It’s been a busy month for Scottish composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist corto.alto (AKA Liam Shortall). Following on from widely acclaimed debut album ‘Bad With Names’, and a series of remixes with some of the most in demand producers in the UK and beyond, including BAKEY and Opolopo, his forthcoming 30/108 project is set to push his intuitive blend of jazz and electronics to new realms. Releasing as a series of 30 tracks in 30 days via Bridge The Gap x New Soil, lead single ‘Chubbby (48)’ has started proceedings on Wednesday 22nd May.
Described as a traditional jazz head raised in the age of the internet, ‘Bad With Names’ propelled corto.alto onto the global stage, amassing over 2 million streams and support from the likes of Gilles Peterson, Jamz Supernova, Jamie Cullum, BBC Radio Scotland, KCRW in LA and RRR in Australia. 30/108 continues to build on corto’s distinctive musical identity, drawing on the vast range of improvised grooves, musical sketches, compositional ideas and sound design worlds that underpinned the making of ‘Bad With Names’.
In early 2024, Liam had 108 ideas in a folder – not fully composed tracks that would be placed well on a standard 12 track album, but not throw away ideas either. He decided to dedicate the following 4 months to finish 30 of these tracks; recording some of his favourite musicians in his home studio and remotely, including Graham Costello (drums), Fergus McCreadie (piano) and Mateusz Sobieski (tenor saxophone). The goal wasn’t to make a perfectly clean and polished album, but to get these ideas out into the world and explore new grooves, sound design worlds and composition ideas. Liam shares:
After an intense 2 years of creating ’Bad With Names’ I was slightly burned out but excited to get back to writing new music. Once that album was finally finished, I knew I had 6 months of promotion before the album was released. During this time I produced 108 new demo ideas. Fast forward to the beginning of 2024, I had 108 ideas in a folder on my laptop that I knew if I didn’t finish they would never be heard by anyone – I then decided to dedicate the following 4 months to finishing 30 of these tracks; recording with some of my favourite musicians.
The 30 tracks in 30 days approach harkens back to the early days of corto.alto, and Liam’s ‘Live From 435’ series, during which he set himself a challenge to release a new track every three weeks for a year. A somewhat elevated task this time, this new challenge is a testament to his creative growth and growing, insatiable creative appetite. Singles ‘Chubbby (48)’ and ‘Bloc (29)’ are groove and texture-focused, exploring Liam’s love of jazz and electronic dance music. ‘Swifty (63)’ introduces a minimalism, exploring themes of meditation through abstract repetitions and musical displacements, whilst ‘Tribe’ digs into themes of brotherhood an community. Completed in the early hours of the project deadline, ‘4:16AM (45) is dedicated to perseverance, dedication and commitment to one’s creativity, and trusting the process – a unifying theme across the project.
As well as releasing a new body of music, corto.alto will be touring the UK and Europe this summer, supporting Nubiyan Twist and appearing at Cross The Tracks, North Sea Jazz, Montreux Jazz Festival, We Out Here and more.
