The Scottish BAMS Album of the Year Award (BAMS standing for Blogs and Music Sites) was inaugurated in 2009 when Checkmate Savage by The Phantom Band scooped the prize – a bottle of vintage tonic wine.

Since then The National, Aidan Moffat & Bill Wells and Meursault have triumphed and this particular Blogger, or maybe that should be Bammer, has been invited to have his say on the outcome of the 2013 award.

No secret ballots to be calculated by some bigwig auditing firm sworn to secrecy until the moment that the name of the winner is revealed at some majorly swanky ceremony for the BAMS, so I’m allowed to reveal my top ten choices:

01. My Bloody Valentine: m b v
02. Boards of Canada: Tomorrow’s Harvest
03. Steve Mason: Monkey Minds in The Devil’s Time

 
04. Dot Dash: Half-Remembered Dream
05. Primal Scream: 2013
06. Franz Ferdinand: Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action
07. The Pastels: Slow Summits

 
08. Edwyn Collins: Understated
09. Paul Haig: Kube
10. Lloyd Cole: Standards

 
For more: twitter.com/BAMS_Scotland

Mogwai’s latest album Rave Tapes comes out today in Britain on Rock Action on CD, LP, download and a box set version and I would guess, even after only hearing it once fully, that it could be a real contender for next year’s BAMS.

Then again, I thought Steve Mason might win the 2013 Barclaycard Mercury Prize – and in the end it didn’t even earn a nomination but you might agree that that reflects badly on the Mercury judges rather than on me.

This is the closing track of Rave Tapes, The Lord is Out of Control:

 
For more information on Rave Tapes: www.mogwai.co.uk

And finally if you don’t already know, Mogwai are playing a special live show tonight from Celtic Connections at the CCA Glasgow for Vic Galloway on BBC Radio Scotland which is being broadcast live on that station.

More details here

EDIT:

And the winner was….. The Bones Of What You Believe by CHVRCHES. Well done to them.