WHEN Johnny Lynch previewed new songs from Thumb World, his eighth album as Pictish Trail, during last month’s Celtic Connections, he remarked how strange it felt to be performing them to 600 people at Saint Luke’s – his biggest headline show to date.
They’d been formed over months of banging them out to no-one in his shed on Eigg, then explained Lynch, flanked by members of a live band which includes vaunted multi-instrumentalist Suze Bear, bass-playing Super Furry Animal Guto Pryce, and Joe Cormack, one of the guitar-mastering brothers who front The Massacre Cave, the Hebridean island’s only thrash metal band.
READ MORE: Opposites attract: two very different Valentine's day albums
“Joe is an amazing guitarist, and he’s got lovely hair as well,” says Lynch, speaking to The National from Edinburgh.
Pryce, still a member of the Super Furries from his new base in Fife, simply asked Lynch if he could join his live team following performances on Eigg with Gulp, the Welshman’s side project with his partner.
“His touch on the bass is incredible,” continues Lynch. “He knows when to make things go super psychedelic, he can do disco numbers, he can go into the wilds of progressive rock, classic rock. And having Guto on bass meant I could move Suze to synthesizers. It’s been really cool for her, I think, as she always wants to try something new. I can’t believe I’ve got this band together, really. I’m totally spoiled.”
From the gentle cosmic trundle of early track Double Sided through the squally indie of Bad Algebra and house grooves of Turning Back, that eclecticism is in evidence on Thumb World. And though it was there too in Future Echoes, Thumb World’s colourful, Scottish Album of the Year-nominated predecessor, here the hues are more muted and the tone is one of wistful reflection.
READ MORE: Dingwall's Ali Levack on overnight success – 10 years in the making
Lynch’s new songs may have been seeded in physical isolation on Eigg, but they often seem shaped by the confusion and bewilderment that often accompanies having the rest of the world at our thumbtips.
It’s also the most collaborative record of Lynch’s two-decade career, with string arrangements from Kim Moore, a cameo from Alex Thomas – one of the most versatile, astonishing drummers in the game – and production from Adem, and Idlewild’s Rob Jones. Perhaps even more decisive was a dialogue with Swatpaz, aka Davey Ferguson, the Scottish animator behind crime-busting TV adventure series Turbo Fantasy.
Not only do Ferguson’s drawings feature on Thumb World’s cover art and in charming videos for Bad Algebra, Turning Back and the yearning Slow Memories, his input helped shaped the sound of the record, says Lynch.
“I sent Davey a work-in-progress mix of the album,” he says. “He came up with amazing characters, and gave me a study of each one. I hadn’t finished the songs by this point and seeing what Davey had done made me think about what was missing from the songs, made me think about them more visually. The album came together like that, matching the characters to the songs, so Thumb World is like a 1980s arcade game on a mobile phone.”
Like much of his back catalogue, Thumb World’s songs were first conceived as fragments sung into a phone while out walking.
READ MORE: Who are Dry Cleaning and what is the Meghan Markle connection?
“I’m more and more aware of my dependency on the phone,” Lynch says. “Having opposable thumbs is supposedly what makes us different from animals and yet we use them to constantly scroll though this endless timeline of awful things, this claustrophobic, end-of-days hellscape.”
“A lot of the songs are about this feeling of being trapped, of being on an endless loop of life folding in on itself. I wanted to offered music around all that which was some form of escape. I wanted to use that to make something that sounds as epic as it could.”
He adds: “Why not? Who just wants to hear some bloke from the Hebrides whining away on his guitar?”
April 9, Tolbooth, Stirling, 7pm, £17
Apr 10, Beat Generator, Dundee, 7pm, £16
Apr 11, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 7pm, £17
Apr 12, Lemon Tree, Aberdeen, 7pm, £15.40
Thumb World is released on February 21 via Fire Records
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here