Album reviews: Linda Perry | Peter Frampton | Shhe | Conscious Pilot

Music4 Non Blondes frontwoman Linda Perry flexes her songwriting muscles across an impressive variety of material on her new album, writes Fiona ShepherdPublished 15th May 2026, 10:24 BSTLinda Perry: Let It Die Here (Kill Rock Stars/670 Records) ★★★★Peter Frampton: Carry the Light (Ume) ★★★ Shhe: Thalassa (One Little Independent Records) ★★★Conscious Pilot: Human Poultry (DevilDuck Records) ★★★★Linda Perry has spent the best part of the last quarter century writing and producing for other artists, notably P!nk, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys and Ariana Grande. Now the 4 Non Blondes frontwoman retakes the spotlight with a bumper solo album, Let It Die Here, released as a companion to her documentary of the same name.Many of its 17 songs are directly inspired by her life, in particular her relationship with her mother. If anyone can justify the indulgence, it’s Perry, who flexes her songwriting muscles across an impressive variety of material from the ELO-esque symphonic pop of Stupid Yellow Kite via the strutting Push Me in the River to the junkyard jazz of the title track and the big Neil Diamond-like production of Sunday Best.All are immaculately produced but she allows herself a raw vocal on Is That All You Got, a classic rock ballad revisiting the emotional and physical abuse she suffered at home. Other songs strive to find a way through. The defiant statement of I Am Daughter is manifest as cleansing bossa nova, What Lies With You reckons with the complexity of letting go while lead single Feathers in a Storm, a slick bluesy pop number with in a Stevie Nicks style, finds strength within.She has been here before of course, and reclaims her best-known song to deliver a gem of a take on the Aguilera hit Beautiful.Peter Frampton and Bigsby | Lynn GoldsmithFifty years on from the release of his mega-selling Frampton Comes Alive! album, singer /guitarist Peter Frampton looks forward with his first album of new music in 16 years. Carry The Light has been produced in collaboration with his son Julian, with a varied array of special guests, from Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello to R&B singer/songwriter H.E.R. Following the rhythm’n’riffola of the Peter Gabriel-esque title track and Buried Treasure, his gnarly homage to Tom Petty featuring Petty’s favourite pianist Benmont Tench, he breaks out his signature 12-string guitar for the plaintive I’m Sorry Elle, embellished with harmonies from Graham Nash. Sheryl Crow weighs in on the rootsy soul of Breaking the Mold, while his prog guitar duets seamlessly with Bill Evans’ saxophone on Tinderbox.Shhe | ContributedIn contrast to these relatively maximalist affairs, Scots-Portuguese sound artist Su Shaw, aka Shhe, brings her trademark gentle inquiry to another work inspired by water. Having undertaken hydrophonic recording projects in locations from Iraq to Argyll, she turns her attention to the Mediterranean on Thalassa, a six-part ambient work named after the Greek goddess of the sea which emerged from her time as artist-in-residence at the B’sarya project in Alexandria, Egypt.This city perpetually on the edge of submersion became the jumping off point for a meditation on the environmental threats to the Med from plastic pollution to marine heatwaves. Accordingly, Thalassa is a peaceful soundscape with darker, more desperate undercurrents, opening with a gasping breath before moving into an ebbing, flowing almost ecclesiastical siren call. Wordless vocals are layered on to a soft but insistent heartbeat on Katavasi and the more disruptive sound patterns of Allaso resolve into the pacific electronica of Emfanisi.Conscious Pilot feature alumni from various Glasgow indie agitators. Consequently, Human Poultry is a debut album of riches from a band confident in their sound, whether the terse post-punk of the title track or the droll yet urgent Internet Support. The four-piece are serious about their humour from the glowering vocals and latent garage power of Ode to Ronnie to the punky rockabilly of My God Is So Angry, while the loose, low-slung rock’n’roll of Back on the Farm is teamed with Scotpop crooning in the Orange Juice tradition without ever resorting to pastiche.CLASSICAL Fountain of Youth: Shostakovich, Lisney and Korngold (Linn) ★★★★Shostakovich was 16 when he wrote his Op1 Piano Trio; Korngold was a mere 12-year-old when he accomplished the same feat. Both works form the basis of Fountain of Youth, a fresh-faced album by the award-winning Mithras Trio that also features the maiden piano trio, Petrichor, by British composer Joy Lisney. It’s a fulfilling programme. From the Shostakovich - a work published only posthumously - there’s a sense of guarded anarchy, the trademark acid wit of later pieces tempered under a protective coating of traditionalism. The performance captures its rich poeticism and cinematic fickleness in equal measure. Lisney’s Petrichor inhabits a more luminous world, its watery muse (the title refers to the scent of rain falling on dry soil) inspiring a work of both spectral delights and earthy belligerence. The Korngold - red-hot Austrian late Romanticism with a filmic foretaste of his later Hollywood days - provides a gushing finale. Ken WaltonJAZZMarilyn Crispell & Anders Jormin: Memento (ECM Records) ★★★★★American pianist Marilyn Crispell and Swedish double-bassist Anders Jormin weave a delicate, lyrical sound world in this strikingly empathetic mix of composed and improvised material. They open beautifully with their collaborative composition For the Children, with its Highland-sounding piano air, bass adding spectral harmonics, while Crispell’s short solo gem of a title track makes you yearn for more. And much more there is in which to immerse oneself. Another creative collaboration produces the haunting deliberations of Embracing the Otherness while two movements from Jormin’s composition Three Shades of a House see Morning greeted by limpid piano, its brief Evening counterpart featuring shadowy, warm-toned bass. Things move to Cornwall for the atmospheric Beach at Newquay, arco bass harmonics calling like seabirds over glistering keyboard ripples, and Crispell concludes with the serene passage of Dragonfly, her tribute to the late bassist Gary Peacock. Jim GilchristThe Scotsman’s arts newsletter is now sent twice a week - subscribe todayWant the latest Scottish headlines sent directly to your phone? Sign up to our new WhatsApp channel here