The Bowerbirds are due to release their third album ‘The Clearing‘ on 6th March. Beth Tacular and Phil Moore’s lyrics on ‘The Clearing’ offer a far more complex depth compared to previous work and comes from a stronger personal perspective. A lot has happened to them since the release of their last album Upper Air in 2009. Beth nearly died following an inexpliable illness, they rescued and adopted a dog that ran beneath their tour van and they ended their relationship after which they became very aware of everything they would be losing, from their shared personal dreams to the music they make. They got back together with a renewed focus and vigour from which this album blossomed.

We interviewed them recently during which they gave a very personal and candid insight into the making of ‘The Clearing’ and their life together as a couple. The depth of some of the answers surprised us in some ways but in others it perfectly reflected what they are about, it also focused our attention on the binding force that unites them and makes their music so special.

They hit the UK shore in May (dates below)

interview

There have been a lot of significant moments or changes to your lives since your last album which seems to have had a large bearing on the songs on The Clearing. Can you tell us more about what has happened?

Beth and Phil

In a way, we set ourselves up for disaster when we started a band at the same time that we decided to live out of an AirStream trailer, with no running water, while we built a cabin, ourselves, by hand. And we didn’t have electricity for a long time, and therefore were building our house with no power tools.

It was adventurous and exciting at first, but we probably pushed ourselves a little too hard. We didn’t know, when we were starting out, how much touring was involved in being a touring band, or how much work went into building a cabin, and that they might conflict with one another. At one point, after a straight three months on the road, our relationship fell apart. We were broke and worn out from working all the time, with an unfinished house back home. People tell you not to start a band with your significant other, and they warn you that building a house together will be hard on your relationship, and they are right.

Beth also broke two ribs during this time, and had to tour that way, and we ran over a dog in our tour van, who became our girl, Spice. It was a lot.

Eventually, and ironically, the touring and the dreams that we’d had together helped bring us back together. We realized what we’d lose by breaking up with each other and giving up on our dreams of making music, and of building our little homestead in the country with our dogs. So we moved back in together and gave it another go.

The Clearing

Halfway through the year of writing, Beth fell suddenly and inexplicably ill, which was pretty terrifying. When she pulled through, that was probably the final straw, where we were just able to totally let go and be happy to be alive and to be able to work on our music full time. We decided to put all our worries completely aside and just focus on making our lives, and our new album, as beautiful as we could. And a lot of the lyrical content reflects that perspective.

Whilst the songs are in some ways reflective is there also an element of acceptance of the future or what you both want from it?

There’s definitely an acceptance, or a coming to terms with things as they are. That includes accepting that everything will end one day: we will all die; we will lose all our relationships, either by death or breakup; one day the sun will even die and decimate our solar system.

Besides our breakup and Beth’s illness, we also ran over a dog who almost died because of it, and a few years back, my long-time best friend, Marc Bunnell, died when working as a professional skydiver. Death and impermanence were looming large in our consciousness these last few years, and thoughts of death tend to have a clarifying and freeing effect on a person, I think.

We can’t really know what the future will hold, but we want to appreciate what we have right now, because we won’t have it forever.

In the Yard:

(download link)

Last night I dreamed we’d found a stand of trees
Framing a pond and a field in between.
And with a hammer and a blade and our four hands,
Here’s what we made.

The logs we peeled and stacked in a ring,
And then we crowned it, our tiny house, with tin.
And by the fire,
Flickering bronze and gold across your face,
I heard you say:

It may not be a grand parade of snow capped peaks,
No river silver-backed crashing through,
But we have our black-haired babes running free
Through the woods.

When did you come up with the thrust or concept for this album, was it clear that you were taking your music in a different direction?

The concept for what the songs are about just evolved naturally as we were writing the songs. We finished a group of songs, and then we looked back at them and tried to decipher common themes, like you would do with recurring dreams. That’s how we realized how our lives had affected what we wrote about, in terms of lyrical content.

In terms of the sound of this album, versus what we’ve done before, I think that the sounds got richer and more intense as a reaction to the intensity of our life experiences and all the emotions we were going through. Having almost lost a lot of what’s important to us, we maybe had the courage and open-mindedness to try new things musically.

When did you start building you cabin and what was your reasons for choosing that lifestyle?

Building their Home

We started work on our cabin in 2007. We had lived in the swamps of South Carolina in the summer of 2005 where I worked as a bird tracker and where the first Bowerbird’s songs took form. Beth worked on paintingsand it turned into a very creative isolated time. We realized that the isolation was something that helped us focus on our creative projects. We spent the summer of 2006 driving around the US in search of that isolated place. We were not unhappy living in North Carolina, but we just wanted to explore the country and see if any other place felt more like home. In the end, we decided that the people of North Carolina were the most uplifting and least judgmental people that we could find. We moved back, and after attempting to live in Durham, NC for a few months, we decided to get out of town altogether.

How remote are you?

Beth's artwork: Painted on old wood she has found

We are at a dead end road and are surrounded by large tracts of land on three sides and on the other side we have some neighbors — good neighbours that help us jump our car when it doesn’t start. It is remote, but we can drive thirty minutes and see some of the best music in the world.

How did you go about choosing a location?

We wanted to be close to the Triangle (Durham, Chapel Hill, Raleigh), but also far enough out to feel disconnected when we wanted to. We moved out to an amazing county that is rampant with sustainable agriculture folks, bio diesel manufacturing, an awesome grassroots music festival and all things progressive. It also doesn’t feel like things are going to change around here too quickly, which is something we truly value. We don’t want our land to be enveloped by the suburbs. We want to still hear the owls and coyotes at night.

Did you do all the work yourself?

Yes, everything except the electrical work. We got our friend to set that up for us. We are still doing the work. It is a more tedious project than we expected, but that’s how everyone says it goes with building, so we don’t feel bad about it.

What do you love most about where you live?

The quiet.

Apart from making music what else do you do in your spare time? I saw a lovely photo of you all canoeing recently.

