Folk album of the month - Alasdair Roberts, Amble Skuse and David McGuinness – What News

The Guardian 80

The Scottish musician’s collaboration with Skuse and McGuinness is tender and intricate

To work well in folk music, you have to be an industrious soul, and there are few more industrious in the field than Alasdair Roberts. The Scot, who grew up around traditional song in a hamlet near Stirling, has been yomping without pause for more than 20 years, releasing more than 15 albums since he was a teenager. He only got his first Radio 2 folk award last year, as part of the Furrow collective (for best group), and it’s farcical that his exploratory journeys into traditional music hadn’t won him even a nomination before. Perhaps being long-signed to US alternative label Drag City marked him out as being too different from Radio 2’s cosy club. This short-sightedness can be instantly remedied by listening to Roberts’ back catalogue (available on Spotify and Tidal from this week) and to his new, giving album.