Christine Primrose

Gradh is Gonadh - Guth ag aithris

(Love and Loss - A Lone Voice)

Temple

DESPITE the strides made in the teaching and promotion of traditional music in Scotland in recent decades, and the considerable input of funding towards its development, it remains the case that we are some distance from a "American Epic"-style regard for our roots that might give this album the profile it deserves. Christine Primrose was a Mod prizewinner in the 1970s, made her recording debut in the 1980s and has toured the globe with Mac-Talla and harper Alison Kinnaird. More significantly perhaps, she is now Head of Gaelic Singing at Sabhal Mor Ostaig on the Isle of Skye, where she started work as a secretary the year her debut album was released.

A native of Lewis, there is an understandable bias towards songs from that island on this, her first collection in many years. Entirely unaccompanied, it is a very personal selection of songs both traditional and those whose (mainly) 20th century origins are carefully documented. Some are indeed love songs, often with a sadness at their heart, but as many have the landscape at their centre, like Murdo MacFarlane's lament that his days of being able to stride the hills are past.

Keith Bruce