Scottish trio Salt House (Jenny Sturgeon, Ewan MacPherson and Lauren MacColl) have shared their new single and video ‘Headwater’, the first to be taken from their forthcoming new album ‘Riverwoods’.
Salt House have always displayed a love of the land and nature, their songs often prompting pause for reflection on the complex and finely balanced nature of life on earth. As noted by Thomas Blake in his album review, the title of their last studio album ‘Huam‘ (2020), seemed to be “fully-formed from the depths of the countryside”, a thread that often runs through their song themes such as on Moutain of Gold: “The lyrics visit the recurring theme of the warmth of home and hearth in contrast to the snow and tumult of nature, and there is a hint of eastern philosophy in the notion that the balance between the two is what’s important.”
The music of their new album was inspired by and featured in the conservation film ‘Riverwoods: An Untold Story’ by Scotland: The Big Picture (see trailer below), which has just been released. Three years in the making, Riverwoods shines a light on the perilous state of Scotland’s salmon and tells the compelling story of an inextricable relationship between fish and forest. The Atlantic Salmon are a key indicator species; the ‘canary in the coalmine’ if you like; their presence, or decline, indicates an ecosystem’s health. The salmon rely on clean, cold water, and woodlands play a vital role in providing that, especially with climate change. I’ve seen this first-hand here in Somerset, where Atlantic Salmon travel up the River Tone via the River Parrett, leaping the weirs along the way to the cool gravel beds to spawn in woodland near to where I live.
Salt House expands on the film’s theme in their new album as they explore their interest in the natural world and our human impact upon it.
Order/Stream the single: https://smarturl.it/headwater
Website: https://www.salthousemusic.com/
Find out more about the Riverwoods film here: https://www.scotlandbigpicture.com/riverwoods
Watch the Riverwoods Trailer: