King Creosote: Astronaut Meets Appleman review – cosmic, earthy and mischievous

Fife singer Kenny Anderson’s breakthrough 2014 album, From Scotland With Love, was essentially a stirring love letter to his homeland. The follow-up continues his creative roll, and recording in the Isle of Mull and County Down has given the album a real Celtic swing: you can almost smell the Highlands in the harps, cellos and bagpipes. The songs swing from cosmic and ethereal to mischievously earthy: Anderson sings about wind turbines and the constellation of Orion, plus love, lust and a hint of bondage, and there are some rollicking one-liners: “Her jealous accusations know no bounds / Scarlett Johansson was never in the house.” In the gloriously anthemic Love Life, Cupid’s arrow whacks him in the eye; Peter Rabbit Tea finds him crafting his baby daughter’s gurgle into orchestral magnificence. In this form, as a Scottish predecessor once sang, everything is possible.