We go on a lot of hikes through the woods, jump on our giant trampoline, make bonfires and have friends over. We have a disco ball for dance parties in the unfinished cabin. We read a lot of books and watch a LOT of movies, mostly either independent or foreign films, or documentaries. We also work on building the cabin, go scouting at second hand stores and salvage shops for materials, and draw up plans.

Beth works on her art in the art studio we built her, and she has been taking sewing classes and learning to do brain tanning on hides from roadkill deer. I chop a lot of wood for our wood burning stoves. I love cooking, especially making freeform soups out of whatever we have around. Lately, we’ve both been practicing yoga. We also love going to shows and going dancing with friends.

Recent Canoe Trip

The canoe expedition was from a recent trip to the beach. Beth’s grandparents built a house at the shore beach years ago, so we go down there as often as we can. It’s on an island that you can only get to by passenger ferry, so there aren’t any cars there. There’s a lot of wildlife, and we’ve gotten to see sea turtles laying their eggs and hatching, which is pretty amazing.

You have two dogs?

Yes, we have Spice, also known as Smallrus, the little short-legged dog we ran over, and also her big sister Olive. They are really amazing dogs, so smart and caring. They help encourage us to go on lots of adventures together.

They are both black and gorgeous, and they will do anything for a snuggle or a meat snack.

It must be incredibly strange to leave such an ideal place to go on tour, how hard is that for you both?

It’s really hard to leave our dogs, and to leave the beautiful forest and land behind, but we also really love the magic of touring, and getting to see a new place every day. We love performing our songs and meeting people along the way. And cities are very exciting. It’s nice to be able to get the thrill of the cities in month-long doses, interspersed with downtime in the country.

Did you tend to find creativity when living in the cabin; has this changed on this album?

I’m not sure if the creative ideas come faster in the countryside, or if they just come in a clearer way, less muddled by the distractions of what everyone else is doing in the cities. Also, if we aren’t constantly moving like on tour, we’d rather be still in a place that’s also still.

Musically where do you take your inspiration from?

A lot of places. We will usually get one or two musical obsessions at any point in time – usually someone current who is doing something creative and new. But we also listen to music from a really broad range, in terms of genre. We listen to jazz from the 60s, latin and African music, hip hop, folk from the 60s and 70s, regular pop music, and anything else current. We like to dance to drum and bass and dubstep.

Can you tell us about some of the new musical approaches you’ve used on the new album?

Well, for one thing, we invited several friends to contribute their own ideas to the songs, or to help us work out ideas we had come up with. We worked with Rachel Rollins on violin, who also wrote the string arrangement for Walk the Furrows. Leah Gibson played cello, Matt Wasmund brought a whole car full of reed instruments and just kind of went crazy over the songs. Tim Phillips played trombone, Sean Carey of S. Carey and Bon Iver played vibraphone. We worked with Brian Joseph, the amazing sound engineer who worked on Bon Iver’s most recent album, to get us started recording the album, and then we mixed the album with Nicolas Vernhes, who also contributed some extra production to The Clearing.

We just tried to surround ourselves with people who have great ears, and who we trust, and asked for their feedback along the way.
We also spent a year just brainstorming ideas for the arrangements and instrumentation of the songs, and we kept working on them, adding things here, taking away things here, until we felt they were finished. It was a more thoughtful and careful process than with our other albums, but we also took more risks this time.

We really wanted to try to create a cinematic feel with the album, where there are highs and lows, intimate moments and almost terrifying ones, just like in a really good film. That led us to utilize a lot of different instruments and household objects to create the soundscapes we were going for.

Tuck The Darkness In

(Download link)

Bon Iver & Bowerbirds “Lovin’s for Fools”

You’ve been touring with some well-known artists (Bon Iver, Phosphorescent and John Vanderslice), what have been your most memorable tour moments over the past year or two?

One of our all-time favorite tours was the North American tour with Julie Doiron. We felt an affinity to them musically as well as just in how they act and live their lives, so it made for a really fun tour. And it was amazing to watch Julie sing every night. She writes some deadly songs.

What have you been listening to recently that you’d like to share with our readers?

Beth, seemingly along with the rest of the world, has been listening to Lana del Rey on repeat. Those songs are catchy. We’ve also been listening to Doug Paisley, the soon-to-be-released Midtown Dickens, Cass McCombs, Alice Coltrane, the Rosebuds, Skrillex, Arthur Russell, The Big Picture Show, and a bunch of old-timey accordion LPs that Beth found at a thrift store.

What have you been reading?

Kingbird highway

I’m reading a book about birding called Kingbird Highway by Kenn Kaufman.

Beth is reading a book called Daughters of the Earth, about the lives of Native American women; a Carl Sagan book called Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors; and Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, by Weston A. Price, about the effects of a modern industrial diet on the human body and mind.

Tour Dates

Apr 20th Fri Rotterdam (NETHERLANDS) Motel Mozaique Festival (link)
Apr 22nd Sun Copenhagen (DENMARK) Vega (link)
Apr 23rd Mon Stockholm (SWEDEN) Debaser Slussen (link)
Apr 24th Tue Goteborg (SWEDEN) Pusterviksbaren (link)
Apr 26th Thu Berlin (GERMANY) Lido (link)
Apr 27th Fri Munich (GERMANY) Feierwerk (link)
Apr 28th Sat Zurich (SWITZERLAND) El Lokal (link)
Apr 30th Mon Paris (FR) Cafe De La Danse (link)
May 01st Tue Antwerp (BELGIUM) Trix (link)
May 03rd Thu Leeds (UK)  Brudenell Social Club (link)
May 04th Fri Manchester (UK) Deaf Institute (link)
May 05th Sat Brighton (UK) The Haunt (link)
May 07th Mon London (UK) Cargo (link)
May 08th Tue Brussels (BELGIUM) Ancienne Belgique (link)
May 09th Wed Amsterdam (NETHERLANDS) Paradiso (link)

Artist Links

Bowerbirds
Bowerbirds Blog
Facebook
Beth’s Artwork

In August of last year Damien O’Kane and David Losky decided to release an instrumental album titled ‘The Mystery Inch’. Whilst some may consider it a daring move it was all underpinned with a great sense of spirit and fun, the results are an album that has an incredible live feel that captures the very heart of a great session. We caught up with Damien for a banter. He talked about the album, his musical background, involvement in the design of a new Fairfield Tenor Banjo and an album with Leon hunt.

