Spell Songs II: Let the Light In

The drift of a leaf in autumn wind, the flutter of a moth's wings as evening fades to night. The half glimpsed movement of an animal just out of view, the call of a jay, the swirl of swifts against the sky -- these connections with nature frame our days.

Even if you have always lived in cities, you know and feel some of these things, don’t you?

Reflection on the varied connections between humankind and nature, and the ways those are changing, are part of what inspired the music of the album Spell Songs II: Let the Light In.

It is the second album from the group which has become known as the Spell Songs Singers: Jim Molyneux, Kris Drever, Beth Porter, Julie Fowlis, Rachel Newton, Seckou Keita, and Karine Polwart.

The musicians in turn drew inspiration from the art of Jackie Morris and the words of Robert Macfarlane. We’ll get to a bit of background on how that came about. First, though, consider what the musicians create on Spell Songs ii.

There are fifteen songs on the album, with each musician taking a turn or two at lead voice, and working in creative collaboration with harmony and instrument through the others.

They each play as well and sing -- Porter on cello, Molyneux on keyboards, Drever and Powart on guitar, Keita on kora, Newton on harp, Fowlis on whistles. Those are their main instruments, though each often takes out othersas well, Fowlis taking up the oboe, for instance, Newton moving over to fiddle, Polwat picking up bass.

That may begin to give you ideas of the musical complexity on offer; it is complexity in service of creativity, though. That comes through in the singing, and in the writing that formed the words and music.

Some songs come directly from Macfarlane’s poetry, others go in directions sparked by his words and Morris’s art onto different paths. Each of the artists is rooted in music which respects tradition, be that tradition of England, Scotland, or Senegal. Each of those traditions meet at points along the way in the music of Spell Songs II.

Polwart begins the journey taking lead on the slightly spooky Bramble. Nature is not always kind and often mysterious, an idea that continues as Fowlis follows with the haunting song Saint Kilda Wren, in Gaelic.

In Oak, Drever offers stories of the long lived tree, living its life for centuries as human cone and go, and connect with its wood for “the wheel that makes the seasons turn/the the beasts that shelter in the barn/the table that we sing around/ the casket we put in the ground,” and in many other ways. There is dimension from a verse from Keita’s sung in Mandinka, and from the other singers adding backing harmonies.

In each of these tracks and all others on the recording, the musician singing lead gives his or her own character to anchor the song. Spell Songs is very much a band project, though, in creation and in execution, as each musician’s work is supported and enhanced by contributions from the others.

That is true for each of the songs. One especially good place to hear it is in the song Swifts. Rachel Newton’s voice soars and swirls as do the named birds, while Drever adds second lead voice and each of the others contributes as well.

Seckou Keita brings a bluesy call and response idea to the presence of a familiar bird in Jay. Beth Porter’s lively take in the song Daisy readily evokes daisy chains and “tiny suns turned skyward,” while Jim Molyneux offers wistful, bittersweet melody and words to evoke the coming and going of swallows.

There are more such gems on the recording -- each of the songs is well worth repeated listening, in fact.

Plant life comes in for more musical discussion as Porter reflects on pushing one’s way through tangled gorse, and through challenges.

Fowlis takes lead on on the wintery, eerie Bird of the Blizzard, which evokes snow, ice, and change, and reminds that nature is facing change, some of it devastating.

Polwart gives another view of nature with the song Thrift, in which persistence of the seashore plant is a reminder to dig in and hang on as hardships arise.

That idea of nature dealing with change faces the fox, lead actor as Kris Drever sings Red Is Your Art. Working and living just as the margins of human life and the natural word change these days, the fox poses the question, when I am gone, when I am driven out, will you think it was worth it?

That is an idea that frames creativity here. As Fowlis sings in Bird of the Blizzard, there’s “a map made of wonder, that tracks what is fading” and “memory’s keeper is you.”

That is a idea that resonates with the fox’s query in Red Is Your Art, the persistence in Gorse and Thrift, the long lasting Oak.

