The ground around her has long given inspiration to Scottish folk artist Karine Polwart; last year the peat bogs near her home in Fala, Midlothian, gave birth to her first theatre show, Wind Resistance, incorporating spoken word, song and sound design from composer Pippa Murphy to recount sad local histories and draw connections between bird migration, childbirth and landscape. The album version steps softly in the lightest arrangements on the likes of the traditional Lark in the Clear Air, but its blend of historical drama, ballad ghosts and philosophical memoir (geese, Polwart muses on Labouring and Resting, are “sky-born socialists”)is compelling, made as intimate as if it were in your own skull by Polwart’s warm, wise, attention-commanding voice.
