Alasdair Roberts

Sunday afternoon

Alasdair Roberts is a Scottish singer and guitarist. Raised in Callander, Central Scotland, he has been based in Glasgow for the past ten years.

His first releases consisted of home-made four-track recordings of his songs under the name Appendix Out, including four songs on the Up Records (of Accrington, England) compilation 4×4 (1995) and the Ice Age 7” on Drag City subsidiary Palace Records (1996). Many of these early recordings also featured Alasdair’s boyhood friend David Elcock.

Appendix Out went on to release three albums on the Drag City label: “The Rye Bears a Poison” (1997), Daylight Saving (1999) and The Night Is Advancing (2001), the latter of which was produced by Drag City’s Rian Murphy and Sean O’Hagan of High Llamas. The band line-up was ever-changing, but throughout its existence variously included, among others, David Elcock, Louise Dowding, Eva Peck, Tom Crossley, Aki Okauchi, Gareth Eggie and Kate Wright.

A couple of years later, the Appendix Out name was abandoned for good with the release of Alasdair’s second album, the Rian Murphy-produced Farewell Sorrow (Drag City, 2003). Unlike its predecessor, this record consisted of Alasdair’s self-written songs and featured a half-American, half-British backing band of Tom Crossley, Gareth Eggie, Bill Lowman and Rian Murphy. Although by this point Alasdair had played extensively in the UK and Europe, both alone and with accompanists, in late 2003 he and his band embarked upon their first month-long US tour.

Alasdair’s third album No Earthly Man (Drag City), produced by Will Oldham, was released in 2005. A collection of traditional British ballads of a tragic nature.

Alasdair released a new album at the start of 2007, another collection of self-written songs entitled The Amber Gatherers also on Drag City Records.

"Roberts's singular vision, quivering voice and offbeat guitar tunings shape their own strange elemental world full of mystery and wonder"
Q Magazine

"The beauty and mystery of the world are his themes here, best caught on the lovely "Waxwing"
UNCUT

fROOTS
“The songs are beautifully constructed…”

MOJO - ‘Best 50 Genre Albums of the Year – Folk’ - NUMBER TWO!