Alasdair Roberts

The band on 19th will be Alastair Caplin on fiddle, Stevie Jones on bass and Alasdair Roberts.
On 21st and 22nd the band will expand to include Shane Connolly on drums.

To everybody who helped and with whose paths we crossed on the recent tour.

Alasdair Roberts and Alistair Caplin will play live in Lancaster tomorrow night, Friday 12th June, with Diane Cluck and Mary Hampton.
The duo will also appear the following day (Saturday 13th) at Friends of the River Kelvin Gala in the Botanic Gardens, Glasgow.

A new discography page has been added for Spoils, and includes links to lyrics for each song.

The complete lyrics to the eight songs from Spoils will be posted here shortly.

The May tour band will be:
Alistair Caplin
Shane Connolly
Alasdair Roberts

There’s an interview with Alasdair Roberts in today’s edition of The Sun newspaper, Britains best-loved red-top. Check it out!

SPOILS REVIEW EXCERPTS

“Folk-rock visionary’s stunning treasure. Alasdair Roberts has delivered his strongest work to date. Here, percussionist Alex Neilson, former Appendix Out colleagues, sundry Finnish outsiders and a baroque guitarist hoe out a swinging, peaty folk-rock patch where Roberts can sow his reed-voiced songs. He is on fire lyrically, drawing on mystical poetry, Celtic legend, Renaissance exploration and Eastern philosophy to explore the ills of modern society, culminating in the ’scurvy dream’ of “Ned Ludd’s Rant (for a World Rebarbarised)”. - Uncut

“In an unguarded moment a PR of my acquaintance called Alasdair Roberts a “genius”. She’d taken a drink, but if one of the ingredients of genius is to see beyond the beyond and achieve brilliance in hitherto unimagined areas of art and endeavour, then it may not be such a fanciful notion… Spoils is back to his unyieldingly scary best… it is a beautiful, disquieting, comic, twisted, bizarre, riveting masterpiece.” - fRoots

“Roberts has found a new way to remake the traditions that are folk’s primary fuel. The eight songs on Spoils are lengthy with intricately folded structures, backed by a large, shapeshifting backing cast including drummer Alex Neilson - almost an earthier version of Joanna Newsom’s Ys… some of the weirdest wordplay this side of Damo Suzuki, Doom or Scott Walker”. - The Wire

“…dense, metaphorical writing of a kind rarely found these days… his voice is a thing of primal beauty that should be piped into shopping malls on repeat for the good of our nation… at times borders on the impenetrable… this guy is one of our primary songwriters and deserves to be heard by anyone with an interest in the future of music.” – musicOMH

“…when an artist as melodically gifted as Alasdair Roberts suddenly gets things right, it shows how unimaginative the vast majority of contemporary singer-songwriters actually are… simply stunning”. - Exclaim!

“Roberts’ fifth solo album is his best; purists’ anxieties about authenticity are rendered irrelevant simply by its being brilliant.” – The Sunday Times Culture

“…a mix of lively jigs and dense fable… highlights are the whirling storm ‘Hazel Forks’ and ‘Under No Enchantment (But My Own)’, all strings and pastoral idyll.” – The Observer

“…far more than a niche concern.” – The Skinny

Shane Connolly will provide drums and percussion for the May tour.

Just had the great pleasure of recording with the great English singer Jackie Oates. She sang an A Roberts song called ‘Hyperboreans’ and a version of the traditional ballad ‘The Butcher’s Boy.’ The tracks will feature on her forthcoming CD.