About

“If Hiatus Kaiyote and Masters At Work had a child, corto.alto would be it - the future is now!” - Gilles Peterson

It’s been an intense but rewarding few years for Liam Shortall, better known as the multi-instrumentalist producer, composer and performer corto.alto, (the stage name a nod to his Irish-Spanish heritage, translating as “short.tall” in Spanish). The release of his debut album ‘Bad With Names’ saw him nominated for the 2024 Mercury Music Prize – alongside fellow Scot and now label-mate Barry Can’t Swim and the likes of Charli XCX, Ghetts, Beth Gibbons (Portishead), Nia Archives, CMAT and more – and saw him booked to play hundreds of shows across the world, including high-profile festival performances and a sold-out UK tour that featured his own personally curated 2000-capacity “Made In Glasgow” mini-festival at the city’s legendary Barrowlands Ballroom venue.

With his new single “DON’T LISTEN”, Shortall continues to showcase his natural ear for cross-pollination of styles. It’s a track which fizzes with rhythmic intensity as it twists and turns its way through heavy basslines, distorted leads and fuzzy vocals, before collapsing into itself under a blanket of strings.

““DON’T LISTEN” is a left turn for me into instinct over instruction,” explains Shortall. “I wrote this track as a call to blocking out the noise, ignoring creative conformity and embracing the freedom to do whatever the fuck you want.” 

This is music on his own terms. Music that speaks not just to his time spent studying music formally at the prestigious Royal ­Conservatoire of Scotland, or his time spent as part of the burgeoning and fertile music scene in Glasgow; but equally to an eclectic mix of influences that draw as much on his affinity with club-culture and all its forms of Electronic Music, or to his love of classic Hip-Hop, Soul and Funk.

This approach won’t come as a shock to anyone who’s paid even cursory attention to Shortall over the past few years. His 2024 album ‘30/108’ saw him freely blend genre, tempo and instrumentation across 30 tracks – one released each day of the month, drawn from a pool of 108 demos and accompanied by live performance videos – showcasing his flair for fast-thinking creativity, innovation and improvisation over a more rigid studio approach. 

It’s this fresh outlook and a hunger to subvert expectations that sets Shortall apart, winning him a new generation of music fans unbeholden to any one scene, alongside champions across radio and media like Gilles Peterson, Sian Eleri, Jamz Supernova, Deb Grant, KCRW and many more.

Along with ‘Bad With Names’ and his earlier EPs and releases, Shortall has always found fertile ground blending live instrumentation with electronic productions and sound design, not least in corto.alto’s blistering live shows that – along with handling bass, synth, trombone and effects – sees him turn band-leader, amongst his crew of hyper-talented musicians; all close friends and frequent collaborators. 

The band are set to grace both the legendary West Holts and Shangri-la arenas at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, with additional international festival plays, plus a run of headline dates across the US that include stops in NYC, LA, Chicago, Seattle; and a UK & EU tour including his biggest headline show to date at London’s KOKO.