Lightning FayAlasdair Roberts & Friends July 1, 2010
Too Long In This Condition
Last week I received in the mail one of the finest of all things: a new Alasdair Roberts record. O, happy day! Too Long In This Condition (which is actually credited to Alasdair Roberts & Friends) is another of the great Scottish songwriter's works of interpretation. Like Crook Of My Arm (2001) and No Earthly Man (2005) before it, Too Long takes a group of old folk songs and sees them reinvented by Mr. Roberts and said friends. As with those two earlier records, I was not familiar with any of the songs found here (being no expert of folk music), but it's just as well. Roberts inhabits each of these numbers so fully, that surely they now belong to him. At least for a time.
Alasdair Roberts - The Lover's Ghost by Proper Music Distribution
The stories these songs tell are the ones we've come to expect: murder ballads, tales of betrayal and great laments of lost love. From the age-old switcheroo in opener "The Daemon Lover" to the terribly dying love of "Barbara Allen," Roberts and his friends take us to visit with jealous siblings ("The Two Sisters"), double-crossed sailors ("The Golden Vanity") and the ghosts of murdered children ("Little Sir Hugh").
Despite the brutal nature of most of these songs, the record is, not surprisingly, a joy to listen to. The arrangements are sweeping, grand, unexpected things, imbued with an unrushed ease that belies their intricacy. Just as he has been doing with his original material as of late, Roberts fleshes out these simple, unforgettable melodies with wonderfully understated yet far-reaching musical passages that transport the listener to vivid, timeless places.
While there are standout contributions on every song -- the elegiac lament of Ben Reynolds' lap steel on "The Lover's Ghost," the haunted backing vocals of Emily Portman throughout the record, Shane Connolly's easy, masterful drumming on "The Golden Vanity," Alastair Caplin's enchanting fiddle on "Barbara Allen" -- Roberts himself is the star of this show. His expert finger-picking of the steel-string acoustic guitar and his lovely vocal delivery anchor the work, making these timeless songs completely and unmistakably his own.
See footage of Alasdair performing a few of his original songs.
It's clear that Roberts and his cohorts are masters of their instruments and the folk traditions they inhabit. If they wanted to play the songs as they sounded in years past, they easily could, taking on the roles of musical re-enactors, giving modern listeners a window into the past. Instead they breathe new life into these age-old songs, and they sound like they could be of no other time than right now. This is one of the record's greatest achievements. Roberts seems to have no anxiety about authenticity or history; he has no uncertainty of where he stands in the river of time, and we the listeners find ourselves extremely lucky to be standing alongside him.
