#alasdair roberts

[neitherabaron]

Saw two awesome folk singer-songwriters last night. Alasdair Roberts (who I think I’ve raved about on Twitter before) supported by Rick Redbeard (who I hadn’t heard of, but his songwriting and voice are super melancholy and beautiful).

I don’t think there’s anything more inspiring for a musician than watching someone who’s really, really good at an instrument you’re kind of good with and want to get better at. Tim made us sit in the front row which meant I could watch their fingers on the strings, which was a treat. Always gonna do that for acoustic guitarists from now on if I can.

[dustedmagazine]

Alasdair Roberts — Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall (Drag City)

Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall by Alasdair Roberts

Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall is Scots folk musician Alasdair Roberts’s fifth collection of traditional songs, some from Scotland and Ireland, and one from Prince Edward Island in Eastern Canada. The recording includes material dating back centuries, yet Roberts has selected songs that frequently resonate with conflicts and emotions we face today: Love, both unrequited and consummated but nearly always fraught, prejudice, privation and the beauty of nature. He records these solo, just voice and acoustic guitar or piano, close-miked but rendered delicately. The title is taken from the last verse of “The Baron O’Brackley,” a song about feuding clans in Northeast Scotland. It is performed with a jaunty swagger, depicting bravery in spite of betrayal.

Animals are featured on a trio of songs. “The Wonderful Grey Horse,” the leadoff track for the album, sits in a sweet spot in the middle high range of Roberts’ voice, with arpeggiated ornaments adorning the guitar in the breaks between verses and ghosting of the melody throughout. “Drimindown” is a lament for a lost cow, a terrible situation for a farmer, losing livelihood and the ability to provide for their family. “The Bonny Moorhen” is an appreciation of the water bird, a creature that takes on mythic resonances in Celtic folklore. Thus, in each of these songs dedicated to animals, there are far more layers than might at first be apparent to post-millennial eyes. 

Love ballads feature prominently. Another song accompanied by piano is “The Lichtbob’s Lassie,” with a wistful vocal melody that Roberts embellishes with doleful filigrees. One of my favorites is an anti-love song, “Kilbogie,” the Celtic version of “Love Stinks.” 

Roberts revels in finding obscurities to interpret — such as the delicate treasure “Young Airly” —  but he also includes some famous fare. “Mary Mild,” also known as “The Queen’s Four Maries,” is a venerable tune that Roberts performs quite simply, with a chordal piano accompaniment  and crooning delivery. “Bob Norris” is an extended tragic ballad with asymmetrical phrase lengths that are emblematic of Celtic folk song: early transcriptions often got this wrong, to their great detriment. Clocking in at over seven minutes, it demonstrates a beauty in simplicity, so often Roberts’ bailiwick. Verse after verse is declaimed with straightforward eloquence, the emphasis on storytelling. 

The last song on the album, “The Holland Handkerchief,” steps away from earthly subjects to explore the supernatural. It is a keen reminder of the connection between folk song and the ghost story, the sense of a thin membrane between this world and the mythic. 

Five albums in, Roberts seems to have only scratched the surface of the folk song repertoire and his contributions to its curation, performance, and preservation. Recommended. 

Christian Carey

[my-chemical-wheaties]

Albums That I Listened to in December 2023

One of my New Year's resolutions is to engage with more media, including, but not limited to, more albums. As a result, I've decided to start doing this series of posts where I talk about all of the albums that I listened to in the past month and give the internet my thoughts.

In this last month (December 2023), I listened to twelve different albums all the way through from start to finish. They come from a fairly wide variety of genres, but the main theme of this particular collection seems to be albums by more "indie" artists.

