Throughout her career, Carla J. Easton wrote and played with piano and synthesizers. That changed, though, after spending eight years working on the documentary Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands. “I would just interview and spend time with these incredible, powerful, independent women,” says Glasgow-based Easton on a recent video call. “None of them ever waited for an invitation. A lot of them are just like, I’ll pick up a guitar, fuck it.”
So Easton, too, picked up a guitar too. The result is her latest solo album, I Think That I Might Love You, out on May 8.
“It’s just really refreshing to understand that, as an adult, you can still learn new skills,” says Easton. “I think as adults, we sometimes forget that you have to dedicate the time to practice. We just want to be good at something straight away.”
It was, in a way, a full circle moment, as Easton came to co-direct Since Yesterday in part because of her own experience in the early 2010s indie band TeenCanteen. “When we formed, we were very much the only girl band on the scene in Scotland. It’s quite a small music community here,” she explains. At the time, the musicians would field questions like, “What’s like being in a girl band?” She recalls comparisons that would rely on the most basic knowledge of bands comprised of women. “We found it hard to get out of being labeled twee or retro or stuff like that,” says Easton, adding that the band’s bassist, Sita Peraccini, would play in a style similar to Peter Hook in New Order, while Easton played sub bass synths. “That’s not really a 1960s girl group sound,” she says. “It was quite frustrating, but I think that’s changing now. I hope it’s changing now.”
But, Easton adds, “Strawberry Switchblade are still the only girl band from Scotland to have a top 10 UK hit and that was in 1985. That was 40 years ago.”
Easton, who also collects records, set out to gather the stories of members of bands ranging from ‘60s group The McKinley Sisters, to new wave outfits like Strawberry Switchblade and Sophisticated Boom Boom to ‘90s indie bands like Lung Leg.
That work would go on to influence Easton beyond her learning to play guitar and, as a result, I Think That I Might Love You became an album about friendship and community.
“Songs that people are going to read as break up songs, are really the end of friendships, which I think can be more devastating to you than a romantic relationship,” Easton says. “I was really interested in this idea of the red string of fate and having soulmates and how soulmates are these connections all over the world and if you find this thread of a soulmate, you pick it up and wind it in and perhaps that’s a fleeting connection with someone. But, also your soulmate doesn’t have to be romantic. It can be platonic. Platonic is just as important as romantic in terms of these connections.”
To make her fifth solo album, Easton relied on her friends and collaborators, an eclectic crew of musicians that includes Stevie Jackson (Belle and Sebastian), Jonny Scott (Chvrches), Susan Bear (The Pastels), producer Howard Bilerman (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Wolf Parade) and more. “Sonically, it’s just a capture of that moment where it clicked on the third or fourth jam of a bunch of friends in a room all playing together for the first time. That was really special,” she says. “I think that does come across in the film as a subconscious things. This idea of friendship and that kind of gang mentality that forms through music-making.”
The album captures that spirit of friendship throughout, particularly in the indie disco of “Let’s Make Plans for the Weekend,” which Easton co-wrote with Pedro Cameron, and album closer “If You Find a Thread,” a song that she and co-writer Brett Nelson began at Third Man Records in Nashville. “It was one of the first songs written on guitar,” says Easton. “I’ve got very early demos where I can barely play guitar.”
The theme of friendship also made its way onto the album art, a photograph of Easton and a friend’s hands reaching towards each other, a red thread hanging down towards the bottom of the image. The photo was taken by another one of Easton’s pals, Craig McIntosh. “It was almost this weird, kinetic energy,” says Easton, recalling how McIntosh mentioned that he had been reading about the red string of fate. “I was like, No way. I’ve actually got a song on the album called ‘If You Find a Thread’ and it’s about these connections.”
This led to a series of photographs. Easton notes that she was particularly fond of the cover shot because of its resemblance to Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam. “But, it’s two friends,” she adds. “I thought that was quite nice.”
I Think That I Might Love You by Carla J. Easton is out now. Easton will be touring the U.K. later in May.
Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Follow on Instagram or sign up for the weekly, Beatique newsletter for updates on new stories and gigs.
Listen to the May 2026 edition of Beatique, featuring music from Sextile, Fcukers, Kneecap, Dry Cleaning, Fontaines D.C. and more.
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