Between his solo work and folk trio Lau, Kris Drever has established himself as one of the most decorated figures in contemporary folk music.
His accolades include BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards for Folk Singer of the Year, Best Original Song, and Horizon Award for Best Newcomer, while Lau claimed the coveted Best Group award four times. At the Scottish Traditional Music Awards (Na Trads), he has taken home Live Act of the Year, Instrumentalist of the Year, and Album of the Year.
Marking his first solo release in six years, renowned singer-songwriter and guitarist Drever returns with his fifth album, Doing This For Love. The album marks the latest evolution in a career that began with the traditional Scottish folk storytelling of his 2006 debut Black Water. Over time, Drever’s songwriting has grown increasingly personal and contemporary — drawing subtle threads from indie, jazz, and popinto his acoustic roots, and shifting from interpreting shared histories to excavating individual experience and emotion.
The result is ten guitar-led meditations on the unglamorous heroism of everyday life — the 4am alarm clocks, the thankless shifts, the quiet sacrifices made in the name of keeping others whole. Anchoring each track is Drever’s guitar work: understated yet virtuosic. Around it, a carefully chosen band of collaborators brings the songs to vivid life. Louis Abbott (Admiral Fallow) contributes drums, guitars, keys, and vocals, while long-time co-producer Euan Burton’s melodic bass brings rich depth to the sonic landscape. Rachel Sermanni’s vocals add a fragile tenderness most keenly felt on Pilot Whales — a standout track that pairs her voice with warm electric guitar and buoyant drumming to honour the community effort to save stranded whales off the coast of Orkney. Vocalist Rachel Lightbody and old-time banjoist Cahalen Morrison round out an ensemble that orbits Drever’s songs with care and restraint, adding texture without ever obscuring the core.
Doing This For Love doesn’t romanticise struggle — it honours it. These are songs about the unglamorous work of care, the small acts of devotion that rarely make headlines but sustain lives and relationships. Drever sings them as someone who understands that love, in its truest form, is a verb: something you do rather than something you feel.
Drever has been touring in support of the album. Shows feature brand-new material alongside songs drawn from across his back catalogue of originals and his storied interpretations of traditional material — from Black Water through 2020’s Where the World is Thin and into the new record. Audience responses have highlighted his warmth and engagement, with intimate venue settings drawing particular praise for the quality of sound and connection.