As many Scots from both Highlands and Lowlands have done before them, musicians Màiri Morrison and Alasdair Roberts made the long journey over the ocean to Canada in June 2023. Theirs was not a perilous sea voyage — it was for a transatlantic collaboration instigated by Nova Scotian bass player and musical arranger Pete Johnston. The trip resulted in a new album, due out April 25: Remembered in Exile: Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia, Màiri and Alasdair’s long-overdue second collaboration together following 2012’s critically-acclaimed Urstan.

Out today is the first single, “Màiri nighean Dòmhnaill”. The track is sung by Màiri with an exquisitely poised performance from Johnston and his Canadian band — Sarah Frank on fiddle, Jake Oelrichs on drums, Mike Smith on banjo and Andrew Killawee on harmonium. The song is a Gaelic ballad that crossed the water and took root in the new world; the first line of the song's refrain roughly translates to “Oh, I Do Love You”, but one doesn’t need to speak Gaelic to get the depth of feeling imparted by Màiri and crew.

Recorded in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Remembered in Exile features ten traditional Canadian songs with Scottish roots that draw heavily on the pioneering work of Nova Scotian folklorist Helen Creighton. The album’s songs are pulled from her works including Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia and Gaelic Songs in Nova Scotia, out of a vast amount of traditional song material collected by Creighton on Canada's eastern seaboard. These songs are the musical artifacts of the westward journey undertaken by Scottish fishers, crofters, merchants and their families as they migrated — willingly or otherwise — to Canada from the 1600s to the mid-1800s. A native of the Isle of Lewis, Màiri takes the lead on a handful of Gaelic language songs throughout the album, while Alasdair leads on some Canadian variants of the types of Scots ballads he's known for.

Remembered in Exile constitutes a fine and fitting follow-up to Màiri and Alasdair’s first album together, charting new waters and reforging the longstanding bond between old Scotland and Nova Scotia. Set sail and be Remembered in Exile come April 25, 2025.