He also let us in on some great new news: He is working on an album with his wife Kate Rusby celebrating her 20 years as a touring musician! He also spoke about family life and some other exciting news…read on!

The Concept: The Mystery Inch
Dave and I have been the best a pals for about 8 or 9 years now. We met at the Hexham Gathering in Northumberland back then were we were both messing around and playing music at a session. I loved his playing and he loved mine more so we kept in touch, became good friends and played a lot of music together. We soon realised that we had a real connection with Irish music in particular, and at Cambridge Folk Festival 2007, the concept for The Mystery Inch came about.

A few beers had been sank admittedly, and gibberish talk often follows so we started joking about aspects of each others musical tastes and my facial hair du jour! The usual. Eventually the chat got round to Dave and I (plus Joe Rusby who was also there taking part in the consumption of alcohol and who is also one of the finest studio knob twisters on the planet) making a record of some of the music we’d been playing together for years at sessions and throwing some of our own material into the mix as well. Joe checked to see if the studio was free (Pure Records’ studio) immediately after the festival as I was fancy free for a week and Dave had some spare holidays at work so we agreed to descend upon the studio and set about making our, hopefully, sonic triumph. 4 years later, and The Mystery Inch was complete – it wasn’t intended to be so long in the making but as there was no pressure with it and we both fell really busy and didn’t get the chance to get at it for long periods, it took 4 years to finish.

We are both really pleased with it as we feel it captures the live, raw vibe we were after. As Dave rightly said, ‘…as selfish as it may sound, we wanted to make an album to please ourselves…one that we would listen back to for years and never have any doubts about what we played.’ Dave carried on to say that ‘…we wanted to make an album that was full of goosebump inducing moments…the thinking and intention behind that being that if we could produce moments that did that to us then there would be a strong chance it would do it to others…these moments in music are what make stand out albums that you want to listen to again and again.’ It was great doing this album with Dave as it really is as raw as it sounds and i really feel our personalities, our relationship, our laughter and emotions are all over it. Mystery Inch No 2 is already in the planning!

The Mystery Inch? (Reader Challenge)
There are clues on the album cover. It is up to you to put them all together and come up with an answer. Let me/us know how you or anyone reading this gets on with it!

Are you from a musical family?
Very much so. I come from quite a large family of six children, with me being third oldest. I was taken to music lessons (beginning with tin-whistle) from the age of 7 as we all were. My mother and father, Colette and Joe, wanted to give us that experience from a young age and they were huge folk music fans anyway.

Eventually when we all got a bit older we formed a family band were my mother sang, my two sisters Briege and Sorcha played fiddle, flute and sang, my brother Aidan played bass, guitar and sang, other brother Peter played bodhran and I played tenor banjo, guitar and sang. Dad was twiddling his magic on the sound desk so it really was a proper family affair. We travelled quite a bit, to places such as Iceland, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and this is really what put me in good stead for what I do today so I owe a lot to my parents and siblings for giving me those opportunities and the experience from such a young age.

My mother was and still is a great singer and my father played bodhran and on occasion would sing a song (generally when he’d had more than 2 pints of guinness [laughs]) so we grew up listening to them and to whatever was blaring from the cassette player. It was a wonderful upbringing and I can’t imagine what or who I would be today if it weren’t for my family and the music.

How were you introduced to playing the banjo /guitar?
I started playing the banjo when I was 10 after my ma and pa took me to my first Irish Fleadh in Ballyshannon 1988. They took me to a session one night, after pleading with the bouncer to let me in as I was only a nipper, and it was there that I met two banjo players (Marinie Toman and my late friend Glen Creaney RIP) who were wearing daft hats whilst playing in the session. I found this extremely amusing and extraordinary and even better, I loved the sound of the banjo (tenor) and the way they played it. I couldn’t contain my excitement and the same year I got a tenor banjo for Christmas and here I am today. I spent huge amounts of my time with these two banjo players right through my youth at fleadhs, sessions and get-togethers. I would always say I have been self taught but it was these two fine gentlemen that showed me the way. I owe a lot to them for the time they gave me and their generosity to a young edjit like me!

The guitar followed a few years later when I was about 14 or 15 but it was always second best to the banjo. My brother Aidan was the guitar player in our family so I just twiddled at it now and again and played it the odd time in our family band. It wasn’t really until I moved to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne to study a degree in Folk & Traditional Music in 2001 that I really focused on playing guitar. You had to have a first and a second instrument so guitar was my second. To answer the question then as to how I was introduced to the guitar, I suppose it was after my brother Aidan started playing it. Aidan still plays and is a fine musician.

I should also mention that I have been playing tenor guitars for a few years now and they have very much become a part of my gig and my music. They came out of the woodwork a few years back for me and I loved them straight away. You can hear them on most of what I do now.

Influences?
Well first and foremost, Marinie and Glen (as mentioned above) would have to be my biggest influences for banjo. Others for banjo would be Gerry O’Connor, Cathal Hayden, Kieran Hanrahan, Charlie Piggott, Barney McKenna, David McNevin and bands like Stocktons Wing, De Dannan, Four Men and a Dog, The Fureys and so many more. The one thing about listening to all of this music is that I feel now I have my own style which is very important for me. Some people choose to go down the ‘clone’ route but for me it has no soul when this happens. When you express yourself through your music, it’s always best, in my opinion, to be yourself.

My guitar playing is influenced by so many players such as Arty McGlynn, Ed Boyd, Chris Newman and Ian Carr but it is also influenced, as is my music in general by lots of different genres. I listen to all sorts of music and I feel this has enabled me to be the musician i am today, be that a good one or a bad one!