In order from first listened to to last listened to, these albums were:

Glow On - Turnstile (2021)

Blue Weekend - Wolf Alice (2021)

Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard - Lana Del Rey (2023)

Infest the Rat's Nest - King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (2019)

Congratulations - MGMT (2010)

Boxer - The National (2007)

The Crane Wife - The Decemberists (2006)

Picaresque - The Decemberists (2005)

Angels Without Wings - Heidi Talbot (2013)

Cerulean Salt - Waxahatchee (2013)

The Crook of My Arm - Alasdair Roberts (2001)

Pink Moon - Nick Drake (1972)

If I were to rate and rank these albums, it would look like this:

The Crane Wife - I am an absolute sucker for baroque, folksy-sounding rock music and this album scratches the itch for me so well. As someone who also takes an interest in theatre, literature, and a little bit of mythology and folklore, I also thought it was really interesting how The Decemberists weave their retellings of the eponymous Japanese folktale and Shakespeare's The Tempest into the instrumentation and lyrics of the different tracks. Even better, these songs are great as standalones, too. I will probably be coming back to this one. 8/10

Picaresque - Like I said in the section on the other Decemberists album I listened to, The Crane Wife, I love baroque rock music and this album scratches that itch just as well. I don't remember it as well as some of the other albums on this list, but I have a suspicion that I will be giving it a few more listens and that I will likely view it as better than The Crane Wife by the end of the year. Each song is like its own short story and I find the ways in which Colin Meloy crafts these vignettes interesting. 8/10

Glow On - This album is infectiously fun and some of the songs on here are super catchy. I love how Turnstile incorporate elements of dream pop, shoegaze, and even a little bit of dance rock and funk into the hardcore sound they are already known for. I've found myself coming back to this album a lot and I am interested to see what else this band has in their discography. 8/10

Pink Moon - This album is considered a classic for a reason. The tracks consist of some really beautiful acoustic guitar-driven rock songs that have almost a folk or country edge to them. On top of that, Nick's singing voice complements the guitar well and creates an intimate sonic environment, as if he is playing these songs in the same room as you (Especially if you're listening with headphones or earbuds). It's also a surprisingly short album, so give it a listen if you haven't yet. 9/10

Blue Weekend - I had heard a few songs from this album like Smile and Lipstick on the Glass before, so I decided to give the whole album a listen. For the most part, the tracks are a lot slower and softer than I was anticipating, but this isn't a bad thing at all - they still sound good. I love frontwoman Ellie Rowsell's singing voice, it complements the instrumentation really well. This album sounds like driving through a city at night during the Summer. 8/10

Congratulations - I've noticed that I like to gravitate towards more experimental albums, and this is definitely on the more experimental side. This is probably my favorite MGMT album that I've listened to so far, and it slightly makes me hope that their upcoming album will be experimental, too. It's Working, Flash Delirium, and Siberian Breaks are my favorite tracks. 8/10

Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard - The amount of critical praise I have seen for this album is bounteous, to the point where I felt like I had to listen to this album to see why people love it so much. The songs on this album have some beautiful piano, and Lana's reflections on her family, death, religion, her career, and even herself as a person are intriguing to listen to. I feel like I need to give this album a few more chances, though, because it is extremely long and the sheer length of this album kind of wore me out when I listened to it in one sitting. 8/10, but there is a possibility that it will go up to 9/10.

Infest the Rat's Nest - I have never listened to a King Gizzard album before and there are so many that I have absolutely no idea where to start, so I just picked the one that I thought had the most interesting album art. The concept of doing a metal album of which the storyline takes place in space gave me lowkey Ziltoid the Omniscient by Devin Townsend vibes, which is a good thing coming from me because I love Devin's work. I might give this a few more listens. 7/10

The Crook of My Arm - This was the second folk album that I listened to this past month and I thought it was neat. Sometimes the stripped back acoustic guitar instrumentation gets a little repetitive, but it was a pleasant listen nonetheless. Alasdair's lyricism on this album reminds me of Joanna Newsom. 6/10

Boxer - The National seem like pretty chill, wholesome people, and this album is pretty good, but I cannot remember how any of the tracks go besides Mistaken for Strangers because they all kind of blend into each other as you go through. 6/10

