A slice of strutting glam electro-pop exploring the gap between guilt and self-pity, ‘Sorry Eyes’ (out January 13th) is the brand-new single by isle of Eigg-based Scottish psychedelic folk ogre Johnny Lynch, AKA Pictish Trail. The new single is taken from his forthcoming album Life Slime, Johnny’s most personal record to date released April 10th via Fire Records and Lost Map Records. Produced by Mike Lindsay (Tunng, LUMP), and featuring a string of well-received singles, all on streaming platforms now. Alongside the fan first/tour exclusive pre-release Primordial Blue-In-Pink Goo Edition, Life Slime will now also have an exclusive shop release on ‘Toxic Blue Lagoon’ vinyl with unique new artwork. Pictish Trail will play his first show of 2026 at St Luke’s in Glasgow as part of Celtic Connections on January 17, with a full-band UK tour just announced.
On ‘Sorry Eyes’, Pictish Trail writes:
“A song that lives in that messy psychological space where you internalise someone else’s anger and start directing it at yourself. The hook deliberately blurs ‘sorry eyes’ and ‘sorry ass’ – it’s meant to sound like self-mockery, the voice in your head when you’re convinced you’ve failed. The confusion between those phrases still makes me laugh, and it’s been especially fun to play live.
“The bitterness ricochets between resentment, self-reproach and the lingering sting of judgement, until the word ‘sorry’ loses meaning altogether. Musically there’s a camp strut to it – glammy bass, electro-pop swagger – but underneath it something bruised. For me, the song sits in that tension: recognising your own flaws without letting them define you, and accepting that frustration can be an honest starting point.”
Arriving at a time of immense personal tumult and featuring some of his warmest, most generous and most emotionally intelligent songwriting yet, Life Slimeis in essence “a breakup record”, says Johnny. “It holds a lot of the hardship, guilt, pain and confusion that come with that kind of upheaval. Although all my albums are rooted in my own experience, Life Slime feels like my most personal collection of songs to date.” Moulding together a love of lo-fi alt-pop, a joy in weird and colourful visual and verbal world-building and a genuine obsession with gunge (“I’ve spent a slightly alarming amount of time over the past few years watching ASMR videos of people making slime,” Johnny admits), it feels like a record he was always one day destined to make: riotously good fun, unafraid to confront hard questions, full of exquisite hooks and completely addictive.
Recorded at Mike Lindsay’s MESS studio in Margate, and featuring key contributions from long-time co-conspirators Rob Jones and Joe Cormack, Life Slime opens with the stunning ‘Hold It’, a lo-fi psych-pop ballad about the moment love disappears and the guilt, shame and fear left in its wake. Full of suitably squelching analogue synths, the album’s title track reflects a weary acceptance of time moving forward, a relationship’s end, the quiet endurance of emotional disaster and the feeling of life slipping through your fingers, like so much slime. The record’s emotional hinge point ‘Another Way’ is a sprawling eight-minute odyssey of transformation and release building to a motorik krautrock crescendo. ‘Infinity Ooze’ is a shimmering hymn to life’s strange alchemy with a baggy nineties pulse and waves of reverb-drenched harmony, while ‘Torch Song’ is a sad swaying ballad with a kaleidoscopic lo-fi twist, channelling other shrewdly anthemic torch songs from Magnolia Electric Co.’s ‘Hard To Love A Man’ to Radiohead’s ‘Karma Police’. Closer ‘Werewolf Ending’ is a hypnotic meditation on culminations and transformations, moving from whispered acoustics and vocoder-soft vocals towards a swelling, cinematic finale.
Pictish Trail has toured the world as both headliner and support for the likes of Belle & Sebastian, Pavement, Mogwai, SeaPower, and KTTunstall. He’s performed at major festivals including Glastonbury (Park Stage), FieldDay, CampBestival, DeerShed, CelticConnections, BlueDot, and the EdinburghFringe, as well as every single edition of the GreenMan Festival to date (all 22 and counting). Outside his own music, Johnny is a lynchpin of the UK’s independent music scene. Through his label LostMap, he has championed a diverse and idiosyncratic roster, helping to platform artists such as RoziPlain, AlabasterdePlume, SeamusFogarty, BasJan, CallumEaster, and FreeLove.
Available On: Primordial Blue-in-Pink Goo Edition Vinyl, Toxic Blue Lagoon Edition vinyl with alternate cover artwork (Shop Exclusive) and CD.
LIVE DATES
17 Jan: Celtic Connections, Glasgow, UK
23 Apr: Tolbooth, Stirling, UK
24 Apr: Harbour Arts Centre, Irvine, UK
25 Apr: The Tunnels, Aberdeen, UK
26 Apr: The Cluny, Newcastle, UK
27 Apr: The Attic, Leeds, UK
28 Apr: La Belle Angle, Edinburgh, UK
01 May: The Pink Room, Yes, Manchester, UK
02 May: The John Peel Centre, Stowmarket, UK
03 May: Billy Bootleggers, Nottingham, UK
04 May: The Prince Albert, Stroud, UK
05 May: Ramsgate Music Hall, Ramsgate, UK
06 May: Boileroom, Guildford, UK
07 May: The Barrel House, Totnes, UK
08 May: Alphabet, Brighton, UK
10 May: The Lexington, London, UK
