Golden Shore

Scottish duo The Daughters found the lockdown gave them the time to write, and an opportunity to take stock of their lives, faith and relationships, not least with the natural world. The result is the 12 songs that make up Golden Shore, their debut.

Martha Middlemiss and Mary Moira McKay are, of course, daughters, but not sisters. Yet their complementary voices and close harmonies suggest an intimate connection. In ‘Hedgerows’, about the balm bestowed by walking, their singing winds like a path. But it ends, abruptly – The Daughters enjoy a musical surprise, for example the sting of a guitar, sudden piano chords and time shifts in ‘Choose Wisely’. ‘Doves on Her Rooftop’, with their voices welling, an emotive refrain and some tasty pedal steel guitar, is a work of Scottish country gospel. ‘The Mountains’ is also gospel tinged. It is about the need to get out into them but, in contrast to Jenny Sturgeon’s songs inspired by the Cairngorms, which relish being among the mountains, their admiration is for those that defy them, extreme runners and Munro baggers for whom the mountains are challenges, to be conquered. More alluring is ‘Warm Island Light’, a memoir of childhood, friendship and the crofting life, which ends with an excerpt of Psalm 23, spoken in Gaelic.