Anyone with half an ear on Scottish music-making in recent times will be familiar with the palette of sound on the fourth album from award-winning songwriter Amy Duncan, a classically trained bassist who worked with now legendary alternative band Swelling Meg and whose pure-toned voice has been justly praised.
With members of the SCO string section and Mr McFall's Chamber on hand, Calum Malcolm in the producer's chair and Duncan's own multi-instrumental talents accompanied by harp and dobro guitar specialists, you probably even have a pretty accurate idea of what the set sounds like – and it is every bit as precisely realised as the label it is on might lead to expect.
Add to that use of repeated piano figures – with particular success on Your Very Soul – that recall the solo work of soundtrack composer Craig Armstrong, and there might be a suspicion these are all ingredients you have heard before.
But that would be to overlook the intensely personal nature of Duncan's writing, which describes a personal journey through some unhappiness during which her songwriting has been cathartic. That's the real reward of the 40 minutes in her company that is Cycles of Life.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article