Album Notes

Leigh delivers her nu-folksy songs with effortless sincerity and graceful serenity; she's surrounded herself here with a host of experienced, like-minded and similarly ilked musicians from Scotland and Ireland and their combined 'feel' for the more traditional and Celtic genre provides Leigh with the perfect backdrop onto which she layers her beautifully crisp vocals.

Although Leigh errs on the side of the more traditional, this aint all fingers-in-ears, lacy bodices, frilly skirts and daisy-chains folk; Leigh brings a refreshingly modernesque feel to the form which makes it perfectly viable for 'now' and is also undeniably pretty 'timeless'. Her skilled and empathetic band of musicians offer Leigh a distinctly modern semi-acoustic foundation with a clever mix of electric and upright bass, powerful but minimalistic drums and various guitars alongside a varied assemblage of fiddles, viola, Uilean pipes, mandolin, harp, piano and so on. Leigh's vibrant 'folk across time' borrows time signatures and inflections from earlier times but sits squarely, slap-bang in the middle of twenty-first century electric folk - it may not be a totally new idea but Iona Leigh sure makes it sound original and tantalising.

'Beside The Waves Of Time' by Iona Leigh is a intoxicating but restful melding of folk forms; beautifully crafted and sensitively produced to allow Iona Leigh all the space and time she needs to deliver her wonderfully clear and beautifully polished vocals - great work this, possibly a little too traditional for the modern folkster but absolutely spot-on for the lover of roots folk with a modern twist.

- Toxic Pete 2009 - http://www.toxicpete.co.uk