There is a keen musical intelligence at work on Glaswegian Gaelic singer Maeve MacKinnon's second album, and it is as much that of producer Angus Lyon and her cohorts as the lady herself.
He, guitarist and fiddler Innes Watson, and MacKinnon herself are credited with the arrangements on an eclectic set of 10 songs that owes its coherence to the careful use of its resources, the rest of the players being percussionist Signy Jakobsdottir, bassist James Lindsay and the whistle and sax of Fraser Fifield.
A syncopated jazzy vibe distinguishes some of the Gaelic tunes, and particularly Fionnghuala and O Phaill, but the spare Fender Rhodes and string bass arrangement on A' Mhic Dhughaill 'ic Ruairidh is just as effective. MacKinnon's own The Olive Branch and Ewan MacColl's The Father's Song bring a political edge to the collection, the latter a very moving conclusion, and the former a songwriting debut to be proud of. The inclusion of the comparative cliche of an unaccompanied She Moved Through The Fair seems unfortunate, but is by no means disastrous.
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