Watch The Folk Effect on 16 June at 7pm featuring some of the finest names in UK folk, including Ríoghnach Connolly, Kate Young, Ellie Gowers, Lisa Knapp, Gwilym Bowen Rhys and Jackie Oates.
Getting six exceptional musicians to write six brand-new songs in just six days may sound like a tall order, but that’s exactly what’s just been achieved in The Folk Effect.
Presented by Ondervinden, a theatre company specialising in folk stories and traditions, this ambitious project features some of the finest names in UK folk, including Ríoghnach Connolly, Kate Young, Ellie Gowers, Lisa Knapp, Gwilym Bowen Rhys and Jackie Oates.
Beginning with an archive recording of Tonight I Shall Sleep Lightly, which was dug from the collections at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, each artist had just 24 hours to write a new song, with each being inspired by the one that went before. The result is a chain of songs tied together by their origins, and all traced back to the same traditional roots.
This isn’t the first time The Folk Effect has taken place – some of you may remember the first iteration of the project which ran in late Autumn 2020. In the midst of lockdown, the project was founded on an urgent need to connect artists, musicians and audiences. The songs that came out of the project spoke of the difficulty of the year, the immense feats of resilience we had witnessed, and a need for comfort in what felt like a very long, dark winter. Folk music seemed a fitting antidote for the moment, thriving as it does on the connection and sharing of music within communities.
Six months later, with spring edging into summer, the team felt it was time to bring the project back. As things begin to open up and we digest the last year, this time there’s a focus on renewal. Whilst last year’s project began with a new song, this time around it springs from tradition, as a symbol of what makes folk music unlike any other genre: its continual regeneration and rebirth.
With the shift to traditional beginnings, the team were keen to find artists who could approach this in different ways. Creative Director Elske Waite says, “This time we were looking for musicians who we thought had unique but also individual ways of handling the traditional – through detailed historical research, kaleidoscopic experimentation, electric fusions of style and genre, and other incredible manners of reinvention.”
A fusion of styles and genres is certainly what was achieved. With all six artists having wildly different musical styles, the finished songs are a reflection of six very different musical approaches, despite their common ties. From the technical prowess of Kate Young to the hypnotic vocals of Ríoghnach Connolly, each artist has truly put their stamp on things even given the short time frame.
Waite said, “The best and most startling outcome of the whole project for me, is how each song is so uniquely representative of each artist. You see this immediately in their choices of instrumentation, or their use of technology, or their use of spoken word, or the themes they choose to draw out of the previous piece. We chose artists who had a really strong sense of musical identity, and so even though we’re asking them to respond directly to a piece written by someone else, they have all done so in a way that is entirely in their own language. That balance between embracing someone else’s creation, while retaining their own uniqueness, is incredibly special and exciting to hear.”
The artists themselves seem to have got a great deal from the process. Catching up with the team after the songwriting was completed, Lisa Knapp commented: “You put yourself in a very vulnerable position… it’s a lesson in letting go”. This was a sentiment echoed by Jackie Oates, who said: “It was really good for me to battle with that self-consciousness and still produce a ‘thing’ – and the roughness of it, and the imperfection, is part of the charm”.
There seems to be, amongst the artists, a mutual agreement that the experience has created a feeling of closeness, despite their distance. “There was kind of a feeling of connectedness being in that chain, I don’t know how – some sort of psychic connectedness which I really enjoyed – I liked that idea that other people were having to do this too, but also that there was this thread running through everyone in this short space of time; psychologically there was some sort of felt resonance” says Knapp.
Kate Young discussed how the project has combatted the isolation felt over the last year: “The experience of songwriting is such a solitary process, and through lockdown sometimes it’s so easy to get in a circle of doubt. Being reminded that there are other people in the world doing this job too, sometimes that’s all you need to feel a bit of encouragement for your own practice.”
As well as six musicians, the project also includes a visual element, with beautiful portraits created by Jo Elizabeth May adding another strand to an already complex project. All six songs will be woven together with glimpses of Jo’s creative process to create a final film to broadcast to the public.
All in all, it’s been quite an undertaking for the team – but would they do it again? “Absolutely” responds Waite “In fact, I hope we can repeat this project as often as possible. Nothing replaces live music, but this event, straddling live creation and digital performance as it does, is really something else – it’s truly unique.”
The Folk Effect film will be broadcast on 16 June at 7pm (BST) on Ondervinden’s Facebook page, YouTube channel and website. It is free to view, with donations encouraged to support Ondervinden to do more projects in the future. The Folk Effect is supported by Arts Council England.