Tell us about the work you’re doing with Fairfield Banjo Company on tenor banjo
Well I was asked by Leon Hunt, one of the founders of the company and also one of the best 5-string banjo players you will ever hear, to be a part and help with designing a tenor banjo. The original plan was to make five 5-string banjo but the director of the company, John Whelan wanted a tenor as well so I got the call.

Leon had already designed the headstock and the inlay for the banjo and chosen the wood to use but I was given reign to change some of this for my design…I made a few changes to the inlay on my banjo. Leon had chosen to use Mahogany wood for the 5-strings but I chose Maple for mine. I also altered the headstock slightly and chose what skin to use on it, what tailpiece to use, what width the neck would be and really the rest is down to Phil Davidson who is the champion luthier of the Fairfield banjos. Phil made my other banjo so we were able to keep some of the measurements the same from my previous Davidson model. Leon and I have the easy bit really, Phil is the real genius!

I hear your working with Leon Hunt on a new album. Will this be a fusion of styles?
We are at the very very early stages at present as we are both busy with other things but it is a very exciting project and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what direction it takes. It will be a fusion of styles definitely as Leon’s background is bluegrass and I, Irish Trad music but we both have very similar tastes and ideas and I’ve been a fan of Leons work for a long time. Anyone not partial to a bit of banjo, which I think there may be a few of on this record, may exit through the back door, run like Forest and don’t stop!

Can we expect another instrumental from yourself and David Kosky?
Absolutely. Already being planned and some material has been put in the Mystery Inch No. 2 bag. It is a real laugh and a pleasure to work with David. He is one of the best guitarists out there today and we have fun while we work – that I find one of the most important things about music. I would expect this record to be complete near the end of 2012 or early 2013. We won’t be in any rush again but plan not to stretch to 4 and a half years this time!

Who can we expect to see you performing with at festivals this year?
I will be doing them mostly with the superb Ed Boyd on guitar (sometimes fellow Northern-Irish man and equally fab guitarist, Gerard Thompson steps in) and bodhran god John-Joe Kelly with Duncan Lyall on bass on occasion. All seriously talented guys and a real pleasure to be on stage with them.

Are you working with Kate [Rusby] on any musical projects?
Yeah, just last week we started recording Kates 20 Year Anniversary record (as a touring musician – what a legend!) and that will be an ongoing project now for a couple of months. There are some unbelievably exciting people coming to play on it – I’m so excited that i may have an accident! In all seriousness though, this is a major project to be involved in and i am very privileged to be asked and to work with such a professional as Kate.

How are you and Kate finding the work/life balance with Daisy-Delia in the family now?
In short, tough but worth it. Daisy-Delia is an absolute delight and we love her dearly. It does get difficult trying to balance at times but you just get on with it. She is 2yrs and 4 months now and runs us ragged but we wouldn’t have it any other way. Being tired is the killer sometimes, especially when you’re touring about, being up late and getting up early but we manage pretty well and look forward to our second, due in may this year. Bet you didn’t know that!!

No I didn’t expect you to come out with that! Congratulations you two!!!

Video

Damien with John-Joe Kelly & David Kosky. From Blas Ceoil.

Damien and Kate

Gigs

17/03/12 Camden, London The Roundhouse
11/04/12 Edinburgh Edinburgh Folk Club
13/04/12 Stockton Arc
20/04/12 Pomeroy The Rock, Haydens Bar,
21/04/12 Limavady Roe Valley Arts Centre
09/06/12 Gower Peninsular Gower Festival
10/06/12 Wimborne Wimborne Festival
15/06/12 London Kings Place
27/07/12 Warwick Warwick Festival

On Tour with Kate Rusby
23/02/12 Wolverhampton Wolverhampton Civic Hall
24/02/12 Buxton Buxton Opera House
26/02/12 Scunthorpe The Baths Hall
10/08/12 North Berwick Fringe by the Sea
17/08/12 Macclesfield Gawsworth Hall
25/08/12 Shrewsbury Shrewsbury Folk Festival
07/09/12 Barnstaple Queen’s Theatre
08/09/12 St Ives St Ives September Festival

Links

damienokane.co.uk
www.katerusby.com
Pure Records

Albums that change the way you think and listen to music are very far and few between. Gerry Diver’s Speech Project did just that…he explores the natural melody and rythmn of spoken word in the most remarkable way and at the same time connects at a very instinctive primal level of the sub-consciousness.

Gerry Diver

I found the whole listening experience an emotional roller coaster, I don’t think I’ve been moved by an album like this for a very long time.

The project received funding to be taken on tour in March 2012 and premièred at the Liverpool Irish Festival. Whilst on tour the band is made up of Gerry Diver, Lisa Knapp, Gaz Wilkins, Francesca Ter Berg, Colman Connolly and Declan Daly.

We caught up with Gerry to talk about the project and also asked Lisa Knapp about the experience of performing it.

Interview

The seed for this project was sown almost by chance when you were carrying boxes up a ladder one day…you could hear an interview in the background…it was with the great Irish accordion player Joe Cooley…why do you think it clicked that day and not before?

Joe Cooley

I suppose that like many people, I feel that there is music in everyday life and that music doesn’t just occur when one sits down at the piano or the guitar. I’ve always been fascinated with language and the way people speak. Speech project is my way of playing with the uniquely Irish way of talking. Irish people tend to have their own rhythm and cadence. Speech Project is about taking these innate features of the Irish dialect to create something new and (hopefully!) exciting!The two Joe Cooley tracks came about very much in a “what would happen if…” Kind of way. There was no grand plan! I’m absolutely fascinated with hypnosis and have done quite a bit of study and training in that area. A lot of hypno and trance work is about listening to non-verbal cues and using elements such as voice intonation, rhythm and tempo to induce trance. Perhaps my interest in listening in that way, (paying lots of attention to the way people talk as opposed to listening purely to what they are saying) coupled with the sheer emotion in Joe Cooley’s voice allowed the music in Joe’s voice to jump out at me.

The voice is a stronger driver on some tracks such as Famine. Did the voice always drive the music or did you compose music to the voice, almost in empathy? Or maybe both?

