One of Folk Radio’s favourite band’s, The Shee, are setting out on a UK tour. The concerts will be showcasing material largely taken from the wonderful Murmurations album, released in the latter part of last year. At the time Billy Rough reviewed it for Folk Radio UK here and concluded, “With some beautifully sensitive musicianship and stunning vocals it’s hard not to be left spellbound.” On that we are all agreed.
If you don’t have the CD yet, (and you really should), you have the opportunity to own a unique artefact. Each of the handsome card sleeves is different, as they catch a murmuration of starlings in flight. One of the great sights of dusky skies, flocks of birds, sometimes thousand strong, seem to move with unified purpose and exquisite co-ordination. Each sleeve captures a different image of “the endlessly evolving flight patterns of the starlings” on the wing. The parallel in the way that the exceptionally talented six piece band combine their musical ideas and skills is obvious making the title for the CD most apt.
The April dates are actually billed as the second half of the Murmurations tour and I caught up with Rachel Newton, the band’s harpist and one it’s lead voices, just as preparations are underway. She explains why there has been a gap in the dates. “It is very hard to juggle everyone’s schedules! We mainly try to tour in the school holidays as Olivia teaches strings in schools up in the Highlands and Shona also does a lot of work in schools. In a way that makes it easier as we always know when to block off time for the band and we just don’t take on any other work in those periods.”
Although originally from quite different counties across the UK and coming together at Newcastle University’s pioneering folk music course, the band members still live quite remotely, based in Scotland and the Tyne area. Rachel is pleased they have avoided the problems of the recent spell of ‘weather’ and have an early get together. “We’re meeting up for a rehearsal a couple of days before the tour, starting off with a big meal at Amy’s house in Wallsend so we can get all the gossip and catching up out of the way first…otherwise we would never get anything done!”
Rachel reveals that the songs and tunes of Murmurations are still evolving, “Definitely. We often find a song or tune arrangement doesn’t feel quite the same live as it does on record and adapt accordingly.” That seems true of all of their recorded work, as she continues, “We recently had a chat about revisiting some of the songs and tunes that we’ve not done for a while since we have made a bit of time to rehearse before the tour. So, there may be some re-workings of older material mixed in with our usual set list. We’re all excited about that.”
Amy Clogging!
Pressed further about the older material she assures that some of the usual highlights of their set remain, “Tom Paine’s Bones from our first album A Different Season is a favourite for sure. It’s got such a great chorus and message. We’d be wary of not putting it on the set list for fear of heckles from the audience! Another favourite is Down In The Ditch, which Amy has choreographed a fantastic clog dance to. It always lifts the gig up a notch when Amy dances.”
Returning to the newest CD, one of our favourites from last year, it’s hard to believe that such intricate and thoughtfully arranged music was recorded in just four days. Rachel returns to the idea that the music can take on a life of its own in performance, “Some of the material on the album was performed live beforehand, to let it take on its life and others we took straight in to the studio with us.” She adds, “We make sure we have rehearsed the material to the point that we can get it nailed in a reasonable amount of takes.”
But even so, I suggest that it must take something to pull all of their collective talent. Unsurprisingly Rachel is quit definite about the way The Shee work best. “We don’t bring anything to the band that has already been arranged. We did try to once, but it didn’t work. A huge part of our sound is what is created from us all arranging the music together from scratch. It’s really important to us. A crude generalisation, but the usual structure would be Amy coming up with chords, Laura-Beth providing a rhythm, myself on some sort of riff or bass line and the other on harmonies and things such as brass-like stabs. It’s a lot of fun when an arrangement starts to take shape and we like to take time making sure it works for everyone. There’s no leader as such. Sometimes one person might have more ideas for a certain track than others and we just go with it. If there’s something in the arrangement one of us really doesn’t like, we’ll try something else. I’d say it’s pretty democratic.”
The Shee are also quick to credit their producer and engineer too, and Rachel expands on their working relationship, “Duncan, our producer, meets with us beforehand and although we arrange the material ourselves, he makes invaluable suggestions. Stuart is an excellent engineer who’s recorded all three albums. They work really well as a team at Castlesound and the studio has several booths for separation, allowing us to record live. Having six different opinions isn’t ideal in a recording situation when time is of the essence, so Duncan pulls everything together, taking the results and working hard on edits etc before the final mixing and mastering.”
Apart from these timely interventions by trusted allies as part of the recording process, The Shee set out to be staunchly independent. Rachel displays just the right amount of pride, saying, “We’ve been amazed at the opportunities we’ve had since we started considering we haven’t had a record label pushing us or backing us financially and have pretty much done everything ourselves. We’ve played the main stage at Cambridge Folk Festival, Cropredy and some fantastic gigs at Celtic Connections to name but three, plus some fantastic support from broadcasters such as Mike Harding and Maryann Kennedy. We don’t tour full-time due to our other commitments, but in a way it means we’ve been able to stay together and keep it a special and enjoyable experience.”
Interview by: Simon Holland
[stextbox id=”black” caption=”The Shee Tour Dates”]
3rd April – 8pm – The Stables – Milton Kenes – Tickets
4th April – 7.45pm – The Theatre – Chipping NortonT- Tickets
5th April – 8pm – The Ropetackle Arts Centre – Shoreham by Sea – Tickets
6th April – 8pm – Borough Theatre – Abergavenny – Tickets
8th April – 8pm – Nettlebed Village Club – Henley on Thames – Tickets
9th April – 8pm – Norwich Arts Centre – Tickets
10th April – 7.45pm – The Red Lion Folk Club – Birmingham – Tickets
11th April – 7.30pm – The Roses Theatre – Tewksbury – Tickets
12th April – 8pm – The Apex – Bury St Edmunds – Tickets
13th April – 7.30pm – The Wiltshire Music Centre – Bradford On Avon – Tickets[/stextbox]
Visit The Shee’s website and order Mumurations: theshee.com