The Angel's Share

The angels surely look down kindly on mellifluous fiddle and guitar parts, and on mournful tunes pulled up by the root from the backwoods of Scotland, West Virginia and elsewhere. And they doubtless approve of message songs that come from their side: the likes of ‘River Flows On’, focusing on the environmental crisis of our energy use, or ‘John Muir's Walking Blues’, summoning up the spirit of the founder of Yosemite to address California's water shortage.

This is the duo's fifth album and it's a stripped down affair – no rhythm section, just fiddle, guitar, banjo and voices. Threads of different origin – old-time mountain tunes, Celtic, Cajun, country blues and folk balladry – come together across the 12 tracks to create a tapestry of first-class playing and easy, in-the-pocket harmonies across eight Dana Robertson originals, the traditional ‘Man of Constant Sorrow’ and Karen Simon's lovely ‘Allene's Waltz’.