noodle: Scotland’s Experimental Music Round-Up (May 2026)

Ah, as the world wakes from wintry slumber into the sunlit tendrils of spring, Noodle is back out of hibernation like a bear with a bag full of weird records. Like Yogi, with a tote bag from Monorail instead of a pick-a-nick basket.

And a couple of big hitters to bring us out of the darkness. The very welcome return of taupe, who have been a bit quiet for the last five years, mainly due to being rather busy elsewhere: drummer Alex Palmer with Azamiah, sax player Jamie Stockbridge with afrobeat band Agbeko, and guitarist Mike Parr-Burman with more projects than I can fit in this article. The album waxing/waning is an utterly incredible piece of music that brings all those skills together and pushes them to the very edge.

Occupying the centre of the Venn diagram between free jazz, skronky electronics, and Slayer, it constantly feels like it’s about to completely fall apart before snapping back together and heading off in another direction entirely. The album sets up jazz conventions only to degrade them to the point of absurdity, then does the same trick in reverse a song later. Not so much a breath of fresh air as a wind tunnel, this’ll not only blow the cobwebs off but take the top layer of skin with it.

Also hitting the heavy end of the spectrum of skronk are the mighty AKU!, who have added guitarist James Mackay to a line-up of names that will be very familiar to anyone who has picked up a jazz record in Scotland in the last few years: Harry Weir, Liam Shortall, Graham Costello. All extremely talented musicians who’ve been cross pollinating each other’s projects for a long time. New EP SHI 匹 死 brings a heavy metal sensibility that Mackay’s overdriven shredding propels to a new level of intensity.

Over in the world of electronic music, Brian d’Souza aka Auntie Flo has been making music with plants. Using a piece of software called Plantwave and a series of contact mics, he’s been able to convert the electrical impulses given off by growing plants and convert them into music for his Plants Can Dance project. I am in no way smart enough to understand what’s going on here but luckily he has a very comprehensive website which explains the whole process. You can catch him on a fairly extensive tour, which will be at The Pitt in Edinburgh on 3rd May.

The incredible cellist Semay Wu has featured on these pages before and no doubt will again. Her latest release on Scatter Archive is Forms Forms Forms, a beautiful and delicate piece of pure acoustic improvisation with bassist Seth Bennett.

As with AKU! and taupe, they’re musicians in high demand, playing both together in Ubu Warp Cheer and separately with a myriad of other musicians; this was recorded over two sessions and has the consideration and interplay of two people very familiar with each other. A lovely use of space and silence informs a very natural dynamic.

Incidentally, Scatter Archive have had a run of great archive releases recently, digging up old sessions from free jazz luminaries like Lol Coxhill, TIGER MILK, and the great Derek Bailey. Honestly, there’s way too many to go into here – I’d just jump on their Bandcamp and hit play on as many things as you can.

Also on the reissues front, I’d be remiss not to mention that nearly fifty years on from its original release, Toronto label We Are Busy Bodies have re-released Blackpool Cool by the semi-legendary Glasgow jazz trio Head. Spoken about in hushed tones by slightly nerdy jazz fans like me, this was one of those hard-to-find classic jazz fusion records that had almost vanished. Remastered from the original sessions, it still sounds incredibly fresh and I suspect the 400 copies that they are putting out will not hang about for long.

A little more recent is an album of cut-up electronica from the Western Isles: the second release from flakebelly of their promised trilogy. C-PTSD takes on themes of mental health, as the title suggests. Unsettling, shifting palettes that remain accessible and even danceable at points. Apparently being released on an indestructible CD, which seems very much like a challenge to me.

And finally, Nothing Under Heaven from Yulyseus is out on 15th May and available to preorder from Norman Records, for those of you who prefer your electronics big and blissful and layered and lush.

As always, there is more great music than we have space for here, but finding it out for yourself is half the fun.

Enjoy. I’m off to finally draw that Scottish Jazz Family Tree.