It turns up as well as the thoughts Julie, Karine, and Seckou offer in Barn Owl, as they intertwine words in in Gaelic, Scots, and Mandinka on the themes of, as Karine sings it “Tak nae mair nor ye need (take no more than you need).” As indeed owls flying by night do in their travels.

In differing ways Moth, with Karine in lead, and Curlew from Rachel both honour and suggest change in nature and in our own lives, and in ways direct and indirect, the persistence of hope as well.

Fowlis takes lead on the closer, a song called Silver Birch, which draws together ideas from this recording and references a bit to the first Spell Songs album, as well.

Snow is falling, my silver-seeker;
soon the path will be lost to sight,
soon the day the day will give way

Fowlis sings. Later, though, she continues

The sun is rising, my silver-seeker

warms the pines, and breathes the larches
...Soon the blackbird will take her flight.

As promised, a bit more background to the Spell Songs projects and how they came to be:

Several years back, artist Jackie Morris learned that a number of words. most to do with nature, were to be dropped from a popular children’s dictionary where she lived in the UK. She decided to create a book of paintings that would honour these words and the nature they represented. She contacted nature writer Robert Macfarlane to see if he’d write an introduction for such a book. He came back withe idea, What if I wrote poems to go along with the paintings, spells to call words and nature back, so to speak?

The book the Lost Spells was born. Eventually presenters at the Folk by the Oak Festival in England had the idea to bring together artists they knew had an interest in nature to create music based on these ideas. The first Spell Songs album came to be. Later Morris and Macfarlane collaborated on a second book, called The Lost Spells. and so, a second album, Spell Songs II:Let the LIght In, came about. Morris, by the way, often joins the singers on stage, creating paintings live as they sing.

Photographs of the Spell Songs artists in performance at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall during Celtic Connections by Gaelle Beri, courtesy of Innes Campbell Communications.

You may also wish to see.
Learn about the first Spell Songs recording,
About the second book from Morris and Macfarlane, The Lost Spells
Laws of Motion from Karine Polwart
Alterum fromJulie Fowlis

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Scotland's Landscapes in Music, from Kenneth I. MacKenzie and Niteworks Band

Scotland’s landscapes and stories inspire many sorts of creativity. Consider two rather different aspects of that, in recordings from Kenneth I. MacKenzie and the band Niteworks.

MacKenzie’s background is in pipe bands, with which he has played in such varied locations as Hong Kong, Norway, Denmark, and the United States. Among other things, he played on one of the best selling pipe band albums of all time, Amazing Grace from the Toyota Pipes and Drums.

Kenny is also well known as a composer of tunes. That is well to the fore on his album Glendrian , where most of the tunes in the twelve set offering are original. In addition to Highland pipes, he brings in his other instruments: digital chanter, harmonica, and low whistle.

The tunes, which include reels, waltzes. slow airs, marches, hornpipes and lament, are thoughtfully sequenced and well presented. They draw on people, places, and circumstances from Scotland’s Highlands and Islands, and are in most cases named in ways to honour them... including a reel called Granny Bheag’s Pancakes.

There are dashes of humour in the playing, as well as reflective pieces.

There’s a 4/4 March in tribute to Gaelic singer Alasdair Gillies, and a slow air which Kenny composed for his wife on her first visit to his family home. You can almost see the dancers swirling across the floor to Rhona’s Waltz, or taking faster steps to Karen’s Jig.

There is that lament, the title track Gelndrian. That came from a a landscape with which Kenny has family connection. It is the named for a settlement in Ardnamurchan, in Lochaber. No one lives there now. Kenny wrote the music reflecting on lives lived there and what that may have been like.

“Music and a love of playing is at the heart of Glendrian, and it’s been a joy to play in my own style and to create and share new tunes that cherish a traditional feel,” Kenny says.

His first recording in almost twenty years, Glendrian is a collection of music by a composer and player who has a clear sighted view of what he wishes to say with his music, and how to say it best. His love of landscapes and people of the Highlands and Islands comes clear with no need for words.

