Jura

Jura, an island off the coast of Scotland with more sheep than people, so bare and infertile the Vikings passed it by, where George Orwell finished "1984", is a place replete with longing, isolation and remote Gaelic oddness. It is also where folk-punk lifers The Mekons teamed up with Chicago's musical polyglot Robbie Fulks to record this limited edition collection of rough sea shanties and mournful tales pulled from the fog of the bay and the fog of the local whiskey distillery. Here are songs to be whispered over a dung fire in a sparse peasant's cottage, the incessant winds being your only constant companion, or to be sung while pounding the pint glass on the pub's rail. Or, perhaps, to be wailed into the tempests beyond the cliffs, to wonder if they'll ever be heard. The cycle of music crossing and re-crossing the Atlantic in wonderful and weird ways continues.