corto.alto - "SOME SMALL FORTUNE"
Yesterday, September 4th, Glasgow's corto.alto releases his third album, SOME SMALL FORTUNE, his debut for Ninja Tune, and the follow-up to the Mercury Prize-shortlisted Bad With Names (2023). Fifteen tracks, twenty-two minutes, and by far the widest cast of collaborators Liam Shortall has worked with under the corto.alto name.
Shortall trained on trombone, studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and cut his teeth playing in the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra before turning his home studio into a genre-blending machine, jazz chops filtered through broken beat, dub, club culture and hip-hop. Live and in the studio, he's a genuine multi-instrumentalist, moving between trombone, bass, guitar, and synths. SOME SMALL FORTUNE pushes that further outward than ever: alongside his longtime Glasgow band (drummer Graham Costello, Mercury-nominated pianist Fergus McCreadie, saxophonist Mateusz Sobieski), the record features Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins, French-Nigerian vocalist anaiis, Nigerian lyricist Vector, guitarist Oscar Jerome, Scottish songwriter Jacob Alon, and more. "I wanted to write songs with artists that I love and have a proper collaboration with them, rather than be a control freak," Shortall says of the shift.
The result is described as an electronic, classical, pop and indie-influenced record, corto.alto's most expansive and unpredictable yet, built less around solo virtuosity than around genuine back-and-forth with each guest. Lead single "GO," featuring Vector and filmed in Lagos, gives a good sense of the record's energy: restless, cross-genre, never quite settling into one lane for long.
Nothing algorithmic here either, just a Glaswegian jazz head who grew up on big band, blues and ska, refusing to stay inside any one box even as the guest list grows.
Listen: SOME SMALL FORTUNE, out September 4, 2026, on Bandcamp.
corto.alto is featured across our Jrapzz, Jazz now, Hip Hop Jazz, Jazz Soul Funk, and Alt playlists.
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