A Scottish folk musician with a literary bent and unconventional approach, singer/songwriter and author James Yorkston emerged out of Fife's burgeoning indie scene in the early 2000s as part of the Fence Collective, which also included King Creosote, the Beta Band, and KT Tunstall among its ranks. He found commercial success just outside of the U.K. Top 75 with albums like 2004's Just Beyond the River and his fifth long-player, 2008's When the Haar Rolls In. The following decade, Yorkston's output became increasingly more cerebral in tone, with unique releases like 2014's Cellardyke Recording and Wassailing Society. Having already published a touring memoir, Yorkston branched out into fiction writing with his 2016 debut novel, Three Craws, before returning to the studio for records like 2019's exploratory The Route to the Harmonium and a pair of collaborative albums with Swedish producer Karl-Jonas Winqvist and the Second Hand Orchestra.