Northern Flyway – Northern Flyway
Hudson Records – 14 September 2018
“I’d like to fly like that and never touch the earth”
In one repeated refrain Inge Thomson epitomizes our envious fascination with birds. Soaring in freedom above our earthbound gaze, masters of the sky and of song. Countenancing, as the title of the song suggests, No Barriers, No Borders.
September 14th sees the release of the CD companion to a remarkable live audio/visual project – Northern Flyway. Conceived and performed by Inge Thomson (Karine Polwart Trio, Da Fishing Hands) and Jenny Sturgeon (Salt House, Jenny Sturgeon Trio) Folk Radio reported last year on this enthralling 75 minute live performance; a multi-dimensional exploration of birdsong, ecology, and folklore through a blend of music, field recordings, song, and interviews; all presented before a stunning visual backdrop.
Northern Flyway premiered to a sold-out audience at The Barn (Banchory) in January 2018 and a CD of the songs was recorded at Mareel, Shetland, over four days in early February 2018. Featuring field recordings by Magnus Robb of Sound Approach, singer/multi-instrumentalist Sarah Hayes (Admiral Fallow, Rachel Newton Band) and vocal sculptor/beatboxer Jason Singh (Follow the Fleet, Tweet Music); this unique and captivating project has already been widely praised by press and audiences alike.
The CD itself opens with spoken word, the sound of geese overhead, and the drone of harmonium for Flyway, a trio of voices (Inge, Jenny, Sarah) mesmerise us in time with the steady heartbeat of a tribal drum. A flyway is an avian migration route, and so those followed by migratory birds in the northern hemisphere give the project its title.
Given their individual backgrounds, it’s hard to imagine two performers better suited to a project embracing these themes. Jenny Sturgeon is a bird biologist, and that work goes hand in hand with her music. A recent project commissioned by The National Trust for Scotland, The Wren And The Salt Air, took Jenny to the remote St Kilda Islands, the nesting destination for one-fifth of the world’s gannets. This served as first-hand inspiration for The Gannets, a wind-borne chant that moves from the cliff side colony to a flute melody, and duet, over the open sea, to vividly trigger the memory of anyone who has ever gazed in wonder at gannets diving for fish.
Having grown up on the almost equally remote Fair Isle, Inge Thomson’s cultural, and spiritual, ties to seabirds and migratory birds are strong. Lost Lapwing introduces us to Inge’s favourite bird. Jason Singh’s vocal echoes the lapwing’s keening cry, a stark contrast to the almost monotone vocal duet; a litany of the lapwing’s bad press. Then there’s a sudden softening and a reminder that human song is just as important to this work as birdsong, as piano introduces a re-worked melody for Sweet Afton (Robert Burns)…
“Thou green-crested lapwing thy screaming forbear,
I charge you, disturb not my slumbering Fair.”
Sarah Hayes’ contributions on flute, keyboards and vocal are significant, as exemplified in Rosefinch. These small, colourful visitors pass through our eastern coasts and northern islands in spring and autumn. Inge’s accordion beautifully mimics their short song. With Sarah’s lilting vocal Rosefinch perfectly highlights our endless curiosity about birds – the questions we ask ourselves, and by implication them, about their lives, their drives.
Loch Carron Flame started life as a song in celebration of white fronted geese and their epic migratory journeys. But, as Inge explained in our Song of the Day article in June, the song was soon influenced by a scallop dredger’s destruction of the Loch Carron flame shell reef near Plockton. Its place in this work is a powerful reminder of the holistic view that must be taken of our environments and their ecology. In contrast, We Are the Morning joyously waltzes through the dawn chorus, with Inge’s accordion and vocal punctuated by Jason’s beats and Sarah’s jubilant flute. Moving above that chorus, in The Eagle, adapted from Tennyson’s poem, Jenny’s vocal takes us on an upward journey; ascending through the varied birdsong of the mountainside to reach the eyrie.
https://soundcloud.com/hudsonrecords/loch-carron-flame-northern-flyway
Inge wrote Curlew for her parents, inspired by the birds’ unmistakeable circling, ascending cry and the mutual devotion of a pair that nested behind her childhood home for years. Sarah’s vocal is gentle and crooning as Inge’s accordion sings along with the curlews.
The autumn arrival of waxwings in a nearby rowan tree is always a highlight of my own ornithological year. In Nomad Jenny sings, with Inge’s soft harmonies, in celebration of these colourful flocks. There are times when the simplicity of the spoken word is profound purely because of that simplicity. “I like the waxwings because they’re…beautiful”, says one of the children interviewed on the album. Often, in observing birds, we’re child-like in our wonder, in our envy, in our longing to know, and to understand. The Owls employs a veritable encyclopaedia of owl calls and a chorus of voices over a simple flute melody, in a song from Inge concerning their perceived wisdom, in fact, and in mythology.
Huginn and Muninn closes the album with a return to mythology and Odin’s ravens. With the story of an injured magpie, Jenny’s lead vocal and Inge’s harmonies celebrate our affinity with corvids in general, and Jenny’s own favourite bird, the raven. The song moves on to a reel on flute, to close the album on a contemporary/trad note, with layers of flute, percussion, strings, effects and Jason’s enthralling beats.
Following performances at Celtic Connections and on Shetland earlier this year, a tour of the full live production opens in Edinburgh on 17th September, ahead of the album launch at Cecil Sharp House on the 19th, and a string of performances stretching from Bristol up to Caithness. Do not miss this utterly enthralling, uplifting production.
With captivating music and song, fascinating snatches of interview, and immersive soundscapes, Northern Flyway takes us on a journey through our own relationship with birds, their environments, their movements – all ultimately linked to our own, and to our own mythology, our politics, our identities. Perhaps most importantly, to the hopes and dreams that have defined humanity since we first looked to the skies…
“Over walls and wire
over river and mountain
over road and border
over sea and wave”
No Barriers, No Borders
PRE-ORDER NORTHERN FLYWAY NOW – https://lnk.to/
2018 Tour dates:
17th September – Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh
19th September – Cecil Sharp House, London
20th September – St George’s, Bristol
21st September – Cornerstone, Didcot
22nd September – Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff
23rd September – The Stables, Wavendon
25th September – Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock
26th September – The Tolbooth, Stirling
27th September – Lemon Tree, Aberdeen
29th September – Lyth Arts Centre, Caithness
30th September – Findhorn Bay Arts Festival, Findhorn
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