"We are, of course, well accustomed to the Great Box Man of Lau going off on weird and wonderful tangents in collaborations with orchestras, brass ensembles, rock stars and all, but this is something else entirely. Commissioned by Opera North to put together a show about ghosts, he co-opted Becky Unthank, Inge Thomson and Swedish nyckelharpa player Niklas Roswall and what emerged was this remorselessly dark and unsettling yet brilliantly crafted journey into the spirit world ... Modern songs like the shuddering I Saw The Dead by Conor O'Brien (Villagers) and One December Morn by Sean Cooney (Young 'Uns) - Becky Unthank dragging out every syllable like it's a piece of her flesh - fit naturally alongside more familiar traditional fare such as Three Ravens and a hymn-like treatment of Lyke Wake Dirge ... Add in a Swedish bridal march and an ethereal finale titled Some Dead featuring the trio Ayakhaan from Yakutia playing an Eastern European form of mouth harp, plus someoddballharmonies between the very different, yet bizarrely complementary voices of Becky Unthank and Inge Thomson, and you have a very strange, disconcerting yet thoroughly engaging and somewhat hypnotic album. With this around the place, every night is Halloween".
