root salad Breabach
Scotland’s latest musical ambassadors are whirling around the world, with Paul Matheson in hot pursuit.
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inner of 2013’s Scots Trad Music Award for Live Act of the Year, and nominee for best group in BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2014,
Breabach are a Scottish folk quintet who combine intricate musicianship with a big, big sound (the band includes two pipers!). There is a dark fire at the heart of great Scottish and Irish traditional music, and Breabach know how to capture that.
The band started when its members came to Glasgow as music students. Four albums later, Breabach are headliners on the festival and concert circuit. Their cur- rent line-up is Calum Macrimmon (bagpipe, whistles, bouzouki, vocals), Ewan Robert- son (guitar, cajon, vocals), Megan Hender- son (fiddle, vocals), James Duncan Macken- zie (bagpipe, flute, whistles, vocals); and James Lindsay (double bass, vocals).
The band are excited that Scotland seems to be exploding with musicians and new music groups, and the Glasgow music scene in particular. “It’s partly to do with the music courses in the city – specialist tra- ditional music courses, specialist jazz and classical courses – that have inspired young people and musicians to come to Glasgow. It’s a hub, with lots of sessions happening all over the city. That then attracts young musicians who come just to take part in the music scene. Like any city with lots of music students (Boston, for instance) all those musicians in the same place gener- ates an energy and a creativity.”
They band are also excited by their
new album Ùrlar (reviewed in fR 366). “It was produced by Kris Drever [of Lau], a pal that we admire for the way he pushes the musical boundaries so far that you don’t think of it as Scottish trad anymore. He made a lot of subtle suggestions for colours on the album that we wouldn’t have thought of”.
The tour to promote Ùrlar has been big: standout shows were Cambridge Folk Festival, Colchester, Hornblotton Hall in Somerset and the Spiegeltent in Paisley. “While it’s nice to visit areas that are con- nected to the music we play, we’re busiest south of the border. We’ve got a big sup- port in England. London was very appre- ciative. So was Nettlebed.”
Ùrlar means ‘ground’ in Gaelic. The
music for Ùrlar was collected from family and friends, or inspired by the band mem- bers’ home town areas across Scotland where the band gave local performances to promote the album. Does the ‘back to our roots’ theme of it reflect the national Scottish mood in the build-up to the inde- pendence referendum? Or is that a coinci- dence? “I think it is a bit of a coincidence,” Calum says. “We play traditional music and
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we always have. We’ve still got the same interests we had when we started. So, we’re not thinking along those lines. It’s not how we play it!” Ewan agrees: “It’s like Calum says. We don’t make music for politics. We make it because we love the music and it’s really important to us.”
s it also coincidence that the Scottish traditional music scene has flourished since the devolved Scottish Parliament was created in 1998, generating a cultural climate of increased self- confidence? “It’s a great issue to raise,” says Ewan, “because if it is an influence, it’s happened subconsciously.”
“Maybe it’s happened financially as well,” adds Calum, “with support and recognition for traditional music courses. Creative Scotland has been very supportive of us for years. It’s important because without that support we can’t do very much. We need their support so, yeah, we are thankful.”
What are Breabach’s plans for the year ahead? “We’ll be spending a lot of 2014 in New Zealand and Australia. Going to Australia and New Zealand in January, and again in March/April for a six week
tour and then again in October. We hope to work with local musicians there, and some of that may inspire or influence the next album. And we’ve a UK tour throughout May.”
Breabach’s tours to Australia and New Zealand echo the Commonwealth theme to 2014. The Commonwealth Games music festival in Glasgow and across the UK will involve musicians from many countries and musical traditions performing togeth- er. Is cross-cultural collaboration some- thing that appeals to Breabach?
“We enjoyed working with Arabic musicians in Jordan: a lot of fun but chal- lenging to play the notes on their scale! What was very interesting out there is that they were very familiar with the Highland bagpipe. They have their chanters tuned closer to the Arabic scale than the High- land pipe scale, but it’s the same instru- ment. And we always enjoy our collabora-
tions with the Québécois group Le Vent Du Nord. There’s a real bond there. And we loved Breabach’s trip to South Korea: very interesting. We got a thousand new friends on Facebook after visiting South Korea.”
www.breabach.com F 19 f
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