I love a good ambient, and as I've mentioned, Brian Eno's "Music For Airports" -- arguably the first true popular album in the genre (and both "first" and "popular" are definitely arguable) -- sits on my shelf and remains one of my top 50 all time. Moreover, I have at least another couple of dozen records in the vein (defined broadly), a lot of them American from the old Wyndham Hill label. So unlike opera, this is a category I feel better-situated to comment upon.
My biggest issue here is simple: strings and vocals need to be added to ambient like salt and pepper to a meal -- gingerly, and with care. This record has somewhat too much salt and maybe slightly overdoes the pepper. A subtle, drifting effect is what I like, and percussion can be a part of that, but the more instrumental/voice effects are added, the more an ambient risks subtraction by addition. And I found that just a bit too often the case here.
But I enjoyed this record. The piano motifs are truly beautiful and sometimes even moving. I particularly liked "Haar" -- a lovely, simple opener -- the sense of foreboding in "Lump O' Sea", and "Creel" (where the strings are used to a swirling, atmospheric effect). This leads me to conclude that if I listened to all of Cooper's catalogue, I could build a really terrific playlist that I’d spend a pleasant hour-plus relaxing to.
Vocals can work okay with ambient, but artists in this genre have to be careful to avoid the "Arwen" effect -- that is, what happens when "Enya's music becomes a person" ala Arwen, Liv Tyler's elf character in Lord of the Rings (credit to YouTube's Pitch Meeting for coming up with this amusing term). "First of the Tides" is an actual song, as opposed to an ambient interlude IMO, and it's quite pleasant. But the spoken word aspects of "Flattie" don't really work as well -- to me they distract rather than add. The rest of the atmospherics of that piece sound just fine. I also found the vocals unnecessary on the title track, which doesn't really quite merge well with the overall effect of the record.
I am especially sensitive to (what I think are) the differences between the cello and the violin -- the cello can really contribute to ambient, but the violin is a screeching instrument in the high octaves which requires precision and skill to go from noisy to beautiful, and it doesn't work well enough here. Now I am ASSUMING I know the difference -- one of you may tell me I do not. Violin can also country-fy or folk-ize a song like the opening of "Sillocks", when a cello would have been a better choice, more notable later in the song. I loved the piano and percussive effect of "Spoot Ebb" as an example, but then comes the violin to muddle the underlying rhythmic drive I enjoyed. Now that may be precisely the effect Cooper was going for, but it just doesn't appeal to me. Where added gently -- as in "Groatie Buckies" -- I found the effect more pleasant.
I'm in no position to understand how this music reflects the particular atmosphere of Orkney, especially given my earlier faux pas of calling it "The Orkneys", having not been there. So to those for whom the place is special, there may be an extra point or two here for connectivity/nostalgia. For me, this is between a 6 and a 7. I want to round up because I suspect Cooper's intentions are good, and there are some moments of real beauty. But I think I'd piecemeal this rather than listen to it all, so I'll go 6.