Danny Meehan

The voice was usually the driver behind the music but not always. It really depended on what felt right when I was composing. The Joe Cooley, Christy Moore, Danny Meehan and Martin Hayes tracks certainly were all very reliant on the tones I teased out of their interviews. These melodic motifs then became the materials with which I used to build the tracks.The only track on the album which did not start with the voice was the Shane MacGowan piece – Music for Tape Loop. This track started life with a very old, eerie sounding recording of an unknown pub singer in a very noisy pub setting. I composed a string quartet, piano and flute ensemble accompaniment around this old tape recording. It was only after the already written piece had incubated for a while that the idea of asking Shane to take part emerged. I’m very glad I did! Shane’s voice is filled with character and the story of a certain aspect of the Irish diaspora in London is captured beautifully. It’s one of my favourite pieces!

At times throughout the album there is an overwhelming sense of emotion coming through, at times melancholic (Music for Tape Loop / My Margaret). When you go through the process of composition do you feel you are imprinting your own emotions that you have when hearing the interview recordings or are you trying to create an atmosphere for the listener to hear and appreciate the recordings within?

The words of poet Robert Frost come to mind “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.” Although he was talking about writing poetry, this certainly would be the approach I try to take when writing music as well. I feel that one must enter an emotional space when creating if they are to convey emotion to the listener. I think that music can convey emotions which we cannot accurately express through words alone – it certainly can provide a gateway to some very emotional almost mystical experiences. Where that emotion comes from? Who knows!

How did you chose artists to record and was it a difficult process?

I chose the artists I would like to interview in a very intuitive way. There was no set of criteria, only whether I really felt drawn towards interviewing them. Of course I am an admirer of each of their work as well.

Arts Council England awarded you funding take the project on a tour of England in March 2012. You use videos for the live performance, can you tell us a bit more about them?

Live there will be specially commissioned video art projected onto a large screen on the stage. I’ve had some amazing filmmakers work on the visuals, namely, Will McConnell, James McDonald and Matt Jamie. The visuals are running in tight sync with the musicians on stage. There are some talking heads, some archive footage and plenty of stunning montages.

The Tour is being featured at some very prestigious locations including the Southbank and The Sage. When you started this project did you ever conceive the impact it would have?

I’ve been very encouraged with the support that speech project has received and it is great to showcase the work in these very fine venues. When I was writing the music I tried not to think too much about where it might end up. Joseph Cambell’s idea of “following your bliss” would be akin to how I’ve approached things creatively – It really has been one step at a time. I’ve been fortunate in that there are some absolutely amazing people working with me on speech project!

What was the reaction to the premier at the Liverpool Irish Festival?

The reaction to the Premier at Liverpool Irish Festival was absolutely terrific! fantastic! Damien Dempsey was in the audience along with a host of performers from The Big Sea Sessions also a journalist had flown in especially for the concert so of course there was no pressure whatsoever to get things right!!

Lisa, what was experience of performing it like?

Lisa Knapp

Lisa Knapp: Performing Speech project is a thrilling experience for me. It’s enjoyable in a different way to what I’m used to, in a ‘not having to be front person’ way. Not that I can sit back or anything, what with the visuals and electronics and the arrangements flying all over the place, there are many aspects to it, so plenty to keep everyone on their toes. All the musicians in the Speech Project band have been so generous in their time and spirit, they’re so professional, we all get on and totally get into the music which fundamentally works beautifully, it’s full of intensity. There’s lots of atmosphere and movement in there so you can’t go wrong really. The other musicians are Gaz Wilkins, Francesca Ter Berg, Colman Connolly and Declan Daly.

Have you any further solo projects planned for the future?

Gerry: I do indeed and have started work on several interesting things – still very much at an embryonic stage – but very enticing!

Video

Tour Dates

Fri, Mar 2 Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London
Tel: 0844 875 0073

Sat, Mar 3 North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford
Tel: 01865 319 450

Wed, Mar 7 The Junction, Cambridge
Tel: 01223 511 511

Thu, Mar 8 The Brewery Arts Centre, Kendall, Cumbria
Tel: 01539 725 133

Fri, Mar 9 Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury
Tel: 01743 281281

Wed, Mar 14 Lincoln Drill Hall, Lincoln
Tel: 01522 873 894

Thu, Mar 15 Waterside Arts Centre, Sale, Manchester
Tel: 0161 912 5616

Fri, Mar 16 The Met,Bury
Tel: 0161 761 2216

Sat, Mar 17 MAC, Birmingham
Tel: 0121 446 3232

Sun, Mar 18 The Sage, Gateshead
Tel: 0191 443 4661

Sat, Mar 24 Howard Assembly Room at Opera North, Leeds
Tel: 0844 848 2727

Links

Gerry Diver – Speech Project

Related Links:
http://joecooleytapes.org/
www.lisaknapp.co.uk
www.christymoore.com

Those cutting edge renegades Lau are set to release their new studio album Race the Loser on Reveal Records in Autumn 2012 which is produced by Tucker Martine (Laura Veirs, Sufjan Stevens). In the meantime they have a very tempting offer that fans will want to know about in advance. They are to release a Limited Edition Deluxe double CD album set that contains not only the new studio album but also a full length live concert bonus disc recorded on their 2011 UK Tour (free taster below) as well as a signed art print and download of the live album.

The Limited Edtion set is limited to 1000 copies and only available through Lau’s website so get in there quick to avoid disappointment.

Interview

We caught up with Lau before their very first Cropredy performance last year (see photos below) to talk about their music and future plans. A favourite release of ours during 2011 was the Lau v Adem EP. Aidan O’Rourke explained that the collaboraton was thanks to their sound engineer Tim Matthew who he described as “the fourth member of Lau”. Tim had worked as Adem’s sound engineer on various projects and he thought they would work well together so introductions were made and music exchanged.

Tim is also a member of an Edinburgh based band called Mystery Juice who Aidan recomended we should check out. Fence Records described their music as a “recipe of house-shaking grooves, the dirtiest blues guitar licks and howling violin, topped off with machine gun vocals guarantees that they sound like no one else”.

