SAY Award 2023's nominees explained: Cloth – Secret Measure
As 2023's Scottish Album Of The Year Award draws near, we're penning some handy primers on each shortlisted album to help you wade through this avalanche of musical goodness. Today we're chatting Cloth’s subtle and ingratiating second LP Secret Measure
Act: Cloth
Album: Secret Measure
How it sounds: Like a subtle whisper in your ear. This is perfect headphone music, its delicate dynamics and murmured vocal delivery offering soothing respite and high-strung neuroses all at the same time. There’s a volcano bubbling in the consciousness of twins Rachael and Paul Swinton that never boils over, instead striking and relenting with a hypnotic beauty. Yet this isn’t the same melancholic drama usually offered up by Rock Action records. Unlike labelmates The Twilight Sad, Kathryn Joseph, Arab Strap and Mogwai, Cloth’s combination of rich harmonics and fretful lyrics is leavened by a light at the end of the tunnel. Says Paul on the band's website, ‘It’s a hopeful collection of songs exploring the journey from doubt and anxiety to a place where you can sit comfortably with the unknown and know that, whatever you’re feeling, it won’t feel like that forever.’
Top track: ‘Ladder’, an ambiguous character study lamenting opportunities lost.
Do you come here often? This is Cloth’s second appearance on a SAY Award shortlist, having been nominated in 2020 for their self-titled debut.
Why Cloth should win: Cloth-eared this ain’t (ARF!). Secret Measure builds on the strengths of their debut to make a strikingly assured collection of songs.
The SAY Award winner will be announced on Thursday 26 October. Cloth are on tour now.
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