Tracer Trails presents Alasdair Roberts & Friends

Tickets (£7/£5 unwaged + b.f.) available NOW from http://www.wegottickets.com/event/103032, Monorail Music, or on the door.

ALASDAIR ROBERTS (Drag City) is Swabian-born, Kilmahog-bred alumnus of Appendix Out and single-handed re-reinventor of the Scots ballad tradition. He’s a recent Wire cover star, and has been hailed as ‘a genius’ in fRoots for his treatment of traditional tunes as well as for his songwriting, which, drawing on mythic motifs and ancient tunings, seems to reflect and distort the ballads he sings.

A keen collaborator, already this year Alasdair has recorded a Gaelic language album with Lewis singer Mairi Morrison; as part of the Archive Trails project at the School of Scottish Studies he’s been creating new work based on the folk play Galoshins; he’s recorded the soundtrack for ‘Dighty Burn’, a short film by Michael Windle and Edward Summerton; and is currently writing and arranging new material to be recorded later in 2011.

Fresh from a tour in Finland and Estonia, at this homecoming show he’ll be previewing some of this new work as well as performing songs from his most recent album, Too Long In This Condition, alongside an all-star cast of band members and collaborators.

“Some of the weirdest wordplay this side of Damo Suzuki, Doom or Scott Walker.” (The Wire)

Born on the farm of Gelliebrae by New Deer in 1925, our very special guest JOCK DUNCAN is a national treasure twice over. As a singer of the muckle sangs and bothy ballads of his native Aberdeenshire, Jock is a tradition bearer of great authority. He is also the patriarch of a family that has made an immense contribution to the Scottish musical tradition.

A musician all his life, in 1996, at the age of seventy-one, Jock recorded his first album, Ye Shine Whar Ye Stan!, followed five years later by Tae the Green Woods Gaen. A singer who can both captivate a small fireside gathering and mesmerise a concert hall audience, Jock was awarded a Herald Angel for services to ballad singing at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2000.

Don’t miss this rare Glasgow performance from the 85-year-old folk hero!