A tasty treat from Morrison, Roberts & Johnston, undeniably North of the country below it, with songs deriving from a similar circumstance, an ocean apart.

Release Date : 25th April 2025

Label : Drag City

Format : CD / vinyl / digital

Does Alasdair Roberts ever sleep….

……such is his restless need to be making music, by himself or in an ever dizzying array of collaborations? Let us be glad he doesn’t, for here is another, actually a second with Màiri Morrison, if the first where Pete Johnston too gets a credit, in the billing, if not on the actual cover. Roberts we know from his myriad solo releases, of which there are at least 12, maybe more, should you include those labelled as “and Friends”, let alone the 5, starting before that, as lead member of the band, his band, Appendix Out. Add on his genres sans frontières work with Furrow Collective, with Amble Skuse and David McGuinness (Roberts, Skuse & McGuiness) and with Will Oldham and Jason Molina (Amalgamated Sons of Rest), covering folk, avant-folk-experimental and americana, respectively, and that is but a dip in his ocean of work.

Màiri Morrison, like Roberts, is a Scot, but from Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, rather than the wee settlement of Kilmahog, outside Callander, where Roberts was raised. She is an actor as well as a singer, and they together made the album, Urstan, in 2012, based around Gaelic narratives, old and new. This time it is the transatlantic journey of the wider Scottish tradition that is explored, as, whether by choice or coercion, the songs became part of the Canadian tradition, through emigration. Some maintain the Gaelic of their originals, these tackled by Morrison, with Roberts duly picking those in Scots. The whole project was drawn together by Pete Johnston, a Canadian musicain, from Nova Scotia, and whose double bass holds it all in place, producing also the album.

the wide open plains of canada

10 songs, then, in turns genial and playful, sombre and brooding; that is their description, and who am I to argue. As Màiri Nighean Dòmhnaill opens, it is the wide open plains of Canada that are evoked, rather than the lochs and mountains of the Highlands. There is a bass and drum pattern that could grace anything from Neil Young to Cowboy Junkies, over which some timber framed fiddle emerges, along with the two singers, initially in unison. Morrison, for all her origins, carries a country twang in her voice, sounding built more for rodeos than ceilidhs, supplying already a transatlantic connection for this Gaelic song.

A quiet hum of harmonium adds the feel of a backswoods tabernacle. Morrison then takes the verses and it is a splendid start, suddenly heightened further by a silver band, joining for the final third. It feels like a song of praise, offered as the weary settlers finally broke land.

GLISS BASS

Glissanding bass and cascading curls of electric guitar introduce The Bonny House Of Airlie. Roberts’ distinctively and deceptively frail voice picks up the tale, as the drums slot in beneath him, as shards of staccato guitar strike out at cross-purpose. A banjo is loping along in the mix as well, to add a sense of menace, as is some eerie fiddle. The drums are provided by Jake Oelrichs, the fiddle by Sarah Frank and banjo by Mike Smith. It is Roberts himself on guitar.

A sudden ending and it is the gentler by far Sir Neil and Glengyle that follows. Bereft of percussion, accompaniment is initially solely from Roberts guitar, as Morrison sings, in English this time. Harmonium is the first additional to seep in, from Andrew Killawee, with each verse gradually adding further textures from the rest of the band. A 7 minute song, this is a classic ballad, awash with murder and mayhem, a not particularly distant relative of Braes Of Yarrow.

A sepia settler’s ball

Hind Horn gets a turn of the century society danceband version, fiddle and bass rolling with Roberts’ vocal. Nothing like the Furrow Collective’s version, either, with the silver band back to give substance to the faltering narrative. Whether by accident, chance or default, the overall picture presented is of a a proud prospector being egged on to sing his party piece, at the annual settler’s ball. And captured in sepia, at that.

That semblance continues over into Druimfhionn Donn, with the turn to sing passed to Morrison, initially acapella, alone, and then with Roberts. However, Johnston and Oelrichs swiftly steer it into something more robust, their rhythm, together with electric guitar, spurring on the rest of the band into what becomes a pre-folk version of post-folk. The orthodox pattern of the song as sung, becomes twisted within the arrangement into something somehow wilder and more worrying.

EBULLIENT

Katharine Jaffray sees Johnstone’s bass at its most ebullient, making a claim for him to be considered at the top table of double bassists in folk, alongside Danny Thompsons and Ben Nicholls. It is sufficient ballast alone for Roberts to start the song with, although some staccato fiddle, guitar and banjo aren’t far behind. As the vocal swaps to Morrison, an insistent tap at the side of the snare sets up an off kilter patter. Another 7 minute epic, the build is as intense as it was with Sir Neil And Glengyle, if with a different dynamic. It is also when this good record decides to be great. The importance of the harmonium as a beacon of atmosphere cannot be underestimated, even as the rhythm section then bombard the song into submission.

Macaronic?

Peggy Gordon is an old faithful, and one that possibly features more strongly within an Irish tradition, but seems actually to have derived in Canada. Perhaps it traveled in the reverse direction, stopping off in Ireland first, before being taken to Glasgow and beyond. and probably back again. Be that as it may, here it is gifted an almost classical arrangement, initially by way of Roberts’ acoustic guitar.

I can’t but help but start singing As I Roved Out, or even Carrickfergus, along with the players here, but I guess I wouldn’t be the first to make that point. A harmonium drone is then the reference point for Uilleam Glen, a song in both languages, the verses sung in turn, Frank’s fiddle then sweeping around in a dense swirl. I also learnt a word: macaronic, this being where a song applies two (or more) different tongues. The tempo slowly picks up to a climax, before everything drops away to some solitary and sultry banjo notes.

A FAMILIAR CADENCE

Hi Horò ‘s Na Hòro H-eile is another with a familar cadence, that familiarity tempered by the graceful setting. The two voices have quite two quite separate tonalities, yet seem to fit here together perfectly, the smoothness of the mix enabled by the expertise of Johnstone et al, as it becomes an elaborate and ornate orchestration. Lovely, as is the closer, The Soldier’s Adieu, a further opportunity to relish the combination of voices. Almost entirely unaccompanied, only Franks is on hand for this one, playing almost a last post to underline the gravity of the parting. Oddly, this is almost the first song where Morrison and Roberts sound so identifiably Scottish, even as they sing “Farewell Nova Scotia’s sea-beat coast”, perhaps to bring back this cycle of songs full circle.

Second helpings, please

The album’s title is an allusion to John Lorne Campbell’s book Songs Remembered In Exile, a collection of songs of Scottish Gaelic origin found in Cape Breton and Antigonish County, Nova Scotia. I am sure there is at least another volume to be recorded from that source, eh, Alasdair, Màiri and Pete?

Try an old ballad, Nova Scotia style redux, The Bonny House of Airlie:

Màiri Morrison & Alasdair Roberts online : Bandcamp

Alasdair Roberts online : Facebook / Instagram

Keep up with At The Barrier: Facebook / X (formerly Twitter) / Instagram / Spotify / YouTube