Stripped back and simple folk

FOLK singer-songwriter Alasdair Roberts makes no secret of the fact he thrives on collaboration.

As well as being a member of the traditional song group The Furrow Collective, his last album A Wonder Working Stone was credited to Alasdair Roberts And Friends, and featured a string and horn section alongside his touring band.

So his eighth eponymous album comes as something of a surprise – featuring a largely unadorned Roberts on guitar, with few overdubs other than occasional tin whistle and clarinet.

Part of the reason for this comes out of the album’s unexpected genesis.

“It was partly a conscious decision to make quite a different record and approach touring a different way,” says Roberts.

“I had a couple of days booked in the studio, hoping to finish off another project [with pianist David McGuiness] but we had to cancel through illness.

“I thought I would use the time to record these ten songs and see how they came out. I didn’t think it would be a record – I was hoping to arrange them for the band in the same way as A Wonder Working Stone. Listening back I thought maybe they didn’t need the band thing – that they could stand alone in a stripped down way.”

He describes the resulting album as “definitely more personal”, although he prefers to let the songs speak for themselves to keep their ambiguity and mystery.

“A lot of the songs are strongly indebted melodically to traditional songs,” he says. “I might take a line of melody here and there and mould it.

“Artless One’s melody is derived from the song Rigs O’ Rye – although the original song doesn’t modulate. My song goes through three key signatures – I was trying to develop the melody in that way.”

The closing song, the despondent Roomful Of Relics, could be read as a complaint against the folk singer’s lot, surrounded by historical songs. But Roberts says it was inspired by the departure of many of his Glasgow music contemporaries to work on their own projects.

“The guys had vanished into their own various things, so I was left alone looking after these relics,” says Roberts, who admits the experience of touring solo is a little like the way he started out making music.

“My earliest music making was done alone in my bedroom when I was 16 or 17 with a four-track recorder. I didn’t have any other friends who were into music making at that time.”

For this tour he won’t be completely on his own though – as support Stevie Jones from Glasgow will join him on stage after his opening set to add some bass to Roberts’ compositions.

“It’s a nice contrast – the bass adds a new element,” says Roberts.

Roberts is planning his next release to be more of a collaborative effort. He already has a couple of new songs written, which will form part of his live set, and the record with McGuinness, of the Concerto Caledonia, is still on the table.

“That record is very different from anything else either of us has done,” he says. “They are mostly just piano and voice.

“Most of the old ballads were traditionally unaccompanied. The piano is a weird one in that context, as it’s redolent of Victorian parlour songs – of folk songs being made polite and tamed in a way.

“David is a very idiosyncratic musician, he has a lot of musical interests including traditional song, but he is classically trained. There was going to be an electronic element on the songs too.”

For the collaborative album Roberts has ditched the guitar, meaning he can focus more on his voice.

“It was a desire to free myself from playing an instrument,” he says. “I wanted to see if it would affect my singing.

“Some of the songs are very big and difficult to sing – I want to redo some of the vocals now. They are epic “muckle” songs, big old ballads.”

Support from Sound Of Yell and Heliopause.

Duncan Hall

Essential info: Doors 8pm, tickets £10. Call 01273 606312.