Alasdair Roberts, The Deptford Arms, Deptford, March 27th 2010

The rundown Deptford Arms is the venue for the Kit And Cutter folk club, though they’ll soon need to look for new premises – the dive is to become a Paddy Power bookmakers shop. Then the hard-up locals can waste their money dreaming of escape rather than drinking to escape. Tonight’s guest at the Kit And Cutter, Scottish singer and guitarist Alasdair Roberts, proves to be a big draw and the tiny back room is packed.

Alasdair divides his time between traditional folk songs (usually tragic ballads) and his own compositions, both strands being bewitching and compelling. Indeed, his albums have alternated self-penned and traditional numbers, though the last two albums have comprised just his own songs, perhaps signalling a gradual departure from the trad folkie path.

He performed wonderfully tonight, accompanied at times by fine fiddle-player Elle Osbourne, and his delivery held the audience in a pleasant spell. Listening to his songs is easier than describing them, but they are broadly quiet and reflective, interspersed with dense images and obscure language, not just Scots words, but archaic English and foreign ones too – ‘simulacra’, ‘sistrum’ and ‘sarcophagi’ sit happily among his lyrics. Here’s an excerpt from Riddle Me This which demonstrates his exact poetic sense:
   Who were the ones who first gathered the amber
   To render the embering dawn of the day
   The stallion in canter, the river in meander
   So we’d remember them long after they fade away?
   And how could they know as they measured the seasons?
   How could they know as they furrowed the soil?
   Of all the dishonour and all the unreason
   And all of the wrong to be done in the name of their toil?

The next song, Farewell Sorrow, is a fierce look at war, death and fearlessness, while The Laverick And The Blackthorn shows his attraction to ornithology as well as obscure language – ‘laverick’ or ‘loverock’ is a northern dialect word for a lark. An idle moment on the bus affords me time to make a quick list of Alasdair’s feathered songs – Waxwing, The Magpie’s Nest, The Book Of Doves – and those that make mention of cranes, geese, ravens and more larks.

Among tonight’s highlights are seafaring doom-shanty The Daemon Lover, the old anti-semitic song Sir Hugh, Or The Jew’s Daughter (which I’d last heard live sung by Sam Lee back in January when I began this blog) and closing tune The Haruspex of Paradox. It’s a fine evening, but being tucked away in the back of dodgy pub made we wonder about Alasdair’s wider appeal. He was something a protégé of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, who has gone on to fill large theatres and sell respectable numbers of records. It’s not obvious to me that Alasdair’s work is much inferior to Billy’s and yet, bar the occasional outing to a big venue for one of those multi-artist tribute bashes, he plays tiny folk venues. My suspicion is that he is happier in the more collaborative and relaxed folk-club environment rather than the larger world of performance. But I might be wrong….

Many thanks to the Amber Stalker for the setlist info – here are Alasdair and Elle performing The Daemon Lover on the night: