting black gothic anthem with its 'this is how we f*** it from the start' pay-off that comes over like a relation of Never Let Me Down Again-era Depeche Mode with ear-popping freckles of synth weirdness to the more undestated guitars.  It is a superbly crafted song addressing the divisions sown by Covid-19.  

"Everything’s great, it’s all been a pleasure / Nothing has changed, life couldn’t be better,"  sings Simon Neil, before adding:" "Ignore all the bodies piled up at my door."

He says: "This was one of the tracks that kick-started the record. Musically, it’s something out of left field for us. I sampled all my vocals and created these soft sounds, which was a different way of writing. The song is about my exasperation that people are so sure of themselves. Especially in this world that we live in, I don’t know how anyone can be so convinced that what they believe is the only way to live."

16 Permo - Heroin

This superbly barking Falkirk guitar maelstrom trio come across like the resurrection of the hugely underrated Glasgow combo New Fabian Society, with a gleefully brutal R Rate psyche-goth rock that unlike so many influenced by punk sounds creative and with genuine fire in the belly.  

The band say the tune is written “from the perspective of someone looking at their friend’s relationship and seeing they’re trapped”.  

15 Oneohtrix Point Never ft Elizabeth Fraser - Tales from the Trash Stratum

The Brooklyn-based musician aka Daniel Lopatin,and Mercury Prize nominated producer gets one of the greatest ever voices of Scotland, the Cocteau Twins vocalist Elizabeth Fraser to lend her magical vocals to this startlingly abstract shape-shifting sound sculpture with extracts of melody spliced with birdlike chirps and various crashing synthetics.

14 Kobi Onyame -  My Prayer 

A compelling groove that crosses the bridge between hip-hop and Ghanaian rhythms, an infectious beat and a 'seen no colour in your brother' lyrical hook places this Glasgow-based rapper into 'must listen' territory. 

His album Gold was shortlisted for the Scottish Album of the Year in 2018.  His engrossing follow-up Don't Drink The Poison is bound to follow the same trajectory.

13 Django Django - Right The Wrongs

A exultant slice of earworm indie disco pop married to an irresistible adrenaline bounce and the trademark Beach Boys harmonies that the Djangos do so so so well.

=12 Jazz The Glass - Paradise Waves

A jaw-dropping, multi-layered, ethereal and mesmeric cut that comes over like a My Bloody Valentine with electronics from Shine, the debut album from the side-project of Dave Summersgill named after a 1981 track by Cabaret Voltaire.

He was one half of Flamingos, along with Edinburgh-based Cliff Peacock, who released several singles on a label run by Rob Gretton – former manager of Joy Division and New Order.

=12 Ensemble - Now What

This is the stunning fourth single from No Place Like It, the worthy debut album from the Glasgow-based songwriting project for young people, many with experience of homelessness or mental health issues featuring the golden larynx of Mawaddah, Donna Maciocia and Jonnie Common. 

It is a seductively quirky, minimalist alt-pop production set behind a cutting melodic vocal that just soars.

"Donna helped me write the lyrics and find melodies and chords and different ways of singing the song," says Mawaddah. She gave me word magnets and I started putting random words together like ‘silent’ and ‘bloom’ and ‘dead’ and ‘flower’ - these became the main idea for the chorus.

"It was really fun coming up with rhymes for the lyric. We were both listening to Billie Eilish lots at the time so we asked Jonnie to make a beat inspired by her music. He recorded me improvising and singing random stuff in the middle of a songwriting workshop and put that in the song too. It was super cool."

11 Taahliah - Brave

The DJ and producer from Glasgow who last year became the first black trans artist to be nominated at the Scottish Alternative Music Awards,  is carrying the baton left from the late lamented Sophie and this blows it all out the water.

This debut single with psychotic auto-tuned vocals from collaborator Sophie Thornton mashed with exuberant synths shows this is an artist to watch.

"It’s very much about coming to terms with being trans but it’s written in a love song kind of way and with an empowering vibe to it," says Taahliah. "Brave is not my best song by any means but was always going to be my debut song because it was the first song I felt really proud of."

10 Sega Bodega  - I Need Nothing From You 

A regular on this list, the Glasgow-raised producer, aka Salvador Navarrete is often at its most fascinating when he follows the experimental freakout side of his avant dance-pop. This isn't.

This straight-ahead mid-paced piano ballad back with a skeletal beat, flicks of soulfulness and gospel and delightful soaring vocal harmonies is from his second album Romeo. And that is more of a surprise than any of his previous episodes of weirdness. 

He says: "A few years ago, me and bea1991 were jamming an idea with a couple different ideas in it and somewhere in the middle was this very quick section. I was listening to Down to the River to Pray by Alison Krauss a few years later and wanting to create this same sense of gospel feel. It’s my favorite song, I think, from the album."

