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ways we could interpret Oran Bagraidh [pronounced, more or less, Orun Brack-kee]. We came to a shared understanding. The poem is shrouded in mystery, the language lost, and we understood that none of us would get a perfect understanding of it, but in that gap of understanding creativity could flourish and we could add our own interpretation. The dialect shared all our languages, so we could make the sounds and we created something that really brings it to life.”
“You never know,” says Gwyn, “if a collaboration is going to work until you’re in a room, but there was so much good will and eagerness to explore.”
Holmes wanted the project to feel organic: “I wanted every- one to be inspired by each other.” She asked everyone to bring pieces “that were relevant to their own tradition, or knowledge relating to the multi-cultural diversity theme in Galloway, and explore the idea of diversity within themselves.”
The subsequent collaborations on all these contributions, that all feature various members of the collective, are inspired and often surprising. Bragod (Robert ‘Bob’ Evans (lyre and crwth) and Trinidadian carnival star Mary-Anne Roberts (voice)) turned up with Uryen Erechwydd, a Welsh poem from about the 9th century, in praise of the ruler of Rheged. “This,” says Evans, “is the same place as Galloway: it says of the same struggle for the same patch of land.” Bragod set the poetry to music using compositional tech- niques of the later Middle Ages that cause the music to move in and out of phase with the poetry, so creating tension and resolu- tion. You can hear it on this issue’s fRoots 72 compilation.
The result sounds extraordinary, modern, bonkers – like Yoko Ono if she could sing like Roberts in a wonderfully resonant voice in ancient Welsh and was having an excellent day. The traditional instruments and subtle addition of synthesised sounds play as one, underpinning the ancient/modern timelessness of the track.
As well as arrangements featuring a mix of original and tradi- tional melodies, there’s traditional and original lyrics/poetry, such as Rody Gorman’s Haiku-like Air Cnoc Bharr Sguab On Barscobe Hill. He voices his words in Scottish Gaelic and in English. They are inspired by the local landscape, which appears in found sounds in the track itself, mixing with Caldwell’s fiddle to create an atmo- spheric evocation of ageless place.
“The whole,” says Caldwell, “is an emotional reflection on ideas relating to Irish history of emigration, of belonging to a loca- tion but that is impractical for the life you want to live.” It’s a theme again beautifully rendered in Mac Giolla Bhride’s setting of the 16th-century Beannacht Uaim Siar (A Blessing Westward).
Place identity and magic resonate throughout the album. Amongst the influences Barnaby Brown weaves together in Ardchat- tan Bliss are Sardinian, Welsh, Piobaireachd (Highland ‘classical’ pipe music), Ugandan and Anglo-Saxon musical and magical elements.
The landscape around Barscobe House, Caldwell says, “res- onated through the music, across the album. Everyone understood they were bringing the project to its geographical home on a deep level. Everyone would go on walks together, listen to the found sounds.” It was a connection made on a further physical level when “The guy who came in to make the video, who was a for- ager, came back with a basket of chanterelles and for dinner we all had the most fantastic risotto.”
Bragod
Photo: Jethro Optical
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