Jane Weaver's 'Flock', Vanishing Twin's 'Ookii Gekkou' and Marina Allen's 'Candlepower' have landed on Rough Trade's Best Albums Of The Year

'Island Family'  is Pictish Trail’s contrarian view of arcadia; a search for the euphoric in the bucolic, bound up in sometimes conflicting ideas and feelings around nature and environment, sincerity and artifice, escapism and belonging. It’s an album about how no man can remain an island, however hard he might try.

A purgative surrender to nature’s whim driven by a clattering machine drumbeat and rolled in a puddle of filthy dirty fuzz, ‘Natural Successor’ is the riotous new single from isle of Eigg based Scottish psychedelic electronic-pop ogre

Taking inspiration from a brief visit in Osaka touring with Franz Ferdinand, ‘Osaka’ is an awayday with a difference that echoes Robert Smith while we reach a warp speed space rock trajectory. A track from the new album’s outtakes, it’s an anthem for a mighty city and, as tour guides to future hybrid sounds go, Rotterdam’s Rats On Rafts give new meaning to the concept of a “TRIP” advisor.