Magnetic North

When the vision of Betty Corrigall -- an abandoned and pregnant-out-of-wedlock resident of Orkney who hung herself in the late 1770s -- came to Erland Cooper in a dream in early 2011, he set about bringing together fellow Erland & the Carnival member Simon Tong (the Verve, the Good, the Bad and the Queen) and Irish singer/songwriter Hannah Peel to form the Magnetic North and write an album dedicated to the isles that Cooper had grown up on. Decamping to Stromness, the trio set about recording the album at Cooper's parents' house, taking inspiration from the islands' history of...