Karine Polwart launched her new album 'This Earthly Spell' in the somewhat cosy setting of Edinburgh's Coda Music, the city's only dedicated Folk Music retailer on Friday the 7th of March. The album is the second to be released since the birth of her first son, and follows just 3 months in the footsteps of 'The Fairest Floo'er', released just before Christmas.

The chiming opening track of Karine Polwart's This Earthly Spell, a gorgeous vocal setting of a lyric by eminent Scots poet Edwin Morgan, gives way to the steely, swampy "Sorry", whilst the delightful jazz inflected whimsy of "The News" contrasts the anti-nuclear political bite of "Better Things" and the incisive "Painted It White". Unsurprisingly, for a new mum, three songs deal with motherhood. The poignant understatement of "Firethief", which Polwart wrote originally for HIV/AIDS documentary "The Enemy That Lives Within", unravels a mother’s loss; whilst she wrote the tender and delicate "Rivers Run" for her own son. But it’s the eerie and atmospheric parable "Tongue That Cannot Lie" that, most of all, betrays Polwart’s background as a former philosophy teacher, and her ongoing fascination with moral ambivalence. Inspired by the supernatural legend surrounding thirteenth century Scottish Borders poet and prophet Thomas The Rhymer, it also distinguishes her as an ambitious and captivating storyteller.