Martin Green and Kris explained that the they had originally only planned on releasing three collaborative EPs but that they have so many fellow musicians they want to collaborate with that they couldn’t see it ending.

One of their biggest projects of 2011 was their work with the Northern Sinfonia and the Northern Ireland composer Brian Irvine called Strange Attractors which Aidan explained was musically inspired by the American composer Charles Ives. The title ‘Strange Attractors’ was partly inspired by the work American sculptor Sarah Sze and takes its name from one of her installations. The project premiered at the Sage Gateshead and will be performed again at Celtic Connections on Saturday 4th February 2012 at the Grand Hall.

They have got to be the busiest band on the folk circuit, I don’t know where they find all the time!

Free Downloads

Live 2011 Horizontigo (free download)

Banks of Marble (from Lau’s Arc Light album)

Gallowhill

Download tracks here

Photos from Lau’s performance at Cropredy 2011

Kris Drever

Aidan O'Rourke

Martin Geen

The images above were taken by our reviewer Michael Farrant during Cropedy 2011!
All Rights Reserved

www.lau-music.co.uk

Jim Moray is well known for being daring and adventurous in his approach to making folk music. I’ve always found this an admirable quality of his work as you never know what is coming next. His latest release ‘Skulk’ really does reach the pinnacle of his work and is by far his most accessible piece of work to date. As he says: “I honestly believe that there’s something there for everyone that likes folk music in some form”. We couldn’t agree more and he has put his money where his mouth is by pre-releasing the album on Bandcamp for all to hear in full before it’s physical release.

Jim’s music has featured on Folk Radio UK for a long time now so we thought it was about time we caught up with the man to talk about his new release which features a number of guest artists (including sister Jackie Oates) as well as some unexpected covers such as Big Love by Fleetwood Mac.

Why Skulk?

A Skulk is a collective noun for foxes. There are foxes that live on Brandon Hill in Bristol, around Cabot tower and I started to see them quite a bit. Then I worked on adapting an idea that exists in a few traditional songs into a song about going to live with them and leaving a human form behind. Sort of a mix of lycanthropy and Scottish myths like the great silkie. The fox in the photos is called Sorrel and is one of the few acting foxes in the UK. She’s been in adverts and on tv quite a lot. It turns out that there’s a big private zoo in Oxfordshire where loads of animals for film and tv live. The company told me that they had the worlds only acting polar bear too. Some of the animals (like their badger) can be trained once and then will be able to follow commands whenever you need them, but apparently if you don’t work with the foxes every few days they’ll stop doing their tricks and you have to go back to square one.

Album Approach?

The aim was originally to make a solo acoustic album to reflect the folk clubs or arts centres that I play solo between band tours. But it quickly moved towards being an acoustically-based but expanded album as I started to record. From my point of view the real departure is in the two Child Ballads – Lord Douglas and Hind Etin – and the reconstruction work that I did. People like Martin Carthy and Nic Jones, and more lately Chris Wood, set a standard of sympathetically rebuilding songs from texts that would otherwise have been unperformable, but it takes a lot of skill and knowledge to be successful. After ten years of work it’s the first time I’ve really felt confident to do that and get every word in the right place.

Guest Artists

I’d been working with Andy Cutting in the Cecil Sharp Project, and he’s such a sympathetic accompanist that it was an obvious choice to get him on this album. Similarly, BJ Cole is one of the best pedal steel guitar players in the world and I’ve wanted to work with him for a long time. Tim Harries has played bass for June Tabor for a long time, and is also Brian Eno’s choice of double bassist so he seemed right for the more experimental acoustic stuff. And then I really wanted some jazz horn players who were into working with electronics and everybody pointed me towards Jake McMurchie and Pete Judge. The great thing about Jake and Pete is that they’ve both covered a lot of ground – Jake has played in a jump jive band so knew all the licks for the bonus track (Hog Eye Man), but if I asked him to make a noise like a broken coffee machine through a delay pedal he wasn’t daunted. It was a slight nod towards the trumpet and sax on John Martyn and David Sylvian records where its all sort-of floating over the backing.

Why Bandcamp?

We pre-released the last album by giving it away with Songlines, and I enjoyed some aspect of that but not others. From a financial point of view it allows me to not be in loads of debt just to put it out, even if it takes a while to actually make money. From a critical point of view it allows everyone to make up their own mind based on what it sounds like, rather than being influenced either way by reviews in magazines or newspapers. In some ways you have to have balls to allow people to hear the whole album before deciding whether or not to buy, but at least you can separate out the people for whom its not really their thing before they part with any money. And I’m confident that this is the most accessible and coherent album I’ve made – I honestly believe that there’s something there for everyone that likes folk music in some form.

Track by Track

The Captain’s Apprentice
The Captain’s Apprentice was collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams from a fisherman called Duggie Carter. It’s got a lot of similarities with the plot of Benjamin Brittens opera Peter Grimes.

The Golden Glove
The Golden Glove comes from Nic Jones, but is set in Tamworth in Staffordshire near where I grew up. That’s probably the track that has the most links with the kind of sound on my earlier albums.

If It’s True
If It’s True was written by Anais Mitchell from her folk opera Hadestown. She invited me to sing the role of Orpheus when it came to London, and I enjoyed singing the song so much I wanted to record my own version. The original recording was by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and quite dark and almost low-key, so I wanted to make it a lot more British sounding as a contrast.

Lord Douglas
Lord Douglas is a new variant of a Child Ballad called Earl Brand. It’s a ballad with a great plot, and many European versions, but I’ve never heard it sung by another revival folk performer. I wrote a new tune and added and changed a lot of words to get it to sit right.

Horkstow Grange
Horkstow Grange is one of the Joseph Taylor songs. I’ve recorded a lot of songs that were collected from him, and they were all originally recorded on wax cylinder by Percy Grainger in the early 1900s. It’s also the song that Steeleye Span got their name from.

