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I comment that she’d paced it extremely well, and then the ending does- n’t go where you expect it to…
“Yes, I think it’s part of what I found
that I enjoy, and I’m still finding it out, like when I’ve been gigging with Anna, that magic of giving an audience something that changes how they might perceive the song or tune you’re going to play. I’ve real- ly found that with performing Mackerel [which won a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Best Original Track]. We could just play it and it stands up on its own, but I really rel- ish taking the audience on what has become quite a solid narrative before it, so that I can take them somewhere I want them to be while they hear the song.”
How much of the solo show is script- ed, and how much of it is still free form?
“It’s interesting, but there are three voices in the show – the story that is being revealed through the show is quite script- ed, and I’ve worked with Liam Hurley on that script. That’s the guy who worked with Karine Polwart’s Wind Resistance, and I got to know him on that Edinburgh course actually, which Karine recommend- ed we both go on. So about a third of it is very scripted, and there’s a slightly less scripted but still organised sort of memoir of me talking about my grandparents, and then there’s a very unscripted bit which I think, as the show goes on, will become more solid. But I like the idea of flitting between some quite concrete words that I want to be very specific, and having the flexibility to adapt to each audience. It’ll eventually be a bit of both, I think.”
And it will be touring in 2019?
“Yes, it will be. I’ve got support from PRS and Arts Council to do that, which is fantastic. So I’ll do that, through the sum- mer and into autumn as well, just perform- ing it, and aiming to do a run at the Fringe in Edinburgh. I imagine mostly I’ll be
bringing this show to Arts Centres and the- atres who know me already and trust me enough. A few places have just booked it without knowing anything about it, which is so nice, and it’s because I’ve built up those relationships. But I’m quite clear that I don’t want to or need to just plough this show and do it 80 times in the year. I only want to perform it in venues that it’ll really make sense in.”
Meanwhile, the songs themselves can be recorded… “Yeah. There’s an album of songs, two or three that actually aren’t in the show but they’re part of the project. I would hope that all the songs actually have more of a life, because they are about many other things.”
when I was in my late teens, and then I haven’t really played it since. I suppose my vision for the solo project, when I didn’t really know what it was going to be, was I just imagined myself sitting on stage with my tools. I’m a fiddle player, I love playing viola as well, and I’m a banjoist. To have my friends there and be able to pick from that palette felt really natural. And I’m quite interested for this project to bring in a sound world that I’ve not really record- ed with before. The point at which the guitar comes in the show is around the reveal and around bringing the story into the modern world and the relevance of it, and then I bring in that sound world that isn’t fiddles and banjos anymore … well I like the idea of that, of bringing in some- thing people aren’t expecting at that moment. I’ve worked quite a lot with a bass clarinet player called Jack McNeill, who’s coming from the improv-jazz world and all that is very interesting to me exploring my solo artistry really.”
T
ell me about the twangy elec- tric guitar… have you gone all Duane Eddy on us? “Well I used to play guitar, I did my early songwriting on the guitar,
“I’m conscious to avoid this idea that
it’s like a memoir, or that I’m making a show about my grandparents. I’ve come at this very much from my fear and worries about the world now and I think that’s what the show is about for me. I’m just telling it through that story from my grandparents. Most of my inspiration for this piece has been writers, not music at all. I think of it as a poetic piece.”
“The main two writers that have formed so much of the emotional content, and also the way in, are John Berger, who died a couple of years ago but who was an amazing philosopher and sociologist and art historian. He was also a poet and a staunch Marxist historian, incredibly politi- cal, but has this knack of speaking to abso- lute humanity, and he was my guide in why I’m telling the story, and how to tell the story. And the other is Etty Hillesum. She only lived to 29; she was a Jewish psy- chology student and poet who lived in Amsterdam, but eventually died in Auschwitz. She was a diarist for the last four or five years of her life, and her diaries really pushed me to tell the story, because of her timeless voice. The show for me is this idea of how horror and beau- ty co-exist, and the crux of the show is absolutely that. She had such incredible hope. So I guess I found those two thinkers a huge comfort and strength.”
Rowan’s forthcoming solo album, The
Lines We Draw Together, is due for release in late summer 2019, produced by Andy Bell and based on the music from Dis- patches On The Red Dress. It features col- laborations with innovative indie, jazz, contemporary classical and electronic musicians, including bassist Michele Stod- dart (The Magic Numbers), clarinetist Jack McNeill (Propellor), experimental percus- sionist Laurence Hunt and electronic com- poser Robert Bentall.
rowanrheingans.co.uk F
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