Multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer corto.alto announces the release of debut album, Bad With Names, (out on LP, CD, and digitally Friday, October 6th) via New Soil x Bridge The Gap and presents its lead single/video ‘Bye’. The moniker of Glasgow-based Liam Shortall, corto.alto brings a fresh perspective to a heady mix of intuitive improvisation, electronic production, broken beat bounce and bass-heavy dub. An honest, iconoclastic album Bad With Names, is challenging the boundaries of contemporary jazz.
Described as a traditional jazz head raised in the age of the internet, Shortall says Bad With Names is about “forgiving yourself”, articulating themes of misspent youth, the passing of time, and the horrors of the accelerating news cycle with the dexterity of a lyricist across twelve instrumental tracks. In doing so, it brings together some of the UK’s finest young players, including award-winning pianist Fergus McCreadie, trumpet player James Copus, trombonist Anoushka Nanguy, drummer Graham Costello, with the flair of a string quartet, taking the corto.alto sound in a new direction.
Having cut his teeth playing trombone in Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and making beats in his bedroom, Shortall has the chops to match the top players in the country and beyond. Proud of his Glaswegian upbringing and Irish-Spanish heritage (corto.alto translate as short, tall in Spanish), his renegade sound is a constant push-and-pull of bravado and vulnerability. As he explains, “the title Bad With Names comes from feeling like in the madness of it all you’re losing the ability of memory, or at least the illusion of that.”
Recorded over two years in Shortall’s flat in the southside of Glasgow, the process by which the 12-track album came together reflects the twin strands of Shortall’s musical world, marrying live instrumentation with electronic music production.
“This album also deals with my own reluctance to start the process of making music, as I find it to be incredibly daunting and vulnerable,” he explains, candid to the last. “Each time I come to the stage I am in now – the home run – I always hope it will be my last release. And then forgetting that all over again and falling back in love with the creative process, like being in a dysfunctional relationship that you keep going back to.”
On Bad With Names, corto.alto is standing tall, holding the torch for Glasgow and ready to rip up the rulebook in the process.
Press release provided by Atles Music (Nicole Mckenzie)