Hind Etin
Hind Etin is another reconstructed Child Ballad. It has similarities with Tam Lin, apart from with a more malicious intent on the part of the forest-dweller. In most versions I found there was what is now known as ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ where she eventually falls in love with her kidnapper, but the song could have gone on for half an hour if I’d have included that, so I’ve split it off into a forthcoming part 2…

Big Love
Big Love is by Fleetwood Mac, and was just an experiment when I picked up the banjo one day.

The 18th of June
The 18th of June is from a singer called Henry Burstow in sussex. I learnt it from footage of Martin Carthy singing in a BBC Play about the Napoleonic wars, but Martin later told me that he learnt it from Mike Waterson who had changed it quite a bit. The track features Tim Harries on ‘prepared bass’ which was incredibly visual – bits of metal and wood threaded into the strings and played with all sorts of objects.

Courting is a Pleasure
Courting is a Pleasure is another Nic Jones song. I worked a version on baritone guitar out for the Nic Jones tribute concerts at Sidmouth and South Bank but ended up doing other songs instead. This got crossed with a John Martyn influence when the trumpet and saxophone were put on.

Seven Long Years
Seven Long Years is from Northern Ireland, and was learnt from an album by Nick Dow. I wanted something with a bit of an uplifting spirit to end, and I had an idea for something with a wordless refrain for an audience to join in with at bigger gigs (see below).

Album Tour Dates?

I’ve got a first gig at Twickenham Folk Club on February the 26th, and then a run of dates starting in Whitstable in Kent on the 9th March going all the way to Kings Place in London on April the 20th. All the dates are listed on my website and I’m roughly covering most of the England. And then festivals are staring to come in for the summer, and I’ve got some really nice slots confirmed with more coming together.

Your recent trip to Vietnam?

We were invited to go to Vietnam to represent the UK at the UNESCO International Congress. The musical director had apparently requested us personally out of a list of folk acts, so the British Council organised for us to play a short tour of the country. Not very many acts go to Vietnam unless they are huge stars playing the Stadium outside Hanoi – Lady Gaga had played a few weeks before we visited – so we were treated like celebrities and our gig in Ho Chi Minh city was sold out. It was a wonderful opportunity and the people we met were so lovely that we’d love to go back. At the final concert we were supported by a few former finalists from Vietnam Idol, the equivalent of X Factor, playing acoustic songs and despite the language barrier, the audience were really enthusiastic. The British Council do great stuff with taking artists to other countries, so we were really privileged to be invited.

Tour Dates

un, 26th February – Twickenham
Fri, 9th March – Whitstable
Sat, 10th March – Southwell
Sun, 11th March – Cambridge
Mon, 12th March – Colchester
Wed, 14th March – Leicester
Fri, 16th March – Corsham
Sun, 18th March – Exeter
Tue, 20th March – Reading
Wed, 21st March – Chichester
Fri, 23rd March – Hull
Sat, 24th March – Knaresborough
Fri, 30th March – Cockermouth
Sat, 31st March – Shrewsbury
Wed, 11th April – Aldershot
Tue, 17th April – Manchester
Wed, 18th April – Liverpool
Fri, 20th April – London
Sat, 9th June – Trelawnydd
Sat, 28th July – Warwick
Sat, 25th August – Shrewsbury

Artist Links

jimmoray.co.uk
Bandcamp

Scottish fiddle player Mike Vass is no stranger to the traditional Scottish music circuit having performed as a duo with his twin sister Ali for more than ten years. He has also, amongst his many collaborations, performed with Malinky and Fiddle Rendezvous (featuring Bruce Molsky, Maryann Kennedy and Gerry O’Connor). His latest big bit of news is that he is joining The Paul McKenna Band, he will be joining them in time to make his band début at Celtic Connections, a festival we are looking forward to covering in January 2012. We caught up with Mike to talk about how he got into traditional music, his latest project ‘December Well’ and more…

Beginnings in Traditional Music

My Dad got me into traditional music, he had found folk music when he was a student. I think the Corries visited his student union. So when I showed an interest in the fiddle, he encouraged it, and organised lessons at school for me. So I did school violin lessons and he’d teach me tunes by ear at home.

When I was a bit older, I did work experience at Balnain House (known as the home of Highland Music) in Inverness. I helped put gig posters up, and worked in the shop selling CDs. I just listened to new music all day every day in the shop, and that opened my eyes to a whole new world of traditional music and players. Around that time I met Ian Hardie (of Jock Tamson’s Bairns, the Occassionals etc) and he gave me sporadic lessons for a year or so, and he really put me in the right direction with technique specific to Scottish Fiddling.

so there we go, 3 big influences, My Dad, Balnain House and Ian Hardie.

December Well Project

December Well was a project I had the idea for earlier in the year. I teach 3 days a week at the Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop in Argyll, and last year, due to the snow, found myself with two unexpected weeks off in December, and filled my time sitting on the sofa watching re-runs of CSI and other drivel on the tele. This year they re-scheduled my LFW schools programme so as I wouldn’t be driving up in the snow, predicting that there would of course be some! (there has been a wee bit).

So knowing that I had most of December off (albeit with a few rehearsals with other projects) I decided I would use the time to continue writing, and learn a bit more about recording. So I set myself up with a small amount of studio gear in the spare bedroom and began work on the 1st of December. The idea was to write, record and (hopefully) release an album of Music inspired by the Scottish Winter month of December. No pre-written stuff, no pre-conceived ideas, it all had to be done in December. Oh and I also have to play all the instruments myself, so some instruments are purely being used for sounds and textures, as I’m fairly novice!

I’m doing a short video-log each day which I post to the website just giving a wee insight into the process and an update on progress.

Looking Forward to:

Mike has a lot to look forward over the next few months…a new album with Ali Vass titled ‘Waiting to Fly’, joining The Paul McKenna Band, a tour and a new arrival…

The Album with Ali ‘Waiting to Fly’ Was recorded in June. Ali actually lives in New York with her husband, and she was over for a family wedding in June and stayed on an extra week to record the album. She is now expecting her first child, so there won’t be a whole lot of touring going on next year with Ali!
We did a tour in April which saw us take in (amongst others) Colchester Arts Centre, the Ram Folk Club, Edinburgh Folk Club, the Star Folk Club Glasgow.

