Pictish Trail

Pictish Trail is the recording name of Johnny Lynch, a Scottish songwriter and label operator based on the Isle of Eigg in the Inner Hebrides. He runs the Lost Map label, which grew out of his earlier involvement with the Fence Collective in Fife, a loose grouping of Scottish songwriters that also included King Creosote.

His music combines folk-derived songwriting with loops, drum machines and heavily treated vocals, moving between quiet acoustic passages and looser electronic and psychedelic textures. Lynch is also known for a dry, self-deprecating stage manner, and his live shows tend to mix the songs with extended between-song talk.

Lynch released his sixth album, Life Slime, last spring through Fire Records, describing it as a record about how slimy life can get. Written at his home on Eigg and recorded in Margate, it moves through guilt, surrender, hope, transformation, fracture and release, set to warped, tender electropop rather than straight folk arrangement.