Alasdair Roberts: What News

Anyone with a taste for betrayal, murder, mermaids, fratricide, suicide and death by sword and/or penknife will get a giant kick out of Alasdair Roberts’ What News. On his fourth collection of traditional Scottish ballads—his albums of original material are similarly splendid—Roberts is accompanied by early-music keyboardist David McGuinness and sound sculptor Amble Skuse, who transform these tragic songs of sex and death into addictive retrofuturist dispatches. It’s difficult to convey the utter weirdness and brutality of innocently titled tunes like “Johnny o’ the Brine” and “The Fair Flower of Northumberland.” They’re in the “Fennario” ballpark for sure, but darker and deeper