Option paralysis is something we all have to deal with these days, unlimited choices ultimately find us simply unable to make a decision… the paradox of plenty. It’s something musicians face too – and multi-instrumentalist Liam Shortall is a great example of someone who’s managed to channel their myriad ideas, modern studio tech and good old fashioned musical talent into the form of his ever-evolving post-jazz-fusion band, corto.alto.

In 2019 he set himself the challenge of writing, recording and filming a new song every three weeks for a year in his cramped Sauchiehall Street flat, in Glasgow. Revisiting those early tracks now, the adrenalin was clearly pumping as his intricately-fierce tunes showcased prodigious Scots talents such as award-winning keys star Fergus McCreadie and the mighty sax tornado that is Harry Weir.

Bad With Names is Shortall’s first full-length album and is by contrast a highly polished affair, luxuriating in sumptuous strings and warbling lo-fi synths that add shimmering layers atop the muscular virtuoso drumming of Graham Costello. With Shortall playing everything from guitar, keys and bass to tuba, trombone and percussion, it’s thanks to his production skills that those live dynamics remain but now have far greater detail in the mix as well as a clearly defined, sometimes melancholic, narrative quality that can shift into cinematic expanses such as on album closer, ‘Hollow’.

Themes of loneliness and alienation (under the cloud of our daily doom-laden news cycles) manifest through nifty minor-key unison horn lines – such as on ‘Bye’ and ‘Latency’ – and occasionally explode with rage, on the snarling rock-out chorus of ‘Mechanisms’ with scalding guitars and sax criss-crossing. Shortall’s vision can only get deeper and bolder with time, but for now, Bad With Names is full of good decisions.