The most important inventions of the eighth century are often considered to be agricultural (horse shoes and collars, the heavy plough) or military (certain types of Viking sword and Native American arrowhead). While some of these things may have been revolutionary in their own way, this narrative plays down the advances that were being made in the social sphere, the arts, and, in particular, the realm of music. Depictions found on Pictish decorated stones suggest that thirteen hundred years ago, people in what is now Scotland were playing a harp-like instrument. That instrument became known as the clàrsach.
The striking thing about the clàrsach – other than its long history – is its potency as a political symbol. Both the Irish and Scottish forms of the Celtic harp experienced a surge in popularity as the Gaelic cultural revival began to take hold in the late nineteenth century, and Celtic nationalists saw the clàrsach as an acceptable alternative to the English-made pedal harps. An instrument whose very sound is evocative of the wild landscapes of Scotland and Ireland now represents Gaelic identity and freedom from oppression.
While there are currently more clàrsach players than ever before, the majority seem to stick to the instrument’s traditional repertoire. Edinburgh-born Anna McLuckie is an exception. She is keen to explore the clàrsach’s possibilities from a songwriter’s perspective, but she does so with a wide range of influences at her back. On her 2021 debut, Today, Everyday, she combined melodically complex songs with a pop singer’s lightness of touch. In places, it had the delicate feel of birdsong, but always with a sense of control that showed just how deeply connected she was with her instrument and its heritage.
The Little Winters goes further in every direction. It sees McLuckie making advances as a musician and a songwriter, but also in terms of her overarching creative vision. She brings in even more influences and consolidates them with a refreshing economy. And the album is thematically and lyrically ambitious too. The lead single Bitten Winter Skin is a keenly-felt meditation on the Gaelic concept of cianalas, similar to the Welsh idea of hiraeth, a feeling of nostalgia or yearning for a particular place. The song does a very difficult thing: it captures an emotion that is almost impossible to describe in words. This is where the clàrsach comes in, or rather McLuckie’s evident mastery of it. It’s an inherently nostalgic instrument, and she knows exactly how to harness that nostalgia without ever coming across as forced or cloying.
Much of the album is themed around the idea set out in its title. ‘Little winters’ are late frosts, unexpected cold spells in spring that can nonetheless be helpful for farmers. McLuckie builds songs around these frosts and the plants that flourish in their wake. Opener Blackberry Love lists the five plants – Redbud, Dogwood, Locust, Blackberry and Britches – like a kind of spell. It’s a practical magic, but all the more enchanting for it. I Promise To Linger is another song that has the feeling of a spell or a conjuring about it: the swooping flourishes of harp feel like the finishing touches on an elaborate love charm.
Little winters are an American concept, and McLuckie’s songwriting seems to owe as much to American folk (and pop) as it does to British traditional music. Like other British alt-folk singers who work with the harp – early Gemma Williams (Woodpecker Wooliams), for example – she owes at least a superficial debt to Joanna Newsom. But if you dig deeper, it becomes apparent that McLuckie’s vision is unique, and that despite the wide-ranging influences, her sound grows up from traditional roots. A song like Mister God, which was written in the wake of a positive Covid test, is full of lyrical sophistication and sharply-observed poetic detail, but just as much of its emotional weight comes from the deceptively gentle plucking of strings as from the lyrics. Heavy themes delivered lightly are her stock in trade.
That doesn’t mean she hasn’t got an experimental streak. Winterlude, which acts as a short introduction to Jay Bird, uses field recordings, a low-level drone and spoken word, while Jay Bird itself is a joyous romp through a sunny cityscape, a song of discovery and new experience that skips and whoops, buoyed by Awen Blandford’s billowing cello and Sean Rogan’s banjo. Here too, McLuckie’s way with words is evident. Lines like ‘Gold or silver, I have neither,/Summer breaks out, into fever’ have an easy lilt to them that belies their expert craft. Place is one of McLuckie’s key preoccupations, and another city song, the near-instrumental New Northern Lullaby, acts as a parting gift to the city of Manchester, where she lived for eight years. Her harp here is pensive, exploratory, ranging over a whole spectrum of emotional terrain, while the cello adds a rainy backdrop.
She can also conjure up a deeper, more moody melancholy: the drone and swell of A Man With No Tide is matched by its enigmatic lyrics, which paint a chilly, gothic picture, and the filigree of the harp panicking its way through a cold landscape. The Dark Island, the album’s atmospheric closing statement, is perhaps its bleakest moment. It is the only non-original song here, with a tune from the 1950s and lyrics written in 1963, when the piece was used as the theme tune to the BBC series of the same name. It’s a great example of how even relatively new folk songs can shift in feel and in meaning over time. McLuckie alternates the yearning verses with darkly insistent instrumental sections, and ends on a mysterious field recording and spooky, distorted sounds. It is a fittingly ambiguous end for an album that flits so easily between past and present, whose songs encompass fluttering beauty and quietly looming presences. The Little Winters is an album worthy of the clàrsach, with all its historical and cultural importance, and Anna McLuckie, with her clear voice, poetic songwriting and precise, fluid playing, has announced herself as one of British folk music’s most formidable talents.
The Little Winters (April 24th, 2026) Hudson Records
Pre-Order: https://hudsonrecords.ffm.to/thelittlewinters
Album Tour
08/05 – Sussex – Singing With Nightingales
17/05 – Cambridge – Fae Folk Sessions
23/05 – The Late Spring Folk Festival – Drummer Down Farm
24/05 – Manchester – The Carlton Club
26/05 – Bristol – Greenbank Folk Club
27/05 – London – Jamboree Venue
28/05 – Leominster – The Rankin Club
29/05 – Bewdley – St Anne’s Church
30/05 – Bridgnorth – St Leonard’s Church
31/05 – Much Wenlock – Much Wenlock Abbey
03/06 – Glasgow – The Old Hairdressers
04/06 – Helensburgh – Cove Park
05/06 – Oban – The Rockfield Centre
06/06 – Edinburgh – Pianodrome
More: https://www.annamcluckie.co.uk/