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- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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The WireFeb 15, 2013The combination of Robert's artistry and the exemplary ensemble backing him means the album succeeds in being a renewal. [Jan 2013, p.63]
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MagnetFeb 11, 2013This music has been cunningly hand-crafted, despite the album's larger ensemble sound, and at times the songs come off like incantations. [No. 95, p.57]
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Feb 11, 2013A master of mesmeric laments, Roberts can conjure dusky cemetery air in a twitching of his fingers or sombre exhalation, yet A Wonder Working Stone offers high spirits in the gloaming as well as low.
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Feb 1, 2013This is comfortably Roberts’ most colourful recording and, whilst it retains the hypnotic quality of his delivery, also takes another significant step in his development a living, breathing artist going well beyond the curation of folk traditions.
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Jan 25, 2013Scholarly stuff this, but also an intriguing reinvention that makes this an ideal marriage of folk and finesse.
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Jan 24, 2013A Wonder Working Stone is the work of a songwriter at the top of his game; inspired by tradition but equally inspired to break from it, fired by collaboration and freed to follow his muse wherever it may soar, like the ptarmigans that spread their wings through several of these songs.
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Jan 18, 2013It's fascinating to find that his dogged research has loaded these self-penned pieces with all of the mystery, language, and myth usually found in years-old traditional ballads.
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Jan 18, 2013In A Wonder Working Stone, Roberts continues to tinker thoughtfully with the shared tradition of the Isles, always somewhat familiar but modern and discordant enough to render pause and consideration.
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UncutJan 18, 2013Few, if any, artists are pushing the boundaries of traditional music further. [Feb 2013, p.79]
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MojoJan 18, 2013It's funny, touching, thoughtful, more than a little weird....and rather wonderful. [Feb 2013, p.89]
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Jan 18, 2013Roberts' voice sounds in fine fettle as well, and his reedy, keening brogue is the type of immediately distinctive instrument that is virtually impossible to imagine any listener accidentally mistaking for someone else's.
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Jan 18, 2013With A Wonder Working Stone, Alasdair Roberts continues to blur the borders between ancient and modern, between heady myth and harsh reality, and between folk and whatever sounds right in context.