Electronica artist Isa Gordon is a mercurial creator. Her home-recorded music, emanating from a bedroom in Glasgow’s Govanhill, takes handbrake turns to intriguing places: on her 2022 debut album For You Only, ambient synthscapes are interrupted by scurrying gamelan rhythms, and sonorous, sorrowful piano instrumentals are followed by burnished guitar and folky strings.

Such eclecticism makes sense when she starts to talk about her musical upbringing in Auchinleck and the surrounding ex-mining communities. ‘Growing up in Ayrshire, there’s a big Burns connection,’ she says, ‘so I got into singing folk music from quite a young age. It seems like it was always a part of what was going on.’ Encouraged by her musical father, Gordon dabbled with the pipes for a while, then clarsach, but it was guitar which chimed with her burgeoning taste for pop, then punk, indie, electronica and metal. Meanwhile, her gran would take her to classical concerts. ‘That always struck me as an overwhelming experience in the same way that a punk gig would be loud and all-consuming; less about the style and more about the experience.’

^{Pictures: Harrison Reid}

Gordon moved to Glasgow 11 years ago to study bio-medical engineering and was soon seduced by the city’s clubbing scene. Soaking up the sounds of homegrown electronica heroes Hudson Mohawke and Rustie, she was inspired to start working on her own machine music. Collaborating with friend Frazer Graham on mini-album Cups, the pair went under the name Resili. This album caught the ear of Keith McIvor aka JD Twitch at Optimo Music.

When her academic contract came to an end during lockdown, she chose to leave the research realm and use the time to finesse her beats with melodic arrangements, ‘trying to get the emotion into them,’ she says. ‘At some point it just clicked and I thought “maybe I’ve got an album here”.’ McIvor clearly agreed and For You Only was released by Optimo Music last summer. ‘Keith’s very good like that,’ says Gordon. ‘He’ll give anything a chance. A lot of labels have a circle and they stick to that but he’s great for being so open-minded.’

Gordon is already working on a follow-up and has developed a club-friendly live show for Optimo’s March bash at Summerhall. But her solo material is far from her only iron in the fire. Harking back to her all-over-the-map roots, she’s formed experimental trio Fantasy Land with Glasgow-based Irish musicians Jack Sheehan and David deBarra, who suggested a lockdown relocation to Tipperary where they worked on their debut album Adult. Gordon and Sheehan also flex their dance muscles on a forthcoming album called Bog Core. 

‘It was somewhere to go to be loud and be in the countryside while everything was locked down, making the best of a bad situation,’ says Gordon of her gap half-year. ‘It’s quite boggy there and the music we were making sounded a bit boggy, so that was our wee joke. I’m just trying to follow whatever my interest is at the time and I haven’t really thought so much about where it will lead. I’ve just been enjoying the projects I’ve been in.’

Isa Gordon plays as part of Optimo Espacio, Summerhall, Edinburgh, Friday 10 March; Adult is released by GLARC on Saturday 1 April.