AC Scott – “Out Of The Blue”

AC Scott, also known as Alison Craig, is not your typical debut artist. She spent decades as a Sony Award-winning broadcaster, fronting chat shows, hosting prime-time TV, and interviewing everyone from Bryan Ferry to Victoria Beckham. Music always pulled at her, but life had other plans. A diagnosis of a degenerative lung condition in 2012 forced her off the air and led her to a desk, her late father’s desk, and a notebook full of songs.

Out Of The Blue, released via Right Track/Universal Distribution, is the result of that whole journey. It’s a 14-track album that covers a lot of ground: piano ballads, cinematic rock, funk, something close to a torch song. The range is real, and it makes sense once you know her history in pan-genre radio. She grew up on punk, New Wave, disco, early hip-hop, and that mix is all over this record.

‘Party People’ has a propulsive, electronic energy. She wrote it as a nod to her hedonist days, walking into a Glasgow club in 1989 like she owned the place. ‘Trouble Ahead’ is tougher and harder-edged, with a near-rap delivery she’s compared to Blondie’s ‘Rapture’. Then there’s ‘Who Do You Think You Are’, currently a semi-finalist for UK Songwriter of the Year, which rehearses every internal argument that once held her in place, then answers the question in a burst of self-belief.

If you haven’t heard AC Scott yet, this is a good place to start. Give her a follow on social media to keep up with whatever she puts out next this year.