Abundance Welcoming Ghosts finds British folk-rock band Red River Dialect relaxing into a natural, playful confidence: tangling with the thickets, wading in the river, digging the peat, and disappearing into the mountains. It was recorded at Mwnci Studios, in a quiet valley in Southwest Wales, during four days in August 2018, just a month before the band’s songwriter David Morris left the UK for a 9 month meditation retreat at a remote Buddhist monastery on the cliffs of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. By the time the band reached the studios, the imminent hiatus lent a poignant and celebratory atmosphere to the sessions. The compositions had not been fully formed prior to recording, but any pressure was transmuted into invigoration, resulting in the jubilant energy that adorns even the most turbulent songs. This expansiveness bears testament to the skill of long-term collaborator and guide Jimmy Robertson (Michael Chapman), who engineered and mixed the songs. Guest musicians Joan Shelley, who sings the hidden spaces on Snowdon and Piano, and Tara Jane O’Neil (Rodan, the Sonora Pine), who plays sweet aching slide guitar on My Friend, complement the core sextet. Ed Sanders’ violin alternates between soaring with crisp highland sadness on BV Kistvaen and burying jaws into the flesh of songs like Salvation. Coral Kindred-Boothby’s bass swings the anchor in deep blue fathoms, but frequently dances up to the clouds; she sings heart-swelling, radiant harmonies on My Friend.