The Scotsman Sessions #421: Marky Wildtype

“When I say DIY, I mean I wrote, arranged, performed – with the exception of some drum tracks – recorded and mixed everything myself, at home,” he says. The results are accomplished, emotional earworms carved from personal pain and musical experience.

Although Blanford is only now emerging as a solo artist, he has been playing in rock bands since his teens, firstly in his native ’hood of southeast London and then in Edinburgh when he moved to the city as a student. Having burned through a few bands since then, he now plays with Edinburgh folk punk band The Jig Show, and only really went solo as a dare, producing acoustic album Bruising Words and Bitter Pills in 2020.

“My previous long-term band had broken up a couple of years beforehand and that robbed me of some of the momentum and motivation to write,” he says, “but a challenge from a songwriter friend to see if I could write a ‘cute acoustic EP’ evolved into the impetus to get back on the horse. The years since then have been tumultuous to say the least, which has had the upside of being fruitful for writing.”

Blanford reckons that If Destroyed Still True “has a much more developed sound than its predecessor, while keeping the focus on memorable hooks and layered harmonies. No longer being part of a band became liberating and that allowed me to explore any sound, instrument or style that felt right for a given song.

“The upshot is that the album is perhaps a little difficult to categorise, though I think it probably falls under the broad umbrella of alternative rock/pop. I’d like to think there is a through line, which is the melodic sensibility.”

Blanford’s tuneful instincts can be heard on his Scotsman Sessions rendition of recent single Place of Peace, recorded in his Edinburgh living room. “It embodies some of the larger themes of the album,” he says, “recognising the darkness within yourself and trying to bring it into the light to understand it and give it space to tell its story, rather than simply feeling bad about it. It felt appropriate to do it at home, since the whole album was written, recorded and mixed right here. In a lot of ways, my home is my physical place of peace, or at least one of them.”

Blanford has no particular plans for Marky Wildtype live dates. “But if I do it I want to do it properly, with a full band, and really make a show of it,” he says. Instead, his focus is to keep up the songwriting momentum. “I have already begun scribbling snatches of lyrics and making voice notes for new songs. Album 3, engage!”

If Destroyed Still True is out now and available from https://markywildtype.bandcamp.com/music