Dark Wood by Abagail Grey

Uniting the intensely personal with the wholly universal, Dark Wood is the latest release from Scotland’s Abagail Grey, the creative alter ego of Highland singer-songwriter,pianist and fiddler Claire Campbell. Following widespread praise for last year’s second album Apple Cherub Dove, and December’s seasonal download single ‘Winter & Icicles’, Campbell has again teamed up with long-time collaborators Chris Geddes (Belle & Sebastian) and Tony Doogan (Snow Patrol, Teenage Fanclub) to record Dark Wood, an achingly poignant yet magically affirmative mini-suite of songs in memory of Campbell’s aunt, who died of leukaemia in October 2010.

“She was my Mum’s younger sister,” Campbell explains, “and I was always really close to her, right from when I was a baby; she taught me my first tune on the piano. I wrote the song ‘Dark Wood’ not long after she died, and there’s a line in it that’s really the essence behind the whole EP:

‘You stole my heart when my heart was young’. Knowing her as a child was one of my first experiences of love.”


We all give our spare time to run folking.com. Our aim has always been to keep folking a free service for our visitors, artists, PR agencies and tour promoters. If you wish help out and donate something (running costs currently funded by Paul Miles), please click the PayPal link below to send us a small one off payment or a monthly contribution.