JEAN Cameron has a heck a lot of listening to do. And she’s already spent much of the year listening, both in her role as director for Paisley’s bid to host the UK City of Culture in 2021 and on the judging panel for the Scottish Album of the Year.

After a process involving over 120 eligible albums, 100 impartial nominators and public votes, the 10 albums shortlisted for the award were announced at a BBC Scotland live event last week in Glasgow with performances from previous nominees Fatherson and 2015 winner Kathryn Joseph, pictured below.

Now Cameron must decide which of those 10 records most deserves the hardly insubstantial £20,000 first prize as part of a 12-strong judging panel featuring music journalists, musicians, producers and acclaimed cultural figures such as dancer Sophie Laplane, who choreographed and featured in Joseph’s evocative video The Bird, and Edinburgh International Festival director Fergus Linehan.

The winner will be announced at Paisley Town Hall on June 29 – the same day the judging panel meet for the last time to thrash out their differences and come to a conclusive decision.

“It was hard enough to narrow it down to my own 10, so being asked to narrow it down to just one, I was like, ‘Um, OK!’” says Cameron, sounding excited but understandably a little daunted.

“None of my own top 10 records made the shortlist so I’m almost starting afresh and I’m finding that records that maybe didn’t connect with me before are doing so now.

“The whole process has been so interesting. You ask what does the Scottish Album of Year mean? Is it a world-class body of work produced by or involving Scottish people in Scottish locations? Who would it make a real difference to, like with Kathryn last year who had been making music for a while? Though we’re definitely not being asked to look at it through those lenses, so many factors are undoubtedly at play in your head.”

Of those 10 exceptional albums, each one truly is a genuine contender. From the knock-out vibrancy of Varmits by Edinburgh-raised composer Anna Meredith, through the crystalline classical of Dunedin Consort’s Bach: Magnificat and the experimental folk of English/Scots trio Lau to the globally influenced pulsing dance of Theory of Flow by Glasgow producer Auntie Flo, the SAY Award dispenses with genre divisions.

Also, anyone really could win it, whether fresh-faced debutant or experienced veteran. Young Fathers (pictured below) may have won in 2014, but their White Men Are Black Men Too has rightfully made this year’s shortlist, as have albums by Steve Mason, Emma Pollock and Franz Ferdinand, whose witty, sharp collaboration with Sparks, titled FFS, also won the public’s vote.

“There’s always an in-built bias towards someone on their first album, but we’re not about that – we have unknown artists next to very well known albums,” says John Williamson, who has chaired the judging panel since the inaugural SAY Award in 2012, which was won by Everything’s Getting Older, a collaboration between musician Bill Wells and loveable curmudgeon Aidan Moffat.

“That was the only album that there wasn’t too much discussion on as it was obvious that it was the winner,” he says. “But in subsequent years there have always been a few albums right in contention up until the last minute. It’s about finding a record that every judge is happy with. Quite often a judge’s favourite album doesn’t make the shortlist, and it’s about what they do then. The judges are having to spend a lot of time with these records, not necessarily to judge which they personally like best, but to listen to them in the context. It’s certainly not scientific and there are so many factors, but all of the winners at the time felt right for different reasons.”

A noted figure on the Scottish music landscape for 25 years as a journalist, promoter and band manager – most recently for Belle and Sebastian – Williams also spent a number of years on the panel for the annual Barclaycard Mercury Prize, which last year saw current SAY Award shortlister C Duncan nominated for his excellent Architect, an album assured modern classic status, regardless of who is announced as winner on Wednesday.

“This year will be particularly difficult I think as there are at least four or five very strong albums with a lot of support,” he says. “During my time I have had very involved discussions about various forms of electoral systems.”

With so much to consider, Cameron agrees that the best compass can be your gut instinct – what album most makes a connection with the listener.

“Music is so powerful, so personal and it’s been so interesting to hear some of these specialists on the panel talk so passionately about the albums that most talk to them,” she says. “Or to hear how people with different backgrounds, like Sophie, relate to music differently. Like her, I’m from a dance background, so I find that I am always making up dances in my head.”

The SAY Award winner will be announced at Paisley Town Hall on June 29.

You can listen to the nominated albums at www.sayaward.com