MacKenzie’s vision centers the album, and he is well supported by Will Marshall on piano, accordion, and arrangement, Marie Fielding on fiddle, Donald Black on tremolo harmonica, Rory Grindlay on drums, and Tom Oakes on acoustic guitar and flute.

The men of the band Niteworks have been inspired and nutured by the dual and often contrasting landscapes and sounds of Skye, where they grew up, and the buzzing and busy city and club scne of Glasgow, to which they moved.

They have always worked to put these together in their music since they first formed the band almost fifteen years ago now.

For their third album, A’ Ghrian, they’ve really matured into their sound creatively and musically, finding the sometimes elusive balance of respecting tradition while moving it forward in connection with other styles.

Part of that has come through the years Alan MacDonald on pipes, bassist Christopher Nicholson, Innes Strachan on keys and synths, and dummer Ruairdih Graham have worked together, and part of it has come through musical challenges they’ve accepted along the way.

“With this album we’ve sought to create a more expansive sound that’s cinematic in nature,” Graham explains. They were commissioned to write music for Edinburgh’s Hogmanay Farewell 2020 film. That was a project which required them to reflect and create musically on what that year had been like, a timer of hardship and unexpected change for many. “The nature of the project required broad expansive sounds, and that led to us going further in that direction in the writing and recording of this album,” Graham says.

That approach works. The music is well sequenced, too, with a mix of traditional and original adventurous tunes bracketing equally adventurous song. Niteworks have also invited along Laura Wilkie, Fiona MacAskill, and Aileen Reid of KInnaris Quintet along with Susan Applebee to add strings to the sound.

The men of Niteworks do not sing themselves, but rather invite a range of guests to contribute. They have included Gaelic singers on earlier albums, and some of the same singers return for this one. Further along the lines of expanding vision for their music, though, they have for the first time invited singers in English and Scots to join in.

The three women who make up the trio Sian return with their well honed Gaelic harmonies for a a track, while Alasdair Whyte brings strong and soulful presence to another song. Sian band member Ellen MacDonald does a solo turn joining on Gura Mise tha fo Eislein.

The men of Niteworks came across a recording of the English folk song John Riley by folk legend Joan Baez. They were taken with the melody and wanted to make it their own, inviting Beth Malcolm along to sing the song in English. It’s a song you may know, from the Joan Baez version or the many recordings and sessions in which it turns up. In the hands of Beth Malcom and Niteworks, it turns into a John Riley you’ve likely not heard before, true to the story and its tradition while taking these in new directions.

Hannah Rarity brings Scots to the mix with a graceful take on the song Gloomy Winter. There is a turn of season, so to speak, and a return to Gaelic as Kathleen MacInnes brings an equally thoughtful and graceful performance to the title track A’ Ghrian.

As much as their approaches differ, Kenneth I. MacKenzie and Niteworks share love of the landscapes and sounds of Scotland past and present, and express that through their music.

You may also wish to see
Three from Scotland, which includes Marie Fielding’s album The Spectrum Project
At Wandering Educators Music for a Month of Transitions, in which you can find a video of the title track of Glendrian
Solo from Sarah-Jane Summers, who offers another creative way to take tradition forward
Song in English and Irish as well as tunes Thar Toin/Seabourne, from Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

Photographs by Paul Edney from Pixabay, by Andrew Murray from Pixabay, and by Kerry Dexter

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from Scotland: Alistair Ogilvy: Leaves Sae Green

Alistair Ogilvy knows how to seek out a good story, and how to tell one well through word and music, too. Missing a loved one, unrequited love, travels and journeys in search of love, alongside darker themes ranging from deceit to murder turn up in the music he chooses for his debut album Leaves Sae Green.

That title comes from a phrase in a traditional song, of which there are a good few among the eleven tracks. These are songs from the well of Scottish tradition -- Ogilvy was born in Strathblane near the Campsie Hills and is based now in Glasgow. If you’re familiar with Irish or North American folk tradition, though, you’ll meet characters and hear turns of phrase in these songs which have traveled back and forth across waters and communities.


