Shetland-Music.com

Malachy Tallack's third album, From the Thorn, is released on 5th June. The album contains 11 new songs, four of which were recorded at Dougie MacLean's studio in Perthshire, and the rest recorded entirely in Shetland. The album features Malachy's new band, comprising some of Shetland's best musical talent.

Listeners who have heard Malachy perform live as a solo artist will perhaps be surprised by the sound of the album, and the strength and breadth of the band material. Although acoustic guitar and vocal are still at the heart of the songs, they are fleshed out and given real power by the accompanying musicians, with Astryd Jamieson on piano, Steven Laurenson on electric guitar, Graham Malcolmson on bass, Paul Mullay on drums and Rory Tallack on fiddle making for a solid and distinctive sound.

Malachy said: "This record has a very different feel to the last album [Edges & Spaces], which was pieced together over a long period of time, using many different musicians. With these songs we learned and rehearsed them together as a band until we felt absolutely comfortable with them, and then went and recorded them together over the course of a few days."

"There's no studio tricks - nobody's playing two things at once or doing anything they couldn't do normally. The songs you hear on the recording are just the way they are when we play live. It's very natural."

The songs on the album have nearly all been written since the release of Edges & Spaces in 2005, while Malachy was living in Fair Isle, and many have been part of his live set for the last few years. They cover a diverse range of topics, tackling 'standard' subjects such as love and loss through a range of perspectives and characters, as well as more unusual themes, such as writing, war and nyctophobia (the fear of darkness).

"With these songs I've tried to undermine any sense of a stable or reliable narrator" explained Malachy. "It is easy to get trapped in the 'from me to you' style when you're a singer-songwriter, and generally that is what listeners expect of you - a kind of autobiographical or confessional approach to songs. But that is very limiting, and frankly my life is not nearly interesting enough to provide the necessary material."

"So what you get with these songs is a series of characters, or a constantly shifting viewpoint. Any autobiographical material that does end up in a song really becomes irrelevant and indistinguishable from the fiction."

With from the thorn, Malachy Tallack has truly developed his own path as a songwriter, and created a sound that is both polished and organic.

You can find out more about the album at www.malachytallack.com and you can listen to two free tracks online. A sampler of songs from the record is also available at www.malachytallack.com/sampler.html

The launch gig will be held in the Royal British Legion in Lerwick on Friday 5th June, from 8 o'clock. The Donald Anderson Band are supporting. Tickets are available from High Level Music or at Malachy's website.