Alasdair Roberts has what is simply one of the finest of folk voices, an unaffected delivery which is totally in the service of whatever song he is singing. And ‘The Bonny Moorhen‘ from his latest album ‘Grief In The Kitchen And Mirth In The Hall’ is a perfect example of this. It’s a song that plays a double part – on the face of it there’s a celebration of a bird in flight, but there’s a subtext: “A fond paean to a waterbird whose regal profile bears comparison to none other than Bonnie Prince Charlie, the rebel Scottish king who dared to stand up against the redcoats. Imperiled by events, the bird’s beauty only grows. A song of Scottish pride, played with the rolling grace of a processional and a wink implying shared secrets and good news.”
As well as havng a new album, Alasdair Roberts will also be at The Barbican on the 24th of June as part of the ‘Music from Summerisle’ celebration of fifty years of ‘The Wicker Man‘ for which he’ll be performing a specially commissioned folk song suite entitled ‘G-AXZN’ which makes a dark, ambient journey over Summerisle. Should be eerily splendid.
