System

AlbumNov 19 / 202110 songs, 26m 43s

PostMap Club members receive a discount on the limited edition LP. Sign up to PostMap Club, from just £3/month: lostmap.com/club =-=-=-=-=-=-= Callum Easter has always been a force of nature. The singer and multi-instrumentalist thrives on impulse and spontaneity, balancing that with an impeccable song writing craftsmanship that makes even the more outré moments of his current batch of mutated soul punk/rock‘n’roll instantly arresting. Due for release in September 2021, his irresistible second album System is his second release on Moshi Moshi Records in association with Lost Map Records, following last year’s Green Door Sessions. Like his debut album Here Or Nowhere – which was released on Lost Map in 2019 and went on to be shortlisted for the Scottish Album of the Year Award by popular vote – System was recorded largely alone in Callum’s Edinburgh studio, but bustles with a brash, maximalist vigour, that draws a line under his previous work and charges exhilaratingly forwards – beginning a journey that he describes as a “descent into ordinary madness”. Callum Easter’s love of rock ‘n’ roll has long been baked in – but there’s a new fervour to where he’s taken this source. Now there is an outward fire; a raging – albeit with the sort of wryly humorous delivery only he can provide – against the general noise of everyday living and a longing for something else, something more, something that looks you straight in the eye. System is careful to balance protest with positivity; it’s accentuated on the album’s stirring opener and first single ‘What You Think?’ which sees Callum urge the listener via his steely growl that “there’s no point crying, what’s the use? No more hiding, what’s the use?” to focus on living and the positive changes we can make as individuals and collectively.

8 / 10