Yuletide

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The Iditarod are a small ensemble from New England with a very idiosyncratic take on nineteenth century folk. Jeffrey Alexander crafts eerie ambient atmospheres around the pellucid voice of Carin Wagner, ably backed up by various percussive devices and accordion. For this release, they are joined by Sharron Kraus, a singer from the UK who specializes in her own take on the traditional laments of those islands.

'Yuletide' is a triumph of lo-fi mood-making. As the title indicates, an album most suited to evenings snuggly ensconced indoors when "the air's so cold outside and the snow's so deep", as Bob Dylan once sang. We seem transported to the furthest regions of some windblown isle in the Outer Hebrides where, as the storm rages without, the band has gathered before the heath to tell each other some haunting tales.

Fortunately, the cottage is wired with electricity, because Alexander colours the storytelling not only with acoustic instruments such as guitar and banjo but also sampler, Moog synthesizer and phonograph. The twinning of Wagner's and Kraus' softly keening vocals on the two first traditional tracks, "The Trees Are All Bare" and "Lyke Wake Dirge", utterly transfix the listener, and the magic continues after Wagner is left to fend for herself, as Kraus instead picks up a tinwhistle and Alexander persists in conjuring up new and discreet magic.

A folk album of an altogether other kind. A brilliantly conceived hybrid. Stark as the dark branches of leafless winter trees against the white snowdrifts.

Released in an edition of a mere five hundred, so hie thee hence to the the label's website .