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Astrid Williamson: Shetland Suite review – a beautiful enchantment

The Scottish musician pays tribute to her homeland and her late mother with this powerfully moving set

Born and raised in Shetland and classically trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, Astrid Williamson was pulled back to her homeland by her mother’s turn to dementia and subsequent death. Shetland Suite, Williamson’s 10th album (including one fronting alt rockers Goya Dress), is an affecting tribute to her mother, a piano teacher, who even in the grip of dementia would sing these songs. She plays, sings and produces everything, casting a yearning, sepulchral stillness over many of the numbers, with scant instrumentation beyond piano, discreet electronica and occasional gusts of wind and wave, relying on her vocals, often multi-tracked, to do the work.

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