Spoils

VINYL FORMAT. Returned from his voyages of discovery around the globe, Alasdair Roberts has brought a sac of assorted goods for you merchants, eight epic new songs. As the years pass, Alasdair just keeps getting older. Not the way you and I do; more like accelerated growth, centuries passing. When the lad starts scoring his tunes for archaic instruments such as psaltery, viol and 19th century guitar, it's serving notice that he's going way back. In a sense, this makes Spoils his earliest album. Possessed of a spartan grace, Spoils is deceptive like that. On board are Alasdair's old hands from Appendix Out (Tom Crossley and Gareth Eggie) as well as free percussionist extraordinaire Alex Nielson, noted baroque guitarist Gordon Ferries, Emily MacLaren, Niko-Matti Ahti (of Finnish free-pop duo Kiila), and David McGuinness and Alison McGillivray (both of Scotland's Concerto Caledonia), bringing a loose and lively mixture of drums, bass, piano, flute, glockenspiel, harpsichord, harmonium, viol, synthesizer, dulcimer, psaltery, hurdy gurdy, fiddle, and of course guitars and voices.