9 Dot Allison and Zoe Bestel - Can You Hear Nature Sing?

Dot Allison, the singer-songwriter/musician formerly with the One Dove in the 1990s collaborates with Dumfries and Galloway's Zoe Bestel, one of the great voices of Scotland right now on this seductively exquisite acoustic hymn, which is so hushed and spacey with the most delightful of spectral harmonizing and a flicker of strings, that I swear you can hear both breathe.

The lyrics originated from a poem written by Allison after her friend and poet Stuart McKenzie recommended some of his favorite poets.  It is a refreshing and comforting tribute celebration of the natural world in a world torn apart by Covid.

8 Pocket - Different Ways To Love You

This exciting Glasgow/Edinburgh producer aka Watgood masterfully fuses groove, soothing textures and soul against an exhiliratingly offbeat and moody future garage soundscape with captivating other-worldly processed vocals that reminds me of prime Rival Dealer-era Burial.  Music for the heart, head and feet.

7 Quiet Houses - Cold Water Swimming

'Just got paid, we took a train to Pitlochry', is how this breathtaking, atmospheric and eloquent tale of unrequited love starts from the three-year-old alt-folk duo made up of Hannah Elliott and Jamie Stewart who met at school in Edinburgh. 

Its skilfully building sparce acoustic guitar-led dynamics gets under your skin, the bittersweet and wistful sentiment cuts right through and the infectious 'laugh like lovers and kiss like friends' chorus seeps into your head and won't leave.

A precious gem, like young Scotland's answer to country music, that brings a tear to the eye and goosebumps down the spine from the Big Town EP.

6 Taahliah - Bourgeoisie

A mangled, intoxicating acid-flavoured gem that shows how transcendent and inspired this Glasgow trans producer can get.

With the tragic passing of inspiration Sophie at the age of just 36, this makes the perfect tribute. 

"I made Bourgeoisie about being working class and not being something that people think I am. The music that I make and DJ, all originates from working-class culture and has been appropriated by the upper-middle class," she says.

5 Goodnight Louisa - The Deep Dark 

Another twisting and icy epic to-be-played-on-repeat from the imminent debut album from Edinburgh's Louise Anna McCraw - who fronted the underrated Edinburgh band Skjør. 

A glittering pitch black melancholi-pop triumph to rank alongside Hollow God, our Scots tune of the year from two years ago with added whoooohs and whoaaahs. And you just cannot get enough of them. 

"This song has been a long time coming. I wrote it about three years ago with the wonderful Donna Maciocia and it’s been through so many different variations, recordings, producers. I love the song but safe to say I am glad that it’s out," she says.

4 Ouijan - Muddy

Mysterious and exciting Alloa singer-songwriter-producer that does not conform to the usual Drake-alike stereotype.  This compelling spacey single from nowhere has a deeply soulful heart, a dark epicentre, an inventive spirit and when you think it will just trot along - a devastating leftfield finale.

3 The Snuts - Burn The Empire

Storming November single from the album chart-topping West Lothian indie quartet is their most adventurous and best yet, coming over like a Scots Arctic Monkeys armed with attitude and killer hooks on this defiant 'stick it to the man' track. 

Frontman Jack Cochrane said: “I wanted the word ‘empire’ to feel open, almost rhetorical to what constitutes or qualifies as an oppressive factor in your life, because it certainly exists for 99% of people. "We were driven to standup against the negative effects of big corporations on the everyday person. We all understand that these companies act ruthlessly and unethically in the name of profit. I think young people have always wanted a fairer and more equal society and it’s the voices of the old, the discontent and the ignorant that try and squash that. We believe in 2022 there is no place for fascism or oppression of any kind and we must burn the empire that represents it.”

2 Nothing But Thieves -  - Phobia (Wuh Oh Remix)

Glasgow-producer Wuh Oh aka Peter Ferguson, almost a fixture on this list, gives another tune a hands to the stars makeover sprinkling atmospheric computerised light and shade creating a far more sinister backdrop to this alterno-soul rant against social media.  Amazing. Again.

1 Steven Wilson - Personal Shopper (Biffy Clyro Remix)

This original wistful electronic track from the founding member of the now-defunct progressive rock band Porcupine Tree has been turned into a whole new noise-rock beast by the Scots rockers. 

The protest against consumerism has now become spitefully bruising with evil face-melting riffs which give way to a cute ambient breakdown, before Elton John's spoken word section is punctured with a whirlwind of thrashing guitars.  Probably the one and only time Biffy and the knighted Watford fan will ever collide in a release.  

"Biffy Clyro have come with perhaps the most radical reinvention of the song by taking the mainly electronic track and reimagining it as a huge guitar anthem, which just blew me away. Perhaps one for those that missed hearing the guitars in my recent music," says Wilson.

Probably the most exhilirating track the stadium rockers have ever put their name to.

Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2021 Part 1 (100-76)

Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2021 Part 2 (75-51)

Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2021 Part 3 (50-26)

This is the Top 100 Spotify playlist.

This is the Top 100 YouTube playlist.

Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2021 Part 1 (100-76)

Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2021 Part 2 (75-51)

Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2021 Part 3 (50-26)