Roberts, Alasdair & Friends

***Young Scotsman ALASDAIR ROBERTS is an old hand at songcraft—and not just his own, but the songs of the ancients, the near-ancients and their friends. Over the past decade that he’s been singing music in his own name (after graduating from the APPENDIX OUT youth brigade), he’s made a habit out of recording songs of his own and traditional songs with an equal amount of investment and urgency. Too Long In This Condition stands at the deep well of traditional songs, ready to plunge the murky depths at any moment. It’s the third such album in Alasdair’s career: back in 2001, he recorded his first set of traditionals as a solo act and then in 2005, he made No Earthly Man with production from Bonnie Will Oldham. As ever before, grave robber Roberts circles the elders warily, with suspicion, fascination and adoration. His renditions are based upon multiple versions that he has heard sung and then sung himself. After all this steeling of the self, these auld song stories are reanimated here in raptly personal versions—no slavish renditions these! Instead, new life and color pours from the speakers, with each song playing out in a way that Alasdair and his friends felt best about. (STREET DATE - 6/29/2010)