From a remote fishing village near Fife in Scotland comes Pictish Trail’s first album Secret Soundz Vol. 1. Pictish Trail is in fact Johnny Lynch who along with Kenny Anderson (otherwise known as King Creosote) runs Fence Records. His work can be found on E.P’s, singles and Fence Collective compilations all released over the last five or so years.
Johnny was born and raised in Scotland’s capital Edinburgh but spent his teenage years in Connecticut and out in the Wisconsin wilderness. It was here that his love of music really took hold. When he moved back to Scotland in 2000, he met up with Kenny and formed Fence Records. Heavily influenced by fellow Scots The Delgados, Belle and Sebastian, and The Beta Band, he started to write his own music. Johnny is a busy guy, not only does he run Fence Records, he organizes all their live events and is now out on the roads of the UK promoting his Secret Soundz Vol. 1.
He describes the album as a ‘diverse collection of ten lo-fi pieces’ and yes it is the immediacy of the album that really works. Johnny says that quite often the first take is the one that appears on the album. Recorded, on an 8-track set up, in his home studio in Cellardyke, Anstruther (get your map books out) Johnny (or Pictish Trail) is assisted on several of the tracks by King Creosote and Manchester based The Earlies. His experimentation and fascination for electronica is explored in the opener “Secret Sound #2” but it is the diversity of the album that adds to its undeniable charm. Secret Soundz Vol. 1 ranges from stripped down candle lit folk, through to nicely pitched proto-electro pop. It’s an interesting yet highly effective mix.
“I Don’t Know Where To Begin”, “Ribbon (The Twist)” and “Into The Smoke” were the only tracks not recorded in this way and were the result of a day in the studio in Chorlton with The Earlies, King Creosote and Sara Lowes. The rest is Pictish Trail upstairs in the bedroom studio where Johnny lives. “All I Own” sets the scene perfectly, a stripped down, simple and highly atmospheric track that has such immediacy it is like it is being performed in your own front room.
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