the midday sun at midnight

{cheremshyna/pincherry tree by st. basil's}

In my haphazard perusal of the internet, I have discovered there are a number of sorts of blogs. Some are full of photos, which I like to call phlogs; ones with writing, I call wlogs; ones with music are mlogs. Until this post, I have been keeping a phwlog... but now that I have obtained the capability of linking mp3s, I now have a mphwlog (which looks amusingly like a word in Welsh...) This I am rather excited about, as I can foster the spread of musical goodness to even wider spheres, hopefully...

I shall try to post things that are rather obscure, perhaps even more esoteric than the things I usually put on mixtapes I make, things that perhaps wouldn't be found so easily otherwise. Good little musical morsels, yes.

I'm using YouSendIt to host them, so just click on the links which shall take you to a page where you will see a button that says 'Download Now!' & you will do so. At least I hope you shall.

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I suppose if I had a theme today it would be Scottish folk-ish singers... who have been my night-time music over the past week... Cozyness, yes. Both reinterpret the songs in very contemporary ways, taking the sparseness of the traditional arrangement & making such gorgeous, swirling textures out of them.

Isobel Campbell, I'm sure, you may know as the cellist & one of the vocalists from Belle & Sebastian... or perhaps from her solo work, Amorino, or Ballad of the Broken Seas, her album of creaky, country-ish duets earlier this year with Mark Lanegan. She very recently released an album called Milk White Sheets, which is filled with reworkings of traditional British folksongs. "Willow's Song" is hypnotic & spiralling, & though sometimes her voice can be a little maddening in its fragility, here it blends so nicely with the medieval-plucking strings & persistent echoey drumbeat, piercing flute...

Isobel Campbell: Willow's Song (Milk White Sheets) mp3

& Alasdair Roberts' central-Scottish accent comes through all gentle & I want to curl up in a ball all day in the aural equivalent of flannel sheets. There is something so comforting about the timbre of his voice, wintry & warm... It makes me wish I could invite him over for tea, & ask him to teach some me songs... & I'll drink lavender tea, & get very sleepy so he'll still be singing as I fall asleep in my chair. "I Went Hunting" is a song about a shapeshifting gosling-woman, also very swirly & encompassing & full of his sweet vowels.

Alasdair will have a new album, The Amber Gatherers, out in January; you can read more about it, & hear a delightful song called "Firewater" if you go over & pay a visit to this blog here.

Alasdair Roberts: I Went Hunting (Farewell Sorrow) mp3