Release: Mairi Morrison & Alasdair Roberts - Remembered in Exile: Songs and Ballads From Nova Scotia

Artiest/Band: Mairi Morrison & Alasdair Roberts Album:  Remembered in Exile Release:  25 April 2025 Label: Drag City Inc /  Records  Format CD Genre: Folk,Rock bAs many Scots from both Highlands and Lowlands have done before them, musicians Màiri Morrison and Alasdair Roberts made the long journey over the ocean to Canada in June 2023. However, theirs was not a perilous sea voyage, nor a permanent relocation; rather it was for a transatlantic collaboration instigatedby Nova Scotian bass player and musical arranger Pete Johnston.......

As many Scots from both Highlands and Lowlands have done before them, musicians Màiri Morrison and Alasdair Roberts made the long journey over the ocean to Canada in June 2023. However, theirs was not a perilous sea voyage, nor a permanent relocation; rather it was for a transatlantic collaboration instigatedby Nova Scotian bass player and musical arranger Pete Johnston. The trip resulted in a new album, Remembered in Exile: Songs and Ballads From Nova Scotia, Màiri and Alasdair’s long-overdue second album together following 2012’s critically acclaimed Urstan. The album’s title is an allusion to John Lorne Campbell’s book Songs Remembered in Exile, a collection of songs of Scottish Gaelic origin found in Cape Breton and Antigonish County, Nova Scotia.

Featuring ten traditional Canadian songs with Scottish roots, Remembered in Exile draws heavily on the pioneering work of Nova Scotian folklorist Helen Creighton, who collected a vast amount of traditional song material on Canada’s eastern seaboard. The album’s songs are drawn from Creighton’s published works including Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia and Gaelic Songs in Nova Scotia. They are musical artifacts of the westward journey undertaken by Scottish fishers, crofters, merchants and their families as they migrated–willingly or otherwise–to Canada from the 1600s to the mid-1800s.
A native of the Isle of Lewis, Màiri takes the lead on a handful of Gaelic language songs, mostly collected in Cape Breton, while Alasdair leads on some Canadian variants of the types of Scots ballads for which he has become well known. 

The Bonnie House of Airlie is a traditional Scottish folk song of the seventeenth century, telling the tale of the raid by Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argyll, on Airlie Castle, the home of James Ogilvy, Earl of Airlie, in the summer of 1640.[1] A broadsheet version first appeared in 1790 and it received formal publication as number 199 in Francis Child's collection The English and Scottish Popular Ballads of 1882.

There are also a couple of ‘macaronic’ songs in both English and Gaelic. Anchored around Pete’s steadfast bass playing and sensitive arrangements, as well as Alasdair’s guitar work, the songs are further enlivened by the skillsof a fine group of players: Sarah Frank on fiddle, Jake Oelrichs on drums, Mike Smith on banjo and Andrew Killawee on harmonium. Produced by Pete Johnston and Mike Smith at Fang Recording in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Remembered in Exile is by turns genial and playful, sombre and brooding. It constitutes a fine and fitting follow-up to Màiri and Alasdair’s first album together, charting new waters and reforging the longstanding bond between old Scotland and Nova Scotia.

Tracklist:

1.Màiri nighean Dòmhnaill 04:16
2.The Bonny House of Airlie 04:16
3.Sir Neil and Glengyle
4.Hind Horn
5.Druimfhionn donn
6.Katharine Jaffray
7.Peggy Gordon
8.Uilleam Glen
9.Hi horò’s na hòro h-eile
10.The Soldier’s Adieu
For more information contact Stefan.Hayes@V2Benelux.com