At The Engine Room in North Shields: Pictish Trail (solo) + Callum Easter (solo)

Pictish Trail, AKA Johnny Lynch, has just completed work on a brand-new album - LIFE SLIME - a sticky, shimmering swirl of sound and ooze (both metaphorical and literal). To celebrate, he returns to the stage in 2026 accompanied by his full live band. The album's gloriously gooey title track also earned Lynch a Guinness World Records title for "Most Slime in a Music Video", after 200 litres of slime were poured over his head during filming. These shows bring the new songs to life in bold, expansive form - rhythmic, euphoric and immersive, balancing motorik pulse with warped pop melody and raw emotional release. Expect tenderness, weirdness, and a lingering trail of ooze...

Based on the Isle of Eigg in the Scottish Hebrides, Pictish Trail is known for his wildly inventive electro-acoustic psych-pop. His 2022 album Island Family, his third for London's Fire Records, drew acclaim from The Observer, The Times, Mojo, Uncut, Loud & Quiet, and BBC 6 Music. It was followed in autumn 2024 by Follow Footsteps - an EP of reworked Island Family tracks released via his own Lost Map Records, in conjunction with Fire. Recasting the euphoric-bucolic psychedelia of ‘Island Family’, ‘Melody Something’ and ‘Nuclear Sunflower Swamp’ through a softer filter - and complemented by a pair of incidental instrumentals - Lynch discovered delicately kaleidoscopic new resonance in the material.

Pictish Trail's earlier albums Secret Soundz Vols. 1 & 2 (2008/2013) were gloriously eclectic slices of lo-fi folk-pop, later reissued on deluxe double-vinyl by Moshi Moshi in 2014. His third album Future Echoes (2016) received widespread acclaim and was shortlisted for the Scottish Album of the Year (SAY Award), winning the public vote, before being reissued by Fire in 2018. His fourth album, Thumb World, was released by Fire in 2020.

Pictish Trail has toured the world as both headliner and support for the likes of Belle & Sebastian, Pavement, Mogwai, Sea Power, and KT Tunstall. He's performed at major festivals including Glastonbury (Park Stage), Field Day, Camp Bestival, Deer Shed, Celtic Connections, Blue Dot, the Edinburgh Fringe, and every single edition of Green Man Festival (23 and counting).

Outside his own music, Johnny is a key figure in the UK's independent music scene. Through Lost Map Records, he has championed a diverse and idiosyncratic roster - helping to elevate artists such as Rozi Plain, Alabaster dePlume, Seamus Fogarty, Bas Jan, Callum Easter, and Free Love.

INSTAGRAM

https://www.instagram.com/pictishtrail/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/pictishtrail

WEBSITE: pictishtrail.com

Callum easter (solo)

Callum easter - bio

Callum Easter is an Edinburgh-based singer, songwriter and self-taught multi-instrumentalist whose singular take on otherworldly rhythm and blues combines stark electronics, battered rock’n’roll piano, accordion and drum-machine pulse with a voice of extraordinary soul and intensity. Emerging from Leith’s fertile, fiercely independent creative community, he released his debut album, Here Or Nowhere, through Lost Map in 2019, winning the public vote for the 2020 Scottish Album of the Year Award, before following it with the brash, maximalist System on Moshi Moshi and Lost Map in 2021.

Both records were written and largely performed and recorded alone, preserving the fierce DIY spirit that runs through everything he makes. Since System, Callum has toured the world as a member of Young Fathers’ live band while quietly developing a new body of work in his Leith studio – songs that venture deeper into his distinctive world, every bit as atmospheric but darker, more soulful and more exposed, tracing stories of love, loss and redemption.

This December, he joins Pictish Trail for a run of rare solo performances.

https://www.callumeaster.com

https://www.instagram.com/callum_easter/