We are delighted to announce the official launch of the CD/LP Urstan by Mairi Morrison and Alasdair Roberts. This will take place at the CCA in Glasgow at 8pm on 25th February 2012 and tickets can be found here. The evening before the launch, on 24th February, Alasdair will be doing solo Scots bà rdachd at The Arches, Glasgow as part of the excellent Margins Festival. Also on the bill are Withered Hand and Roddy Woomble & Sorren MacLean. Lots of great stuff is happening at Margins Festival, so be sure to check it out if you are in Glasgow.
Mairi Morrison comes from Bragar on the Isle of Lewis, one of the furthermost parts of the Scottish Gà idhealtachd – indeed, almost as far west as one can go in Scotland before reaching North America. Of all the Gaelic-speaking parts of Scotland, Lewis is culturally one of the richest of all; Mairi now lives in Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city, but she carries the Lewis tradition in her heart and her voice.
Ceol ‘s Craic, a Glasgow-based club devoted to promoting Gaelic arts in the city, brought Mairi and Alasdair together to make Urstan, which takes its title from a Lewis-specific word for a celebration held at the birth of a new child. A dram of whisky, basically. The album features Stevie Jones (bass), Alastair Caplin (fiddle) and Alex Neilson (drums) and special guest appearances from such Glasgow music scene luminaries as Michael John McCarthy (Zoey Van Goey), David McGuinness (Concerto Caledonia), Ross MacRae and Richard Merchant (Second Hand Marching Band/Horns of Plenty), Peter Nicholson (The One Ensemble), Mike Hastings (Trembling Bells) and Gaelic song and piobiareachd authority Allan MacDonald.
The album will be released by Drag City Records in March 2012.
PERTINENT LINKS:
