8. Alasdair RobertsFarewell Sorrow
It’s just a really beautiful album. And the title track is just a perfect Ali Roberts song. It gets me every single time. I lived with Ali for a wee while, after my marriage ended. He’s an incredible guitarist, and his voice is beautiful. And his way with words is really incredible. [Roberts sings on ‘The False Bride’ from Thirteen Lost & Found.]
I knew who he was for a long time before we properly met. I remembered him from the Kazoo Club, he was in Appendix Out, and he kind of knew me from then, but it was that thing of two slightly awkward guys who recognised each other but never really actually talked. And then I ended up supporting him at a show, and we hit it off.
Farewell Sorrow, and Ali in general, really opened me up to folk music and things I’d never been exposed to before – and people like Bert Jansch and Robbie Basho and American primitive guitarists. And it’s got parallels to what I do as well, which is taking bits and pieces from old stuff and doing it in a kind of indie landscape.
