Palermo Snow

There's quite a gap between Traveller's Prayer, released in 1998, and this latest album, which Renbourn describes as ‘a departure from the more loosely termed Celtic music’ that he's usually associate d with. It's an album of instrumental guitar music with a strong Sicilian undertow from the guitarist best known for his collaborations with Bert Jansch, with former Incredible String Band man Robin Williamson and for his work with Pentangle. His long solo career has encompassed medieval songs, classical music, Celtic and blues forms. Palermo Snow, largely recorded solo but with clarinettist Dick Lee on three tracks, challenges easy categorisation as much as any music of his career.

The title song was written in Palermo during the first snows in Sicily that anyone there could remember. ‘Bella Terra’ is another track to come from the same region, or more specifically, from a voyage across the Straits of Messina. There are strong classical music themes drawn in, too – ‘Dery Miss Grsk’ takes Schubert for inspiration; ‘Sarabande’ emphasises links between Erik Satie's piece and Jelly Roll Morton, while ‘Cello Prelude in G’ is an acoustic guitar setting for one of Bach's peerless cello suites. The final ‘Blueberry Hill’ brings a perfectly deft closure to Renbourn's meditative and often beautiful musical journey: the song's co-writer Vince Rose was born in Palermo in 1880, sailing to the US and settling in California in adulthood, where he wrote the tune to one of the great popular songs.