All the best contemporary folk singers are Scottish, that’s a fact. At the top of the pile sits Alasdair Roberts, with artists on Fence Records such as King Creosote and James Yorkston hot on his heels.

Into the mix can be thrown the excellent Kris Drever, basking in recent months on the back of his continuing excellent collaboration with accordionist Martin Green and fiddler Aidan O’Rourke, a trio who go under the name of Lau.

Drever also has a debut solo album to plug, Black Water, from which the majority of tonight’s songs came. ‘Green Grows The Laurel’, a 17th century Scottish traditional also interpreted by Cara Dillon, sees Drever pay his own reverential homage to the lyrical and instrumental styles that have passed through Ewan McColl to Bert Jansch to Roberts.

Drever, however, while being extremely able, is not the guitar sophisticate of a Jansch or a Roberts.
Alone with his guitar, he overcame a mid-set coughing fit to guide us through the rest of his album. ‘Steel and Stone (Black Water)’, ‘Beads and Feathers’ and ‘Navigator’ all proved his playing is solid and his voice is strong, a broad Orkney accent in his vocals adding to the mystique and romance that these all lovely Scots seem to exude.

At the beginning of his set he said with mild irritation: “I’m guessing you all know who my father is, especially as it’s all over the flyers here”, but this is one artist sired by a prominent musician who will certainly not be hampered by his father’s fame. His dad is Ivan Drever, once vocalist for Celtic rockers Wolfstone - hardly a household name. Drever junior should be fine to tap into the same audience that laps up Roberts, Creosote et al, on his own terms.

Folk music to this day thrives on artists swapping and reinterpreting the songs of others. Drever is friends with the former frontman with The Bible and songwriting supremo Boo Hewerdine, who penned a few songs for Black Water. With a percussiveness absent from other songs, Drever’s performance of Hewerdine’s ‘Harvest Gypsies’ provided the evening’s finest moment, the six-foot plus Drever battering his guitar as this melodic and pulsing song blew out a few cobwebs. A formidable talent, he returns to the majestic Bush Hall with Lau in September.

Barnaby Smith