Scotland's Music:Energy Islands from Fara

Orkney has long been a crossroads of travel, or connection, of commerce, of culture, of contacts, of creativity.

This group of islands is part of Scotland’s Northern Isles, lying off the north coast of Scotland’s mainland county of Caithness.

Orkney’s landscapes and stories, and those of nearby Assynt in Scotland’s north mainland, are sources of inspiration for the creativity of the four musicians of the band Fara.

That’s especially evident in their album called Energy Islands.

There is music inspired by wind turbines, an early day business woman not to say witch who sold fair winds to sailors, waves, shipwrecks, and those winds, the light and dark in this northern land, and ponies, to mention a few things.

The four members of Fara each write music as well as play it and arrange it, so you will find songs and tunes from all of them on Energy Islands. At times, too, they use words from other Orkney artists as lyrics in their songs. They each took part in producing the album and invited top string player,composer, and arranger Seonaid Atlen to join them in that. She also guests on two tracks.

Jeana, Kristan, Catriona, and Rory each bring diverse ranges of interests and experiences to the music they create.

The three women grew up as childhood friends in Orkney. Each went away to study music, pursuing degree studies at RCS, Royal Academy of Music, Royal Northern College of Music and Strathclyde University.

Classical music, traditional folk, improvisation, and contemporary composition were among the areas where their various academic interest led them.

Back in Orkney, the three with longtime friend Jennifer Austin on keyboards, performed as Fara, opening a set at the late night after hours club at the Orkney Folk Festival.

“The Orkney show was originally only meant to be a one-off, but we had such great fun, we thought we’d try doing a few more,” Kristan said.

Ten years on, they’re still at it, with awards and welcoming audiences on an extensive touring schedule, festival apperances, and recordings. Energy Islands is the most recent of those at this writing.

When original member Jen Austin moved on to other projects, the three frontwomen invited Rory Matheson to join in. A past finalist in Scotland’s Young Traditional Musician of the Year award brings jazz and blues interests along with his strong background in traditional music to the band. He comes from Assynt in mainland Scotlands far northwest.

Matheson finds that the fiddle led arrangements of Fara work well for piano accompaniment. “It’s also really interesting to explore the parallels between Orkney and Highland music – and to create new ones,” he said. “And being the token male seems pretty good so far – I get a room to myself wherever we go...”

I’ve had the chance to see Fara in both smaller venues and headlining main stage at Celtic Connections when they hosted and collaborated with internationa artists from Africa, the Caribbean, Quebec, and elsewhere. Fara are always worth seeing in performance. If you have the chance to do so, take it.

Listening to Energy Islands is a fine way to learn about or refresh your knowledge of Fara;s music.

On the recording they offer song and tune drawn from the natural world of Orkney, its connections with the sea, and its stories, history, and legends.

For the set Wind Dancers, there’s a tune Jeana composed when she was commissioned by the Saint Magnus Festival to create music inspired by a particular verse from the poem Fiddlers at the Harvest Home by Orcadian poet George Mackay Brown.

The verse is called Corn. The tune is Called Chinook Winds. Jeana drew her music from imagining the chinnok winds rippling through corn fields at harvest time. Orkney is not short of wind -- wind turbines power things at many places on the islands. That wind is not always a gnetle guest though.

In her tune Turbine Down, Harv takes note of this, dedicating it “to all the domestic wind turbine ownersat home who spend a great deal if time attending to the consequences of our infamous ‘light breeze,’ which often proves too much for the poor machines!”

Fiddles and piano take on arrangements for lively and more reflective tunes and songs threaded through with connections to landscape, story, and the natural world.

In the set White Horse Power, tunes from Rory and Harv draw on the ideas of waves -- tthe white horses of the sea -- and are joined by Quicksilver, a tune Catriona wrote thinking of a real horse, her childhood pony Silver.

The songs in this well paced album featured words from Orkney writers adapted and put to music from members of Fara.

There’s a thoughtful story about the Northern Lights, and another about making it through dark nights with a song to hang onto until day breaks.

There’s also a lively song from a legengs about a woman (amybe a sorceress?) who sold fair winds to sailors. Energy Islands is creatively, thoughtful refreshing music, informed by sea and story. Well worth repeated listenings to unpack the treasures within.

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Holiday Gift Ideas: Stories Told in Music

Stories: they make a vital part of life. They are ways we share, how we learn, how we connect with each other.

As you prepare for and celebrate winter holidays, consider the work of these storytellers in music as gifts for those on your list. They make great gifts for yourself, too.

Did you know of the connections between the people of Orkney, in Scotland’s Northern Isles, and Hudson’s Bay in Canada? There’s a fair geographic distance between the places, to be sure.

There’s deep historic connection as well. It is a story which has fascinated Graham Rorie since his days as a young boy growing up in Orkney, where the port of Stromness was the last port of call before Orcadians went went off to work in far away Canada.

The Hudson’s Bay Company recruited Orcadians during the 18th and 19th centuries, thinking that the hardy folk of Scotland’s north would be well suited to the equally challenging conditions in Canadian wilderness.

Rorie, whose instruments are fiddle and guitar, composed a set of tunes that celebrate and investigate these stories and connections. They include the aspects of the life of explorer John Rae, who discovered the last navigable link in the Northwest Passage. There’s also the story of boats based on an Orcadian design and long used to work the waters in Canada, a tune dedicated to a town settled by folk for Scotland, and the tale of that last calling port, along with much more.

The Orcadians of Hudson’s Bay is engaging music, well played by Roriie along with James Lindsay, Kristan Harvey, Padruaig Morrison, Rory Matheson, and Signy Jakobsdottir. The tunes are well told stories; they are added to the booklet that goes along, both with words and with artwork from Jen Austin.

Karine Polwart and Dave Milligan join up to share ten stories, some from the tradition of Scotland, some form contemporary writers, and several which Karine wrote. Their collaboration is called Still As Your Sleeping, a phrase which draws from one of the songs Polwart wrote, a track called Travel These Ways.

Polwart is a singer and songwriter; Milligan is a piano player and composer. Though they are both well used to collaboration and have worked on other projects before, the spark for this oen came from two lockdown projects on which they were both involved. They found challenge in the spare sound of just voice and piano.

They meet that challenge well, too. Karine’s thoughtful takes on songs including Craigie Hill, Heaven’s Hound, The Old Man of the Shells, and The Path Winds Before Us are supported, though one could as well say intertwined, with Dave’s equally thoughtful piano lines.

Well chosen stories, and well told. Music you (and the lucky person on yout gift list who receives it) will want to hear many times.

Stay along the music road for more gift ideas to come as this winter holiday season unfolds.

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Karine Polwart also works as part of Spell Songs
If you are considering late autumn, Thanksgiving in the US, Saint Andrew’s day in Scotland: Music for Autumn’s Landscapes at Wandering Educators offer good things to explore
Learn about Dave Milligan’s albumMomento
Learn more about The Orcadians of Hudson’s Bay
The first story in this season’s holiday gift ideas

In times when you are able to listen to much music at no cost, if you enjoy this music, I encourage you to help support the work of these artists and the cause of good, thoughtful music everywhere by purchasing their music. Direct purchase from an artist’s site is one way. Bandcamp is also a platform which supports artists’ work.

Speaking of support, if you’re in a position to do so this holiday season, your support for Music Road is most welcome. Here’s one way:

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