corto.alto

Scottish composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Liam Shortall, aka corto.alto has had an incredible couple of years : his debut album ‘Bad With Names’ was shortlisted for the iconic Mercury Prize (2024), won ‘Best Album’ at the Scottish Jazz Awards, and won ‘Act Of The Year’ at the Jazz FM Awards (2025), public vote with Ezra Collective and Nubya Garcia the other two nominees. He’s also been nominated in the Independent Breakthrough category at the Aim Awards 2025.

Now signed to the iconic Ninja Tune label, he’s just released his new single ‘DON’T LISTEN, which continues to showcase his natural ear for cross-pollination of styles. The track has received enormous radio support with over 600 plays globally in less than 6 weeks as well as being on BBC 6 Music’s A-Playlist for 4 weeks. This is music on his own terms. Music that speaks not just to his time spent as part of the burgeoning and fertile music scene in Glasgow; but equally to an eclectic mix of influences that draw as much on his affinity with club-culture and all its forms of Electronic Music, or to his love of classic Hip-Hop, Soul and Funk.

Over the last 18 months, the band played over 120 shows, including West Holts stage at Glastonbury, closing the We Out Here main stage, headlining Latitude, North Sea, Montreux, Cross The Tracks and a sold-out UK tour culminating in playing to 2000 people in his home town at the legendary Barrowland Ballroom. Championed by Gilles Peterson, Jamie Cullum, BBC 6 Music, KCRW, Jazzwise, Fip radio in France and RRR in Australia to name a few, as well as the editorial teams at Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp, corto.alto has also built a strong dedicated fanbase across the UK, EU and US.

30/108

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.