Others may have arrived at folk music with an eye on low cost forms of self-expression or as access to an encounter group where a battered guitar and an ability to wail ensure you of an in; but James Yorkston has always kept his own counsel. Though his records started appearing around the time of a renewed interest in acoustic music, Yorkston's ruminations on love / lust / longing / liquor share a more eternal, resigned, Celtic feel with the battered reflections of Jacques Brel, Shane McGowan and Bert Jansch than any of his contemporaries.

A native...