“No one really encouraged me to take up music,” says Callum Easter. “It’s just been in my gut for a long time.” The original rumblings of music came from childhood growing up on the east coast of Scotland but it was the discovery of an accordion that led to the biggest shift in Easter’s musical life to date “It’s not an instrument I considered playing until I picked one up in a charity shop,” he says.

At the time Easter was playing in and around Edinburgh. He realised he wanted an instrument that would allow him to engage more with the audience. “I wanted to face the crowd and sing,” he says. “The spectacle appealed too, it’s pretty physical singing and playing whilst on your feet. I think people enjoy seeing you struggle and take chances.”

By the time 2019 arrived, Easter had transformed his live show and sound from his early days so after signing to Moshi Moshi, it made sense to go back into the studio and rerecord tracks from his first two EPs and debut album Here or Nowhere (released on Lost Maps). “The premise was to record the versions of the songs I’d been performing live using mainly accordion, drum machine and drone,” he says. “One take, no overdubs, straight to tape. All done in Glasgow’s Green Door Studios.”

The result captures a stark and potent sense of musical evolution and growing craftsmanship. Music that wrestles equally with honesty, fragility and intensity. Lyrically, the album is introspective, covering the subjects of “Love, injustice, commonality, longing, acceptance, and having no regrets.” With Easter joking that, “I probably do melancholy a bit too well. But I’m working on that.” Balanced with the melancholy is beauty and tenderness however.

With Easter reconnecting with music of his past, it also highlights how far he’s come on his idiosyncratic journey. A determined and impassioned artist who follows his musical gut rather than any defined career plan. “I don’t feel comfortable with purpose,” he says. “It sounds a bit steady, like you’re responsible for something. I don’t really know what I’m looking for. For now, it’s just me in a room with plenty of scope.”