Kathryn Tickell and The Darkening return with their second album, Cloud Horizons (reviewed here), following 2019’s Hollowbone. It’s an electrifying, perhaps unexpected sound that the Northumbrian-based band experiments with, but a thoroughly thrilling listening experience. Folk Radio UK recently got to chat with Kathryn about how the album came about, the shadow of Hadrian’s Wall, and job-sharing singers. First, we spoke of how the band came together and the origin of Cloud Horizons.
“So, I put the band The Darkening together a few years ago,” notes Kathryn, “and we did one album, and I knew that we hadn’t finished, that we had more to say. We wanted to do another album. Then, through lockdown, I started writing things I thought might work with the band. I also started writing more songs, which is not something I’ve done very much of, and we came out of all of that time and had loads of new material to go out.
“It wasn’t intentionally going to be an album of all new material! We just kept working on things! And it was only when we were recording it that I realised everything had been written in the last two years, which is unheard of for me because I always incorporate traditional music and other music in what I do. It was a bit of a shocker!”
The shift from traditional tunes to modern songs is a new departure for Kathryn, but one which inspired her to explore new soundscapes and narratives – some historic and some more personal. At the album’s heart, though, and Kathryn’s own musical heritage, the links to her Northumbrian past remain.
“I think it would be pretty difficult for me to try and do something that has no sense of those roots because they’re so deep in me and also in the instrument that I play. Whatever you play on Northumbrian pipes, it’s going to have that essential sound of the instrument.
“With The Darkening, there’s those connecting threads that really have always run through everything that I’ve done, which is the music and the people and the place – the landscape and the people that are working and living in it. Those three things have always been inextricably linked. With The Darkening, it’s exactly the same thing, but the people tend not to be living people.
“I’ve always tended to look at tunes from within the last 200 years, but with The Darkening, I’ve made a conscious decision to go further back. The whole point when we first started the band was to go back to Hadrian’s Wall, and it was the Roman wall that really sparked it off – that was my totem.
“When you live in the shadow of Hadrian’s Wall, it’s so present everywhere you go, not just in the wild landscapes, but driving into Newcastle, right down the west Road, Hadrian’s Wall. It’s just there. Also, Kieran (Szifris) and Amy (Thatcher) live in Wallsend, and obviously, that’s very wall linked. But the thing that set me off in the first place was discovering that it wasn’t just Roman soldiers from Rome, or from Italy, but that you had all of these people from the furthest flung reaches of the Roman Empire. People from Syria and Lebanon. You had different troops coming from different areas, lots from North Africa, and the fact that for a couple of 100 years, their whole lives had been transplanted into the wildness that was Northumbria; that really blew my head apart. Thinking that at that time, this little strip of land, across from coast to coast, was probably the most multicultural part of Britain. I just loved it. I found that so exhilarating and exciting. And of course, you have the advantage that all the music, whenever there is a bit from 2000 years ago, nobody has a clue what it sounded like!”
How then to tackle the challenge of new music which makes nods to the past but is equally limited in original sources?
“It’s great because it gives you absolute complete free rein – you can just let your imagination go wherever it wants! But, because I know the land, there’s that really, really intense connection with it. It’s probably a complete flight of fancy, but I feel that I’m connecting. I’m also my father’s daughter, and my dad is well into all the old ballads. So, I’ve been brought up hearing him sing of things that happened 600 years ago.
“I remember when I was little, my uncle had a farm that had some Bronze Age earthworks on it. My dad decided to go and camp out, down beside the river where the Bronze Age people would have been – he was basically trying to evoke spirits and ghosts. Because it was by the river, he used to fish a lot, and he was thinking, ‘this river can’t have changed that much. I know where they would have been fishing; they would have been over there’. That’s the sort of thing I’ve been brought up with, this intense connection, not just with the place, but trying to reach out to whoever was there before. I think with the music, sometimes you’ve got things that were influenced by 2000 years back, but you’re treating them in the way that we are today.
“Several of my wider family were Roman wall farmers and shepherds, and there was one, John Robson, he played pipes and fiddle, same as me. He farmed on the bit of land that has the ruins of the Temple of Mithras on it and also, I think, one of the shrines to Coventina, the water nymph. He was, you know, such a brusque typical Northumbrian farmer, but because all of those farmers know their land so well, I always wondered if there was something going on in his life if he ever invoked the spirits, the gods of war, or Coventina or anything. I don’t know. I really wish I’d asked him because I was thinking so much of him when I was writing those words. His personality is still there in my head, and that community is still there in my head.
“I think anybody who is interested in traditional music, or anybody who’s interested in history, generally, there’s something about the past that you’re fascinated by…that you want to connect to. Something a little bit mysterious, something unknowable, but also strangely, incredibly familiar as well. Especially with land, where you can imagine who would have been here, you can almost summon them up.