Notable tracks

Bonnie Ship the Diamond is a lively tale of Greenland whale fishers and their homecomings, while Wars o’ Germanie treats of partings and leaving loved ones behind

So does, in a different way, Girl from the North Country. Ogilvy does his own bit of helping song to travel, with this on, as it was written by Bob Dylan. In Ogilvy’s hands it stands naturally among songs from the tradition.

As tradition goes, it also seems natural to include a Robert Burns piece, and Ogilvy has a good time combing two of them, in Crowdie/Wantonness.

Earl Richard is a complex story of murder, with Ogilvy well handling the thread of the story.

The Kirkwall Light is is a quiet piece born of the winter time in that northern place in Orkney, and is a song which Ogilvy wrote himself.

Leaves Sae Green proves a strong debut from a gifted musician and story teller. If the buzz around the film Disney/Pixar film Brave has you thinking about Scotland, Leaves Sae Green could prove a fine entry point to Scotland’s music.


Here, Ogilvy sings a version of Loch Lomond that might be a bit different than the ones you've often heard




You may also wish to see
from Scotland: Emily Smith: Traiveller's Joy
tuning up for Burns Night: Jim Malcolm
from Scotland: The Boy and the Bunnet

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From Scotland: The Boy and the Bunnet

Neil is a boy who lives with his grandmother and their grey cat in a house by the sea. Behind the house, they have a garden, and then past the garden there's a forest, and beyond the forest a mountain, or ben. Neil also wears a blue cap (that’s the bunnet part).

The boy, his bunnet, the cat, his gran, and all manner of animals which live in the sea, forest, garden, and mountain come to have an adventure --several actually -- quite a lively time of it with both laughter and danger, a cranky crow and a brave stag, a quiet selkie who lives in the sea, and a urisk. What exactly is a urisk? You’ll have to listen to the story to find out.

What does all this have to do with music?

Each of the characters in the story has the voice of an instrument, so the melodies of their intertwining stories intertwine with and enhance the words of the tale, and tell stories of their own.

The instruments are all those found in Scottish traditional music -- fiddle, harp, cello, pipes, and more. Do you remember how Peter and the Wolf introduced the instruments of a classical orchestra? James Robertson, who wrote the story, and James Ross, who wrote the music, had the idea of introducing the instruments of Scottish traditional music this way, too, and they took things a step further. The story is told in Scots, so it helps people, child or adult, learn or relearn that language. There is a version of the narrative in Scottish Gaelic, as well. If you do not know either language, take a listen to the Scots version (you'll find bits of it through the links below so you may try that out). I think you'll enjoy following along and figuring out the words that are unfamiliar.

Side note: if you've read or sung any Robert Burns, you may already have a bit of Scots.

So, it is a fine learning tool, indeed, an engaging story and music which will hold your interest as well. Story and music weave together to bring the characters and events to life. All the main sorts of tunes in Scottish traditional music are included -- reel, strathspey, jig, waltz -- and many of Scotland's top musicians lend their imagination to the voices of the instruments. There’s Patsy Reid on fiddle, Angus Lyon on accordion, Corrina Hewat on harp, and Signy Jakobsdottir on percussion, among others. For the Scots version, actress Gerda Stevenson gives a lively narrative with just the right balance of drama and humour, while the same task is done by Wilma Kennedy for the version in Scottish Gaelic.

The Boy and the Bunnet has been offered as a live production at the Blas festival in Inverness and at Celtic Connections in Glasgow. Robertson and Ross have scored and written it in such a way that it’d be possible for school groups across Scotland to put on the show themselves, too, and that’s one of the things they hope will happen as a result.


It makes fine listening on record, a story to which you’ll want to return time and again, and share with the children and adults in your life.


You may hear the Scots language tracks here
The Boy and the Bunnet

and find out here about the Scottish Gaelic version, as well as illustrated books which tell the story



you may also wish to see
Music Road: Celtic Connections 2012: the music begins
Music Road: from Scotland: Emily Smith: Traiveller's Joy

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.