Cerulean Salt - I decided to check out this album because I've never listened to Waxahatchee before and knowing my music taste, I feel like she is an artist that I should have listened to by now. I kind of want to put this list higher in my ranking, but there are a lot of other albums that I liked more this past month and it feels weird putting this above Boxer. It's a decent album and there are a few tracks that I enjoy, but I think I just enjoyed a few other albums more than this. 7/10

Angels Without Wings - I love folk music and I don't want to put down a fairly small artist like this, but I have to admit that this one was disappointing to listen to. Most of the songs on here are mid and over the course of this album, start to sound like the same song being played over and over again. Heidi seems like she's a talented musician and if other people like it, that's fine, but it was just kind of a meh album to me. 4/10

If you have any suggestions for albums that I should listen to this month, feel free to comment below. I'm planning to do this for at least a year. :)

[narizentupidocartazes]

2010 [18 de Abril] | Alasdair Roberts | Cinema Nimas - Lisboa

Cartaz [João SImões]

[maquina-semiotica]

Alasdair Roberts, "The Bonny Moorhen" #NowPlaying

[radiophd]

alasdair roberts -- the bonny moorhen

[robfanforlife]

New! 'Dior Icons' - Photos by: Alasdair McLellan

[nofatclips]

Orpheus Beach (The Go-Betweens cover) by The Clientele

[atombonniebaby]

War Never Changes. I'm a little late to @falloutober

"C'mon, lad. I canna lose another one..."

"Argh. Geroff! I'm fine, boss!🙄"

It made me sad, so I had to do a "he's okay!" drawing too 🥺 But they turned out so cute!

The idea was basically Nate has experienced a lot of young men losing their lives in the war and he's the type of guy who wouldn't let them die alone...So Mac getting hurt is a little too close to home.

Maybe I'll do another one when Mac gets an earful for recklessly running into firefight...

[bob-the-movie-man-film-reviews]

Kill (15): One of the best small-scale thrillers I've seen this year.

One Mann's Movies Film Review of "Kill". A surprisingly taut and well-made Scottish thriller from debut director Rodger Griffiths.. 4/5

A One Mann’s Movies review of “Kill” (2024). (Alternative title: Betrayal) Sometimes a ‘little’ film packs a bigger punch than all of the glossy big-budget Hollywood thrillers that come out. Case in point, “Kill” (aka “Betrayal”) – a film that, at the moment, seems to only be getting a limited release in Scotland, but which deserves to be seen more broadly. (Distributors, please take…

[prettyfamous]

Robert Pattinson | Dior | Alasdair McLellan | Winter 2023

[biblioklept]

Have a weird Xmas (Blog about books acquired in Dec. 2023)

Maybe an hour ago, browsing in a used bookstore, I opened a worn and some might say dirty copy of Iain Banks’s 1985 novel Walking on Glass. The very first page of this old book was inscribed with the following: Have a weird Xmas ’90                  John This copy of Iain Banks’s 1985 novel Walking on Glass—a 1990 Abacus trade paperback printed in London, the embossing on its cover yellowed by…

[leguin]

listened to it twice on the bus on the way to work this morning and at no point did i notice that it was 9 minutes long...just gripping

[insidecroydon]

Perry presides over late-running, unapologetic leaders meet

Shallow talent pool: Croydon Mayor Jason Perry presiding over Monday night’s Tory leadership hustings with (from left) Robert Jenrick, Tom Tugendhat and Kemi BadEnoch While Labour members were drooling/raging (delete to taste) over their rapidly discredited leadership’s performances at their annual conference in Liverpool this week, Croydon’s Conservatives were gathering to hear from their…

[experienceandobservation]

Robert Pattinson | Dior | October 27, 2023 | 📷 Alasdair McLellan

[maquina-semiotica]

Alasdair Roberts, "The Bonny Moorhen"