Arun Sood and Angeline Morrison: Donn/Dubh review – British folk giants startlingly transform sacred histories
Arun Sood and Angeline Morrison’s Donn/Dubh is praised as an ambitious, atmospheric folk album that reimagines sacred histories from the 10th-century Celtic text Saltair na Rann. Drawing on the pair’s Hebridean heritage, it combines Gaelic songs and texts with distortion, drone, dream-pop and post-rock, creating a sound the review finds both unsettling and richly layered.
Morrison’s expressive voice and Sood’s Scottish vocals are central to the record, supported by Alastair Smith’s production and influences compared with Boards of Canada, Unkle and Twin Peaks. Highlights include piano-led gentler tracks, a 1952 recording of Sood’s uncle psalm-singing, electronic love songs and the darker “Tha Mi Sgìth”, which uses Sood’s daughters’ voices; the reviewer concludes that its details reward repeated listening.
In short
- Donn/Dubh fuses Gaelic folk with experimental electronic textures.
- It draws on a 10th-century Celtic sacred text.
- The review calls it layered, bold and rewarding.
Explained simply
Saltair na Rann is a 10th-century collection of religious poems in Irish, part of the wider tradition of Celtic Christian writing. It retells sacred stories in verse, offering modern artists source material that is very different from a contemporary song lyric.
Arun Sood and Angeline Morrison are folk musicians with Hebridean heritage, drawing on Gaelic language and musical traditions. Their work brings those influences into contact with newer sounds such as electronic music and rock, raising questions about how old religious texts and family histories can be carried into present-day music.
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