Solo Career
After three albums with Appendix Out, Roberts recorded his first solo album, The Crook of My Arm. This album consisted almost entirely of solo vocals and guitar in marked contrast to the occasionally experimental sound of the Appendix Out records. All the songs are traditional, and Roberts credited the singers from whose performances he'd learnt the songs (these included his father, Alan Roberts, and Alan's sometime musical partner, Dougie MacLean).
Since then, Roberts has released two further albums of traditional folk songs - No Earthly Man and Too Long in This Condition - plus three albums of original songs - Farewell Sorrow, The Amber Gatherers and Spoils. A fourth, A Wonder Working Stone, will be released in January 2013.
Each album has a distinct character, and Roberts songwriting has shifted in recent years from the relative economy of Farewell Sorrow and The Amber Gatherers to a much denser wordplay, filled with allusions to mythology, esoteric spirituality and gnosticism, on Spoils and other recent releases.
Read more about this topic: Alasdair Roberts (musician)
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