Karine Polwart – five-time winner of the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and our Artist of the Month for November – releases her new album ‘A Pocket Of Wind Resistance’ this month on November 17, via Hudson Records (read our album review here). Written with Scottish sound designer Pippa Murphy, ‘A Pocket Of Wind Resistance’ is the musical accompaniment to Polwart’s critically acclaimed theatrical debut (“Poignant, unflinching and beautiful” ***** – The Telegraph). The production was written, musically directed and performed by Polwart, winning the Best Music and Sound Award at the 2017 CATS. Alongside three other nominations, it also placed Polwart on the shortlist for the Best Actor ‘Scottish Oscar’ in the Sunday Herald Culture Awards.
Listen to Lark in the Clear Air below, also our Song of the Day.
Speaking about the glistening ‘Lark In The Clear Air’, which sets Irish poet Sir Samuel Ferguson’s words against marimba & harp, Karine says; “In the spring and summer, Fala Moor is alive with skylarks, floating up and up on invisible shafts of air. And yet skylarks are a red-listed endangered species in the British Isles, pushed to the margins by intensive industrial farming practices. The RSPB has responded by encouraging farmers to incorporate skylark “plots” into their fields in order to protect their vulnerable ground nests. In Gaelic, the word for skylark is fosg. It means, literally, open space, including the space above us. When I go to Fala Moor, I get filled up with space.”
The ‘Wind Resistance’ project took seed from Karine’s view of the migration of pink-footed geese to Fala Flow, close to Polwart’s home just south of Edinburgh. Watching the geese’s shifting skeins – in which the birds create pockets of wind resistance to aid each other’s flight – prompted Karine to consider how humans depend upon each other, & whether or not we form skeins of our own. The geese’s role in Fala Flow’s delicate ecology – explored in beautiful detail by Polwart on early single ‘Labouring and Resting’ – resonated with Polwart’s own recent experience of becoming a mother and protecting a family of her own.
Karine says; “It’s a meditation on the ways in which we, as humans, protect and care for one another, and for all life, by stepping up, falling back, labouring and resting in our own fashion. In particular, it’s a hymn to mothers and birthing, to the proffering of sanctuary, to the miracle of medicine, and a reminder, a warning, about the consequences of isolating and forgetting.”
Pre-Order A Pocket of Wind Resistance here: https://karinepolwart.lnk.to/windresistanceTW
Following a run of shows through October, Polwart will be performing ‘A Pocket Of Wind Resistance’ as part of a residency at The Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh between November 3-11, 2017.
Royal Lyceum Residency 2017
November 03 | Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
November 04 | (Matinee) – Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
November 04 | Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
November 07 | Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
November 08 | (Matinee) – Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
November 08 | Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
November 09 | Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
November 10 | Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
November 11 | (Matinee) – Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
November 11 | Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
https://www.karinepolwart.com/
Photo Credit: Sandy Butler