The Scottish Record Stores Albums Of The Year

Yep, it's another one of those end of year poll posts, except this time round I decided to ask the folk that work in Scotland's four most influential independent record stores. The employees of LoveMusic, Monorail Records, Avalanche Records and One Up Records, were all set the task of giving me their favourite album of 2011, plus possibly write a little bit about why it was so special to them. In the end it didn't quite turn out as well as I'd hoped, first off the guy from Monorail didn't reply to my emails, the Love Music chose their top albums (one of them even went with the dreaded 'K' band), but they didn't write anything, and Kev from Avalanche told me to just pinch something off his site. Thankfully Yogi from One Up came up with the goods, so here they are the results of The Scottish Record Stores Albums Of The Year...

Colour Trip by Ringo Deathstarr chosen by Yogi (One Up Records)

Austin Tx shoegaze trio's debut makes me feel like i'm 16 years old again, it could have been released in 1991 like lots of classic shoegaze albums, for fans of The Jesus and Marychain and My bloody Valentine

Ringo Deathstarr - Imagine Hearts by Club AC30

Life Cycle Of A Falling Bird by Star Wheel Press chosen by Kevin (Avalanche Records)

Pinched off the Avalanche website - I had dozens of media enquiries after Kid Canaveral had our best selling album last year and hopefully Star Wheel Press will benefit in the coming months but they have got there on their own merit with a great album and a fantastic sleeve. When Ryan phoned me to say Lauren Laverne had just played one of their songs on the radio and would I stock their album it was just one of hundreds of similar calls I get in a year. I had no idea it would turn out to be such a cracking album. More than ever now it is clear that who you know is more important than how good you are and I hope that at Avalanche we give people that level playing field that gives them a chance.

1 Railway Lines (1) by starwheelpress

Roundabouts by The Tango Rhums chosen by Sandy (LoveMusic Glasgow)

Telephone by The Tango Rhums


Everything's Getting Older - Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat chosen by Alex (LoveMusic Glasgow)

Cages by Chemikal Underground

Hope Street by Kassidy chosen by Michelle (LoveMusic Glasgow)

SoundCloud link not included for obvious reasons.


In Dust by Roll The Dice chosen by Rob (LoveMusic Glasgow)

Iron Bridge by Roll the Dice