I spent some time listening to Mumford and Sons deciding if I liked it. This is instantly likeable, and if you’re getting the Mumfords because you’ve got folk leanings, buy this instead. The Mumfords will do fine without you.
It is 125 years since Shackleton’s distant cousin, the famous Sir Ernest, set sail on the RRS “Discovery”, and for family heritage – purely coincidentally a marvellous piece of marketing – she got luthier Steve Burnett to make a violin from the floorboards of the explorer’s former Edinburgh home. Genius. (She also uses instruments carved from reclaimed driftwood.) It presumably makes her feel closer to her heritage, although for the listener, it’s just a violin.
Anyway, it’s a lovely album. It is chiefly Shackleton’s voice and her woody, stringed marvels making a sound that is traditional without sounding old-fashioned. She has a nice voice, a bit like Kate Rusby, except the songs are not all sad.
The tracks all seem to be sea-based, though opener “From the Floorboards” is a gentle run-out of the planky purveyor of pleasure. “The Seahorse” is about, well, guess: “Each single seahorse contains enough wonder to knock the whole of humanity off its feet, if we would but pay attention.”
“Sea Legs” is for Sir Ernest, both in the obvious sense and also from the perspective of a man whose legs never let him walk away from the call of the sea. Well, you get the (snow)drift, though “Footprints in the Snow” is a tribute to the dogs who accompanied the great polar expeditions.
A lovely album and a breath of fresh air for the ears: nice playing, she’s got a lovely voice and the violin used to be a plank. What more do you want?
See her Bandcamp