“I was writing the sleeve notes for Cloud Horizons and I was thinking this is so linked to Hollowbone. It is very much a continuation. There’s nothing on this album that’s explicitly about Hadrian’s Wall but it was definitely in my head when I was writing the music for it.”
As Kathryn explains, one of the songs on the album, ‘Bone Music’, also had a curious link to a novel by Newcastle-born author David Almond.
“The hollow bone is important in shamanism – it’s the vessel through which the spirit flows. Also, hollow bird bones are the oldest musical instrument. One of the songs on the album is ‘Bone Music’, in which I was trying to write about the wall, and about separation. I was thinking about these people transplanted from New Belgium or northern Spain or North Africa and finding themselves on the Roman wall in what must have felt quite inhospitable countryside and thinking of the people back home and I was trying to write about that. At the same time, I was reading a book by David Almond, called Bone Music, which in turn, was influenced by our previous album. David had listened to the Hollowbone album, and that inspired him to write his book, Bone Music. Then I read his book, and was plunged into this mythical magical David Almond world and that definitely influenced the song!”
Serendipitous links are also part of Cloud Horizons’ origin. The album’s cover features a photograph by Cal Thompson of the stone circle at Duddo in Northumberland.
“I saw that picture of the stone circle and got in touch with Cal, and he was really happy for us to use it. It’s nothing to do with the Roman wall – it just spoke to me. When I looked it up, they are also known as ‘The Singing Stones’, and ‘The Women’, and when we are on stage it is very much that the three women are at the front and the lads are at the back – and they’re not allowed to say anything! There is a strong female energy there!”
Cloud Horizons also touches on some personal narratives for Kathryn but is an album rich in optimism, hope, and enthusiasm for stories to come. This wasn’t necessarily the same story for Hollowbone, but it provided the opportunity to explore different characters of each album.
“On Hollowbone, I’d already written the music, but when we were recording, my life had exploded rather cataclysmically. So, when we were recording it all, the times where I normally would have been being quite careful and thinking, ‘Oh, Kieran’s twanged the mandolin so hard it’s distorting’, I was just like, ‘love it, keep the distortion’. Then, when we were mixing it, the engineer, who’s worked with me quite a lot, was saying, ‘Kathryn, it’s quite out there this mix, it’s quite bass-heavy…’ I was like, ‘Fuck it! Love it’. Because I just didn’t have it in me to be careful, and I really liked the way it sounded; it had an edge to it.
“This one is kind of different. There’s still reverberations from the stuff that happened back then, they’re still there, and they’re very much part of the writing, but the recording experience was very different. I think in this album there’s more happiness in it. There’s even a complete party track on there, ‘One Night in Moaña’ – wait till you see the video of it! It was filmed on our phones at our first festival abroad since lockdown, and oh, my goodness, it was so fantastic – just pure joy!”
“I think the band settled down quite a bit as well. The previous singer had left to go; she moved away to study in Belgium. So, we now have a job share on the singing duties! The band basically is me, Amy, Kieran and Joe, who were all in the previous incarnation, and two different singers, Josie Duncan and Stef Conner, who are very different to each other.
“It’s a bit weird – most people wouldn’t kind of swap out the singer because the singer is usually the focus, but it works for us. It’s really exciting because we have some songs that we only do with Josie and some songs that we only do with Stef, and some songs that they both know. They play different instruments, Steph plays lyres, and she’s got a real in-depth knowledge of ancient music and sings in various different ancient languages; on this one, she’s singing in Latin. Then there’s Josie, who is from the Isle of Lewis and brings a very different feel – something that’s closer to the folk side of things.
“Amy who plays accordion and I had been doing some backing vocals on the first album, and Amy turns out, which isn’t a surprise because she’s brilliant at everything, to be a fantastic singer. So, she’s taking lead vocals on ‘Freedom Bird’. Then I do a little bit. There’s a couple of songs that the band reckoned were so personal to me that I should sing it, so I do a little bit. There’s quite a lot of singing lots of harmonies, too, which we like.”
With Kathryn as the prominent name of the band – it’s Tickell and The Darkening, after all – this could have presented some challenges in terms of final decisions on tracks, sounds, and themes, but it’s a close-knit friendship behind the band and one which proved especially welcome at a difficult time for their leader.
“It’s a very strong little group of people. Amy, Kieran and Joe already work in another band together – they’ve worked together for a long time. Amy and I have worked together for decades now. I’ve known her since she was at school. The whole experience of doing the last album and everything that was going on in my life, they have they’ve been so incredibly supportive.
