Young Fathers’ Cocoa Sugar has been announced as the winner of the 2018 Scottish Album of the Year Award.

The award, established in 2012, celebrates new music by Scottish artists, and carries a cash prize of £20,000. Cocoa Sugar was selected from a shortlist of 10 at an awards ceremony on 6 September at Paisley Town Hall.

The shortlisted albums were: Babe – Kiss & Tell, Best Girl Athlete  – Best Girl Athlete, Franz Ferdinand – Always Ascending, Golden Teacher – No Luscious Life, Karine Polward with Pippa Murphy – A Pocket of Wind Resistance, Kobi Onyame – Gold, Mogwai – Every Country’s Sun, Out Lines – Conflats, and Siobhan Wilson – There Are No Saints.

Young Fathers are an Edinburgh-based band formed in 2008. Their debut album Dead won the Mercury Prize, and the band went on to write tracks for the 2017 film T2 Trainspotting. Cocoa Sugar is the band’s third album, released in March 2018 on the Ninja Tune label. 

As part of the awards ceremony, SAY also paid tribute to Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchinson, who passed away earlier this year. The ceremony was live streamed, and can still be viewed at www.sayaward.com.