We Speak Music
Glasgow’s Michael Hamilton drops sonically dark & playful glitch hop tune “In Spite Of Everything”
Michael Hamilton is a composer who is just as capable of tugging on your heart strings as bursting your ear drums. In his work you’ll hear everything from symphony orchestras, to retro synthesizers, to the 8-string guitars that linger from his days as a death metal guitarist. In addition to his work as a solo artist, Michael is also known for his work on video game and film soundtracks and, alongside collaborator, Ross Cairns, is also a prolific techno producer whose tracks have been released by record labels and heard on dancefloors from around the globe.
When he’s not composing, Michael works as a session musician, performing with various internationally renowned artists, and can be found onstage as the bassist of Progressive Music Award winning post-rock band, Midas Fall.
A Language Forever is a collection of electronic, beats-driven tracks inspired by UK Bass and Electronica producers such as Burial, Jamie XX, Asa and fellow Monotreme labelmate, Sorrow. As with each of his releases, the aim was to break new ground while borrowing from and building upon his previous work.
A Language Forever takes many of the characteristics of his soundtrack work, as well as his work with Midas Fall, and relocates it to more dancey, experimental realms where Dubstep, Glitch and IDM collide. These compositions marry fractured breakbeat samples with emotive, cinematic chord progressions; crunchy drum machine loops with intimate piano melodies; deep, gritty reese basses with mournful string passages – all atop a textured backdrop of vinyl crackle, foley recordings and pitch-shifted vocals. It’s the kind of album that can provide an apt soundtrack to both the climax of a Saturday night, and the chilled out ambience of a Sunday morning.
Remixes are provided by friends and fellow Glasgow-based producers farfromnorth, Ross Somerville, and Innblásin, as well as frequent collaborator and the album’s mixing/mastering engineer, Ross Cairns.
In keeping with his long-standing DIY ethic, like each of Michael’s previous releases, A Language Forever was written and recorded in his living room in Glasgow, Scotland, with Michael playing/programming every instrument himself.
On the first single to be lifted from the record, Hamilton said “In Spite of Everything is one of the sonically darker moments on the record, but it’s actually quite a playful, kind of indulgent track for me. I really just wanted to make a track that was chock-full of the ear candy that I love so much from Neuro and Glitch Hop tunes, but putting my own spin on it by placing it next to a lot of acoustic instruments like pianos and strings. Fun fact: that squelchy percussion in the high end was made from a recording of me rolling chopped onion skins around in my hands, a sound design trick I learned from KOAN Sound.”
We Speak Music
SCARECROW’s John Blaze Delivers a Career Milestone With “Twisted” and Earns Josie Music Awards Song of the Year Nomination
John Blaze has spent nearly four decades fronting SCARECROW, the New York hard-rock outfit he founded in 1989, and in 2026 he delivered one of the most ambitious releases of his career with “Twisted.” Now, the song has reached another major milestone: “Twisted” has been nominated for Song of the Year in the Metal/Alternative category at the Josie Music Awards.
The nomination places Blaze and SCARECROW among this year’s recognized independent artists and songwriters at the Josie Music Awards, with the awards ceremony set to take place at Nashville’s legendary Grand Ole Opry. For an artist whose career has been built on persistence, independence and decades of hard-rock storytelling, the recognition gives “Twisted” an entirely new chapter.
Written by John Blaze and Chaffin, “Twisted” pulls together a lineup of guest players that reads like a rock family reunion, built around Blaze’s long-standing friendship with Dee Snider and the legacy of Twisted Sister, a band woven into SCARECROW’s story from its earliest days.
That connection goes all the way back to the beginning. SCARECROW’s original lineup featured guitarist Eddie Ojeda, best known for his work in Twisted Sister, and the two camps have remained connected ever since. “Twisted” makes that history explicit: Dee Snider appears on the record with guest vocals during the track’s climactic second verse and chorus, lending the song an instantly recognizable jolt of arena-rock power.
Snider isn’t the only marquee name in the credits. Mark Wood, founding violinist of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, contributes electrifying violin work that gives “Twisted” a cinematic sweep uncommon in modern hard rock. Rounding out the track are TJ Jordan on lead guitar and Bobby Marks on drums, creating a powerful, road-tested foundation behind Blaze’s signature gritty vocal delivery.
The Josie Music Awards nomination feels particularly fitting because “Twisted” isn’t simply another SCARECROW release. It brings together different eras of Blaze’s musical life while pushing the band’s sound forward. There’s history in the recording, but there’s also urgency. It doesn’t sound like a band looking backward. It sounds like one with unfinished business.
For Blaze, the nomination also represents recognition of a career that has largely been built outside the traditional machinery of the mainstream music business. Independent rock artists rarely survive for decades without a fierce commitment to what they do, and SCARECROW’s longevity speaks for itself. From the band’s early years and its 1991 debut, through the Blood, Sweat and 20 Years retrospective and the theatrical production I Am SCARECROW, Blaze has continued developing a world around the music rather than simply releasing songs.
That makes the Song of the Year nomination especially meaningful. After nearly four decades of building SCARECROW, Blaze now heads to the Josie Music Awards at the Grand Ole Opry with one of his most ambitious songs recognized in the Metal/Alternative category.
And there’s something wonderfully appropriate about the song that got him there.
“Twisted” connects SCARECROW’s beginnings to its present, reunites Blaze musically with figures tied to the band’s history, and demonstrates just how much fire remains in the project. With Snider and Wood contributing to the record and Blaze still driving the band he created from the ground up, the track feels less like a nostalgic reunion than a statement of survival.
Now it’s also an award-nominated song.
For John Blaze and SCARECROW, nearly four decades into the journey, “Twisted” has become more than another entry in the catalog. It’s a career milestone — and this September, that milestone is taking SCARECROW all the way to the Grand Ole Opry.
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