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er own free-spirited musical path was carved out early. As there is no high school on Fair Isle, all the island children head to Lerwick, when they reach the age of eleven, and stay in hostels, getting home only once a month; offering a premature taste of inde- pendence. In these formative years, Inge immersed herself further in musical life, joining a band that later morphed into the eclectic Drop The Box. “As a teenage reprobate, I would go out to gigs a lot and I met a whole pile of musicians. Hanging around with those guys was massively influential, showing me what was possible.”
H
During her three years of nursing training in Aberdeen, Inge continued to play with Drop The Box, touring extensively, and joined Harem Scarem (who recorded three albums), as well as a live collabo- ration with Will Oldham. As members of that outfit became increas- ingly busy with other projects, Inge launched her more recent career with Karine Polwart: “Ten years now! She gets a long-service medal or something. She’s been an amazing enabler, and I get to work with that material! Her observation is amazing. She manages to put what I think and feel in such an articulate, poetic way.”
And, as Inge’s debut solo album Shipwrecks And Static bears witness, her own writing sensibilities are similarly lyrical and astute. But with Da Fishing Hands, that poetic narrative takes on epic pro- portions. At its beating heart is a subject very close to home – the fishing hands (grounds) of Fair Isle, knowledge of which has been passed down through the generations as a means for the fishermen to locate a good catch.
Fair Isle’s economy was historically almost entirely dependent on fishing, but drastic depletion of stocks caused by trawlers overfish- ing, changed that. Now the island’s economy is largely based on eco- tourism, with many bird watchers visiting the island to experience the impressive migratory populations. The threat of overfishing remains however. “Everyone’s worried. We’ve seen real drops in numbers of seabirds. We’re just looking at the changes over a decade – and they’re so dramatic!”
A close-knit community, pioneering projects in eco-tourism, renewable power and sustainable environmental management, the islanders have responded tenaciously to the threat to marine resources around the island. FIMETI, the community-led Fair Isle Marine Environment and TourismInitiative, are involved in an ongo- ing campaign to set up an MPA (Marine Protected Area), and to rein- state a five-kilometer commercial fishing limit.
Inge’s inspiration for this project came when she was at home looking at a map of the fishing hands, created by her sister-in-law, Emma Perring. Made in response to many of the older island fisher- men taking their inherited knowledge with them to the grave, and compiled as a resource for FIMETI, the maps denote triangulation points connecting visible landmarks and sea stacks and the contour lines of the ocean topography.
“I thought it would amazing to make a piece of music out of these beautiful maps, a kind of graphic score. I wrote a whole pile of wee tunes but they were all really, really spiky because of the nature of the maps! It was really enjoyable…but probably a bit testing for audiences! I did keep a few of them, slowed down, so they felt more like tunes rather than a Tourettic infliction!”
The maps also got Inge thinking about the cultural significance of this information, and the impact of changes in the marine envi- ronment on all aspects of island life. She sat down with Lise and asked her to write some lyrics (“always very grounded in the island and the elements”) to go along with it.
After receiving Creative Scotland funding, FIMETI commissioned Inge and Lise to write a body of work highlighting their cause. Build- ing from the ground up, the pair set about speaking to the isles’ folk, gaining insights and views from across the generations. They taped hours of interviews: experiences of the fishing hands, memo- ries of going out on boats with fathers and grandfathers, and obser- vations of how things have changed.
Both were acutely aware of the political nature of the subject. 25 percent of people in Shetland derive their income from some aspect of the fishing industry. “For a fisherman to make a living it’s tough! They’ve got massive boats and are mortgaged up to the hilt. Lisa was concerned about her song The Fisherman And The Sea sounding like an attack on the fisherman. (“It’s hard to understand why we need to
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