Lori Watson: Yarrow Acoustic Sessions

Isle Music Scotland

The culmination (so far) of Border singer-fiddler Watson’s evolving digital project, this is an intriguing evocation of place and associated state of mind through thoughtfully chosen and imaginatively interpreted songs. With unconventional, often minimal, settings from producer, bassist and keyboardist Duncan Lyall, guitarist Steven Byrnes and accordionist Fiona Black, Watson’s voice shifts from tremulous to sinewy, spinning its spell right from the incantatory Yarrow (A Charm).

She gradually unleashes power in the dialogue of Hamish Henderson’s Flytin o Life an Daith, and in the sudden soaring of Robin Williamson’s October Song. There is heartbreaking power and clarity, too, in such traditional staples such as Fine Flooers in the Valley, Flooers of

the Forest and, naturally, Dowie Dens o Yarrow itself. Watson has pulled off something special with this spare masterpiece.