Rory Matheson & Graham Rorie – We Have Won The Land

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Located in the far North West Highlands of Scotland, Assynt is an area of spectacular beauty. I know it well as it is world-famous for its geology, but Rory Matheson & Graham Rorie‘s We Have Won the Land celebrates a very different and far more recent historical event. Crofting has always been a hard way of life, increasingly so in the second half of the last century. Times when possession of the land often passed from traditional estate owners into the hands of property speculators who knew little and cared even less about the people who lived and worked on the land. By the early 1990s, the legal position had shifted slightly more in favour of the crofters. However, there was still a world of difference between the possibility of buying the land and the financial reality of being able to do so. At that time, North Lochinver Estate comprising 21,300 acres stretching from the coast up into a land of small lochs and isolated summits of around 250 metres, was owned by a Swedish land speculator whose company was going into liquidation. The crofters saw an opportunity and began a campaign that led to the formation of the Assynt Crofters Trust and eventually to a successful bid for the land.

Rory Matheson was born and grew up in Drumbeg, one of the villages on the estate; his family was heavily involved from the outset of the buyout campaign. With this background, it’s easy to understand Rory’s desire to tell the story far and wide. Still, it took Covid disruption to provide an opportunity, turning that desire into the joyous and uplifting music that is We Have Won The Land.  Rory is now based in Glasgow, in the heart of the city’s vibrant music scene, and, like so many others, found Covid created an opportunity for collaborations that in normal times, with everyone’s numerous touring and recording commitments, just wouldn’t happen. Enter Glasgow-based Orcadian Graham Rorie, who, though busy with his own lockdown album, The Orcadians of Hudson Bay, was keen to get involved. So, the Assynt album became a duo project with Rory and Graham sharing both writing and arranging credits.

The two of them play a range of instruments, piano and keyboards from Rory, fiddle, mandolin and tenor guitar from Graham, but their vision for the music created a need for more. Anna Massie, a stalwart of so many excellent recordings over recent years, is on guitar and a colleague of hers from Blazing Fiddles, Kristan Harvey, adds a second fiddle part. It didn’t hurt that Kristan also plays with Rory in the Orcadian fiddle quartet, Fara. Rory also plays in the six-piece instrumental powerhouse TRIP, and from there comes the bodhrán of Craig Baxter and flutes and whistles from Sligo man Tiernan Courell. Charlie Stewart, Scottish Young Trad Musician of 2017, on the strength of his fiddle playing, is here on bass and makes up half of the back line alongside Fraser Stone on drums. Two of the album’s tracks are traditional Gaelic songs, and they’re sung by the well-established Gaelic singer James Graham. He hails from the town of Lochinver and has made a point throughout his career of collecting songs traditional to Assynt, clearly a shoo-in for this album.

With personnel of this calibre, you’d have every reason to expect music of the highest quality, and We Have Won The Land lives up to all such expectations. Each of the eight instrumental tracks has a title reflecting a stage through which the buyout campaign progressed, with music to match the prevalent mood: hope, frustration, disappointment, and elation. Furthermore, text in an eight-page booklet gives brief but significant detail of the events and, importantly, puts names to many of the leading characters along with contemporary quotes from them. Taken together, music and text bring the events of 1992 and ‘93 to life, leaving a sense you’ve been given a genuine insight into the crofters’ victory.

These musicians may have roots in the traditional music of their respective areas, but they also show that willingness to stray across genres that’s a vital quality of today’s Glasgow music scene. The result is a suite of splendidly varied tunes. On the one hand, there are tracks such as Who Possesses This Land?, a slow air led by Graham’s fiddle interweaved with Rory’s piano, achingly expressing the doubt and uncertainty that followed the rejection of the Trust’s second bid. Contrast this with the sheer exuberance of the final tune, The Assynt Crofter’s Reel, from the album’s title track set. Driven along by a pulsing drum beat, fiddle, whistle, and piano lines merge and compete on the melody, bringing it to a rousing climax.

Unsurprisingly, The Winning Bid is another lively piece, reflecting celebrations on the night the crofters learned their third and final bid had been accepted. It’s notable for the decidedly non-traditional drum and piano/keyboard part behind the melody. In the middle of the piece, the piano breaks away from the rhythm to insert rapid phrases from the high end of the keyboard that would surely feel equally at home in a modern jazz piece. It’s fun to spot where other style changes pop up, Stating Intentions, the album’s second track, represents a time when the exciting idea of a buyout was still fresh. Towards the end of the tune, the fiddle injects a distinct flavour of western swing; for me, that’s musical freedom, matching the anticipated break away from the old restrictions of the crofting system.  

Whilst small, iconoclastic moments such as these are celebrations of the significant changes to the crofters’ lives promised by the buyout, they also signal the sheer enjoyment Rory and Graham gained from their collaboration. In their words, they had a great time putting the album together. The Assynt Crofters’ path to success wasn’t a smooth one, and the downs, as well as the ups, are faithfully reflected in the music. But listen to the album in its entirety, and the lasting impression is a joyful one. The more appreciative you are of wild and remote places, the more this album will resonate. And the more you listen to this gem of an album, the more appreciative of wild and remote places you may become. It’s a win-win, North Assynt as the new staycation hot spot?

We Have Won the Land is out now. Order via Bandcamp here.