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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Labels: assynt, creativity, northern isles, Orkney
