ALASDAIR ROBERTS - GRIEF IN THE KITCHEN AND MIRTH IN THE HALL

Released: 31/03/23

For the past 20 years, the critically-acclaimed Glasgow-based Alasdair Roberts has developed a reputation as being somewhat chameleonic: for as well as a superlatively original songwriter, who has released both alt-folk records, such as The Amber Gatherers and A Wonder Working Stone, and more straight-ahead folk albums, such as No Earthly Man, he’s also an incredibly gifted and imaginative interpreter of traditional songs from Scotland and beyond, and the terrific Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall is Roberts' fifth full-length collection of such works. 

Recorded live in the studio, the album is a collection of 12 traditional ballads and songs sparsely arranged for acoustic guitar, piano and voice – the majority being native to Roberts’ homeland (there’s also a couple from Ireland and one from Prince Edward Island on Canada’s eastern seaboard). The record’s title goes some way towards encapsulating many of its themes: various conflicts and tensions – those of gender; of class, status and position; and of geography and tribal belonging – and the roles and responsibilities expected at the various intersections of these constructs. Grief in the Kitchen … offers both a sublime feeling of reaching back into, and connecting with, the distant past, and a blissful respite from our stressful, social media-saturated lives.