FOLK
BY JIM WIRTH
Astrid Williamson
★★★★
Shetland Suite
INCARNATION. DL/LP
Slaying in the Isles: musical polymath’s poignant voyage home.
Drawn back to the music of her native Shetland when her mother died after suffering from dementia, Astrid Williamson recorded a version of Da Selkie Wife’s Song, one of the local dialect pieces that her mum continued to remember after she had lost the ability to speak. Digging deeper, the one-time Goya Dress frontwoman has stitched together a patchwork of Shetland material for her tenth studio album, crofters’ chants melting into misty electronics and Music For A New Society art noise to forge a powerful but understated reckoning with the eternal.