Today the name of Alasdair Roberts is known throughout the world as one of the foremost singers of Scottish music, through several albums of original songwriting and serveral other albums interpreting traditional songs — as well as hundreds of shows where Alasdair’s deep knowledge, commitment and passion are evident to everyone in the room. There has been a lot of music played and a rich procession of recordings made in the past decade, which makes it high time that we reintroduce the 1rst Alasdair Roberts LP/CD released on Drag City back in April of 2003, Farewell Sorrow. After spending the waning years of his adolescence playing and recording his songs under the nom-de-musique Appendix Out, Alasdair Roberts stepped into his own shoes all at once with this album. Where Appendix Out had approached the world of traditional songs through the veils of “indie rock,” Farewell Sorrow acknowledged the primacy of the source material for the ?rst time in Roberts’ young-but-dailygrowing career. This was in fact a seed that would blossom perennially and into unpredicted directions over the course of the next decade. The latest release of all-new original material from Alasdair, A Wonder Working Stone, provides startling contrast to Farewell Sorrow’s almost popbased sound — and yet there is a continuity shared between both and a deep maturity to the earlier work — as if somehow the child were the father to the man? Farewell Sorrow runs through a sequence of songs that face up to the new status of manhood, once again available on LP and CD for you to commit to the rich troves of your own musical history when listening. It’s a great and tuneful way to play a part in the history that Alasdair made once upon a time.