What's on

The Urstan tour supports the release of the eponymous CD on Drag City Records in March 2012. Featuring a unique collaboration between Gaelic singer Mairi Morrison and Scottish folk singer and writer of songs Alasdair Roberts, Urstan is a stunning new CD project brought to fruition by Ceol 's Craic, a Glaswegian club devoted to promoting Gaelic arts. It features traditional Gaelic songs, with a few Scots songs and self-written tracks too, all arranged in new ways by a diverse collective of Glasgow-based musicians, including Stevie Jones (bass), Alastair Caplin (fiddle) and Alex Neilson (drums).

The Scottish Gaelic tradition is an incredibly rich and diverse one for such a small country - each area, each island, has its own repertoire of songs and tales and many towns and villages formerly had their own 'bards' and storytellers. Mairi Morrison represents those traditions of Bragar on the Isle of Lewis, one of the furthermost parts of the Scottish Gàidhealtachd. Of all the Gaelic-speaking parts of Scotland, Lewis is culturally one of the richest of all; Mairi now lives in Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, but she carries the Lewis tradition in her heart and her voice. Alasdair Roberts is a non-Gaelic speaking Lowlander, a folk singer and writer of songs who has a growing interest in Gaelic culture.

Urstan takes its title from a Lewis-specific word for a celebration held at the birth of a new child. A dram of whisky, basically!