Based in Glasgow, songwriter-guitarist Paul Tasker and singer Iona Macdonald have been a duo since 2005, releasing a couple of EPs and a single. They've also been part of the touring line up for Willard Grant Conspiracy.
However, don't take that to mean they're part of the Americana scene. As the opening Gone There announces, their debut album is firmly entrenched in contemporary-traditional British folk, showcasing Tasker's guitar fingering skills and Macdonald's sea tang and heather vocals with their inevitable Denny comparisons. The natural imagery of the lyrics (song titles include Border Hills, Greener The Grass, On The River and The Earth & The Breeze) underscores the album's earthily organic feel, the arrangements deepened by the presence of cello and resonant piano. Greener The Grass calls to mind the airy, open skies moods of early Joni were she to have been raised among rolling Scottish hillsides while the renaissance colours of Tasker's guitar work and Macdonald's phrasing on her self-penned Pilgrim's Tale echo the more plaintive moments of Liege & Lief or the first Fotheringay album. They kick up the heels a little on Happiness where the jazzy blues guitar licks and husky vocals surely nod to Pentangle influences, but, as with the lyrics, the musical mood is predominantly cast with shadows, catching the rays of bucolic romanticism on The Earth & The Breeze, On My Mind and the swelling melancholy of piano ballad Stalling. An auspicious debut, it'll be interesting to watch them bloom.
Mike Davis, October, 2008