“I guess it is a kind of hopefully quite friendly sort of dictatorship when it comes down to it! I’m going to have the last the last word but it feels very organic when we work together. It’s more than just the music, there’s a really strong connection there, and I’ve never been in a band that gave that level of support. And to be fair, I’ve really never needed that amount of support before, I’ve always been quite self-sufficient. I have very strong ideas, and this is the path that we all have to tread but in this band, recent events kind of gave them the opportunity to go, ‘no, we’ve got you’, and it’s very, very much appreciated. I think they know that, and I think when you’re showing those vulnerabilities, and allowing people to step up, there’s a very different connection. I’ve always liked band members to shine, I want them to be visible, otherwise what’s the point of having great musicians? So yeah, I just feel very, very safe and very supported. It’s a great band to be in, we have a laugh!”
In contrast to Hollowbone, Cloud Horizons has a softer, tentatively more melodic sound but is just as rocky, energising, and dynamic as the band’s debut. The test of any second album is how to relate it to the first, but also to explore a new world and sound. It’s something Kathryn and the band were conscious of.
“I can tell you the difference in my head, but whether that actually transmits, I don’t know. In my head, there’s more of a settledness with this one and a sense of hope and positivity, which maybe wasn’t so much there on the first one. On Hollowbone, we were working out what the sound world was – how the instruments fitted together, what I was trying to say, because I definitely wanted that band to sound very different to everything I’ve done before – that was my point of putting it together – I wanted this new, heavier sound world. I wanted it to be dark. And the name, The Darkening, and the front cover of the first album were all chosen to signpost to people that this is going to be something different because I don’t want the person who wants to hear me play ‘Rothbury Hills’ on solo pipes to go, ‘this is awful, what’s she doing?’ I want them to go, ‘hmm, this doesn’t sound like it’s going to be my kind of thing. I’ll wait for the next thing she does’, which, in this case, actually happens to be more of the same band! But I think the band is more settled. We’re working as a unit much, much better, and I have a stronger sense in my head what the constituent parts are.
“One thing that I was just thinking was, The Darkening sounds very different to my other projects, but those key elements: people, place and music, the interconnectedness of that is still very much there. All the elements that people come to see me for, they’re still in there – the slow tune, the sound of the pipes, the essence of place; all of those things are still absolutely there. Nothing has changed in the core of it. It’s just the surroundings.
“There is also this whole idea of empire as well, which I don’t think is explicitly addressed in any of the material but again, in my head, there’s this strong sense of empire – of who’s in, who’s out, who’s marginalised. I live north of the Wall so I would have been in with the Barbarians! Which links directly back to material from the first album (‘O-U-T Spells Out’).”
Coming up, though, are some gigs and tours, with the hope of some festivals next year. “We’ve got quite a few gigs in September and October. Some with Josie, some with Stef. A couple of them with both. We’ll have a nice time! It’s exciting, being able to bring this music to people.” One thing is for sure: the live experience of Kathryn Tickell and The Darkening will be a unique experience which compliments the album.
“I think that the requirements for an album and a live gig are different. There are a set of tunes that we play in pretty much every gig, but we’ve never recorded them because it’s not right for an album. It’s not quite who we are, but it is who we are live. It’s somehow slightly different, like you want there to be a bit more up-tempo, a few more tunes to rock out to, that audiences can dance to, but I don’t necessarily want to be listening to that on the album.
“We’re not one of those bands that tours a particular album, and nothing else can be in the set – we just play whatever is exciting this at the minute. There’s some we’ve never done live yet. ‘Gods of War’ I’m a bit daunted by, that’s a bit too close to the bone that one, so we’ll see. That might just stay an album track!
“I would love to do a summer of fantastic festivals. We had some this year and loved that whole festival vibe – I’m hoping that next year there’ll be more; it will be so great to just really rock out and just go for it. I hope people love the new music. Give it a chance. Take a punt on us!
“Whenever I hear a new album by someone, what I love is to be surprised by something. Many times, I’m not really surprised. It is as I expected – and very fantastic: great playing, great material, but I love to be taken somewhere I didn’t expect to go. I’ve always wanted to do that with my music, even when I’ve played very traditional tunes I’ve always wanted to bring something different out of that. So, I hope listeners are pleasantly surprised!”
Order Cloud Horizons – https://kathryntickell.bandcamp.com/album/cloud-horizons
Live Dates
Fri 1 Sept Lindisfarne Festival
Sat 2 Sept Civic Theatre, Gosforth
Thurs 7 Sept Victoria Hall, Settle
Fri 8 Sept Theatre, Chipping Norton
Sat 9 Sept Swanage Folk Festival
Sun 10 Sept Dartington Arts, Devon
Mon 11 Sept St Ives September Festival
Tues 12 Sept South Street, Reading
Mon 16 Oct Apex, Bury St Edmunds
Tues 17 Oct The Stables, Wavendon
Wed 18 Oct University of York
Mon 23 Oct Gala Theatre, Durham
Tues 24 Oct Waterside Arts, Manchester
Wed 25 Oct St George’s, Bristol
Thurs 26 Oct Cecil Sharp House, London
Fri 27 Oct Ludlow Assembly Rooms
Tickets: kathryntickell.com