By Fiona Shepherd

Published 15th Aug 2024, 12:12 BST

Updated 15th Aug 2024, 12:12 BST

Hamish Hawk: A Firmer Hand (So Recordings) ****

Ray Lamontagne: Long Way Home (Liula Records) ****

Andrew Wasylyk & Tommy Perman: Ash Grey and the Gull Glides On (Clay Pipe Music) ****

Edinburgh’s Hamish Hawk is on a virile roll right now, releasing his third album since lockdown, building on the positive reaction to 2021’s Heavy Elevator and last year’s Angel Numbers and becoming ever more extroverted in his expression. This is a songwriter who, in his own words, “swallowed a dictionary” yet his wordy songs have a natural flow, even eloquent singalong potential.

Emboldened by the reception to his involved storytelling, Hawk steps up again. It’s time for the concept album, or at least a collection that is thematically linked around male relationships – family, friendship, sexual, practical.

There is a homoerotic thread running through some of the tracks. Machiavelli’s Room is a dark, pounding, stormy tale of a damaged affair. Juliet As Epiphet is a very flamboyant Hawkish title, but features a mellow baritone delivery over brooding backing. Aggressive indie rocker You Can Film Me carries itself with Morrissey-like swagger, expressing further typically Hawk-like sentiments.

Hawk writes candidly of himself but also of others. Autobiography of a Spy is set in a Kim Philby-inspired world of covert sexual manoeuvres. The New Romantic prowl Big Cat Tattoos is a portrait of a macho man, Christopher Street a forlorn piano paean to a dead drag queen, while Men Like Wire is a rollicking rocker, dense with imagery and references.

The confidence extends to the music which ranges from the quasi-gothic rock of Nancy Dearest to the tension release of the gentler, mellifluous Questionable Hit and Disingenuous, another fine indie rocker with precision guitar licks and flourishes. By the time Hawk reaches the final track, The Hard Won, he has earned his priapic double entendre.

Ray Lamontagne is an altogether different breed of songwriter. Where Hawk can’t resist a flourish, Lamontagne is introverted yet also expansive in the burnished atmosphere he evokes in his delicate rootsy music. Twenty years on from his debut album Trouble, he allows himself a backwards glance. Long Way Home is an album powered by blithe nostalgia and, in particular, Lamontagne’s memory of seeing Townes Van Zandt play live in his younger years.

It’s a comfort blanket of a collection, from the breathy rhythm’n’blues of Step Into Your Power to the country soul balm of Yearning, a soothing experience even as he sings of feeling untethered. The Secret Sisters are also on hand to provide heavenly harmonies.

A plaintive harmonica kicks off the gentle roots rock of And They Called Her California, a song which is pure Laurel Canyon, like a lost Jackson Browne cut. La De Da, La De Dum is a wordless waltz interlude while My Lady Fair recalls vintage Van Morrison, walking the line between careworn and carefree in sound but accompanied by perky Hammond organ and trumpet blasts. This beautifully crafted suite ends on the tearjerking croon of the title track, capturing past aches and shadows with tender mastery.

Tommy Perman and Andrew Wasylyk PIC: Fraser Simpson

Scottish composers Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman bring their contrasting styles – Wasylyk’s cinematic atmospherics and Perman’s experimental electronica – to bear on the collaborative Ash Grey and The Gull Glides On, created using playful improvisatory techniques and instruction cards to stimulate a seamless blend of Wasylyk’s sonorous piano, brass both clipped and melodious and compelling digital percussive rhythms built from sampling the resonances of Wasylyk’s piano.

The Unbearable Sound of the Roses features the eminently bearable sound of undulating piano and birdsong. The Bible-referencing Spec of Dust Becomes a Beam is music to lift the spirits with its warm brass blasts and sunny piano patterns and this bijou outing concludes with the unmistakeable vocal contribution of Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat, whose world-weary tone chimes well with the mellow ambience.

CLASSICAL

Eastern Reflections: Bartók | Lutosławski | Weinberg | Ligeti (Delphian) ****

While the mid-20th century brought conflict, uncertainty, and in many cases fear to Eastern European composers, the artistic response could so often present the opposite. In Eastern Reflections, a collaboration by Delphian with the Young Classical Artists Trust, Jonathan Leibowitz (clarinet), Joseph Haviat (piano) and Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux (violin) illustrate that with a cross-section of examples ranging from Bartók, Lutosławski and Shostakovich to Ligeti and Weinberg. They begin with Bartók, the elder statesman, and a scintillating performance of his effervescent Contrasts, a commission from American jazzer Benny Goodman. Between the floating luminosity of Ligeti’s A bujdosó and bittersweet Ballad and Dance, Lutoslawski’s folk-inspired Dance Preludes encompass both the quietly sardonic and wildly skittish. And for all that Weinberg’s Sonata for clarinet and piano offers a languid optimism, it also clears the ground for the brief, angular nostalgia in Shostakovich’s Prelude No 17 from his 24 Preludes, Op 34. Ken Walton

FOLK

Pippa Reid-Foster: Undercurrents (Own Label) ****

Scottish Harpist Pippa Reid-Foster’s far from traditional-sounding second album emerges from and finally fades back into silence, heralded by the tidal lapping that precedes her first track, Turning Tides, which establishes the delicate, often impressionistic vibe of these glittering soundscapes, largely composed by Reid-Foster herself. These are near-ambient at times, cinematic at others. State of Mind 1 and 2, for instance, evoke airy ascent and there’s a wistful drift to the title track, while in Silent Spaces harmonics ping and hang in the air. Mapped Out is relatively more up-tempo, suggesting a journey but with faint shakers and bemusing whirrings in the background. Reid-Foster draws on minimalism, so it’s perhaps no surprise to find that one of three covers on the album is a characteristically hypnotic and cyclical Philip Glass piece, Opening. Another is Max Richter’s Written on the Sky, a heartbreakingly beautiful frozen moment. Jim Gilchrist

Album reviews: Hamish Hawk | Ray Lamontagne | Andrew Wasylyk & Tommy Perman