The Marriage of Heaven And Hell

'Skirting The River Road' is the second ECM recording by Scottish singer/songwriter Robin Williamson. It follows his critically praised solo album 'The Seed-At-Zero', which set texts by Dylan Thomas. The new album finds a thread of continuity that links three visionary poets - Walt Whitman, William Blake, and Henry Vaughan - and places their work in an improvisational context. There are also new songs by Williamson himself and a radical remake of an early classic, "Here To Burn". Williamson is usually considered a "folk" musician - his roots are certainly in the world's folk traditions - but he has also always been an experimentalist. The Incredible String Band (which he co-founded) was an autonomous, homemade 'avant-garde' unit in the 1960s, outside all the idioms but instinctively reaching for new forms, with Williamson's soaring voice leading the way.