Sarah Hayes: Woven review – fresh songs of lost love and solitude

Sarah Hayes was commissioned to write this inventive concept work for Celtic Connections, and it promises to transform her career. Best known as a member of Glasgow band Admiral Fallow, she sets out to examine “how relationships and experience create our sense of identity”, by writing new settings for mostly traditional lyrics. The result is a fresh, emotional collection that shows her skills as a composer, multi-instrumentalist and singer. Influenced by the story of her much-loved grandmother, who suffered from dementia, the album starts with elegant, jaunty instrumentals that reflect her classical training, before moving into songs of lost love, hard times, contentment in solitude, ageing, friendship and the brevity of life. The settings constantly change, from dance tunes to folk-rock and an exquisite, piano-backed solo turn on the bleak Fall of the Leaf.