Album review: Burnt Island

THESE days Rodge Glass is best known as a novelist and Alasdair Gray's biographer but his musical aspirations were reignited after collaborating with Vashti Bunyan for the acclaimed Ballads Of The Book project and the sweet, at times slightly sultry sound of Burnt Island is the happy result. The group's debut mini-album, named after the two universal languages, is a beautiful collection of folk pop laments, delicately arranged with guitar, strings and woodwind, and suffused with melancholy.

Although opening track A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again doesn't live up to its wry title, the rest of the material is fragile, haunting and often sounds timeless, with Glass's velveteen voice complemented by intuitive harmonising from flautist Amber Comerford and other members of the group.