My first gig with the Paul McKenna band is January 26th at Celtic Connections and we’ve already put in a couple of rehearsals. The first proper tour will be in February which will see us visit Florida and Colorado in the States. The tour coincides with Ali’s due date, so in the event that we have a day off, I hope to make a quick trip to New York to visit the new arrival!

So an exciting year next year in many ways. Still I have to get the December Well project wrapped up before that…..

Video

John Doyle, Alasdair White and Mike Vass @ Ullapool, Feis Rois 2011

Short Clip: Calum MacCrimmon, Mike Vass and Innes Watson – Unst2Arran/Some Boy John

Links

www.mikevass.com
www.decemberwell.com

Read our other interview in The Tradition Series.

Photo Credit: Archie MacFarlane

Kings Place spoke to the fascinating Dave Richardson from The Boys of The Lough ahead of their performance at Kings Place this Friday (ticket link below). Their performance at Kings Place is part of the Roots & Branches week which we featured here. Listen to the interview in full below:

‘Traditional heroes.’ The Irish Times
‘Musically splendid – legends.’ The Boston Globe
‘A sophisticated, subtly coloured ensemble… highly developed individual skills.’ New York Times

Don’t miss it. Get your tickets here!

We recently caught up with Folk Radio UK favourite Jason Steel who talked to us about some of the inspiration behind his music and his love for field recordings of old traditional ballad singers. Jason has just released his new single ‘I Lost My North‘ which is from his new album ‘The Weight of Care‘ due for release on Rif Mountain in February 2012.

My brother played the radio all night. There was a show called ‘The Late Night Love Affair‘ that played the best sentimental pop songs of the day-’True Colours‘, ‘Wherever I Lay My Hat‘, ‘I just Can’t Stay Away From You‘- I was nine years old. I would lay in the dark listening & thinking about girls, getting lost in the songs. This continued for about three years until my dad destroyed the stereo in a fit of rage one morning with an axe. My brother had been consistantly destroying his sleep by playing it loudly.

My dad is a real character & an old club singer – I would sit next to him & he would sing ‘Sixteen Tons’ by Tenesse Ernie Ford. When it got to the bit where he says ‘One fist of iron, the other of steel…’ he would bare his teeth & make a boxer’s stance. I would hold up my tiny hand & place it over his fists, giddy & excited. I guess these events were my introduction to the transportive power of music.

Tennessee ernie Ford – 16 Tons:

When I got to fourteen I heard & saw pictures of Nirvana. My bedroom wall slowly became covered in pictures of Kurt Cobain. He seemed the antithesis of the northern ex-pit village I was growing up in, and I liked that. I got really into American underground rock, my first musical love- Sonic Youth, Sebadoh, etc. I dyed my hair & tore my jeans. I would buy any records these guys mentioned. I saw Cobain wearing a Leadbelly t-shirt, so picked an old LP up at a record fair.

It sounded absolutely alien & strange. My ears couldn’t get with it-it seemed to taste of something… Soil? Dirt? It was almost scary-haunted & ancient. Amazingly, my Dad knew the words to these songs. This added to the sense of eeriness. I kept going back. Once I broke past the aesthetics of it, the other-wordly crackle, I was just floored – it is music as unfathomable as space. This put the seed in my mind – a quality I started to seek in music – a kind of transcendental heaviness. This is what lead me to traditional & old time music. You hear it in Ann Briggs, Blind Willie Johnson, Skip James, Shirley Collins, Doc Boggs. This is the stuff I go back to, a thirsty man to water. I find a field recording of an old traditional ballad singer has a gravitas and weight you simply cannot place. I’ve always been a bit of a record geek-I became obsessed with tracking this stuff down. I also had an intense period of immersion in the world of John Fahey, which I often slip back into. I guess these were some of the formative influences in terms of playing & what I wanted to emote in the music. Also-girls ice skating, the full moon, sex & the Demon Drink (of course).

My remit was fairly simple when I started writing. Like-what would Leonard Cohen sound like if he played the way Mississippi John Hurt played? What if Skip James sang ‘Suzanne’? I’ve always loved sentimental music. In lots of old time & country, you are blessed with the finest of purely sentimental song. I guess with my writing I try to gild a certain sense of loss in song, using that ‘old time’ vernacular. I find prolonged late-night bouts of listening to The Shangri La’s ‘Past, Present And Future’ whilst making drunken phone calls to old girlfriends an endless source of lyrical inspiration.

I joined the Owl Service in 2009. Owl leader Steven Collins has always put his own stuff out-he envisaged a new label that was a co-op/collective of core artists; Rif Mountain. My first album was the label’s inaugural release. It’s a great thing to be a part of; The Owls, myself, the Straw Bear Band & Nancy Wallace alongside various guests-my recent favourites were the Alaisdar Roberts 7″ & the Rob Sunday e.p, which were both immense. We’ve just put out a label sampler ‘The Inner Octave’ which is a fine introduction. We also sporadically put on events & usually have a fairly strong presence at the Leigh Folk Festival (which Steven helps to organise)-My favourite UK festival, without doubt. And it’s free! This year’s line up has got some great names…

I Lost My North

I’ve got a single landing on the 19th of December-’I Lost My North’. It’s a requiem of sorts. The brass is an attempt to invoke the colliery bands that played near my house in my youthful days. It’s taken from my second album ‘The Weight of Care’ due in February. I’ll be touring the record.

Upcoming Tour

Friday 10/2 – London King’s Place
(w/Nancy Wallace)

Monday 13/2 – Liskeard The Barley Sheaf

Tuesday 14/2 – Bristol TBA

Wednesday 15/2 – Cheltenham TBA

Thursday 16/2 – Brighton TBA

Friday 17/2 – Leigh on Sea Methodist Church
(w/Cath & Phil Tyler)

Saturday 18/2 – Ipswich, The Garden