Iona Lane has a deep affinity with the Scottish landscape. Her new album, Swilkie (reviewed here), is a love song to Scotland’s islands and the people who live there, and an impassioned plea for the conservation of wild spaces and communities on the margins. But Iona, who grew up in Yorkshire, is a relative newcomer to the region. She found time in her busy tour schedule to talk to KLOF about how she came to know and love her adopted homeland, and how it came to inform her music.
‘My mum is a geologist and loves the landscape and geology in the highlands, particularly on Mull and in Assynt,’ she begins. ‘This led to us spending a lot of time up here for school holidays. When I went to Leeds Conservatoire to study Folk Music I became interested in writing about landscapes. I remember discovering that the Songs of Separation album [the BBC Folk Award-winning collaboration conceived in the wake of the referendum on Scottish independence] was written and recorded on the Isle of Eigg. I saw the band perform the album at Cambridge Folk Festival and I loved the music. Knowing that it had been recorded in Eigg I went on my first solo trip to explore the island, I feel like that album gave me a lot of inspiration. I’m now based in Inverie in Knoydart, which is a remote peninsula of the mainland on the north side of Loch Nevis.’
Many of Iona’s early songs were concerned with mountain landscapes, but more recently, she seems to have turned towards coasts and islands for inspiration. Is there a reason for this change in perspective?
‘For as long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by islands and the coastline that separates land. There’s a sense of the unknown and mystery to the sea. The shoreline is like a threshold, between two states, the land and the sea; a boundary that has been drawn by the Earth. It’s ever changing, evolving, receding, growing, just like we are as human beings; an ever present reminder that things change over time. This still feels like the beginning of exploring these ideas but I suppose the ever changing tide has a lot to answer for the changes in perspective!’
Swilkie is the latest in a long and prestigious line of folk albums that engage with wild spaces. Iona is keen to explain why natural landscapes are such an important theme for her and for musicians in general.
‘As we move further into a digital age, I think the desire for something more natural and organic is becoming stronger. I think access to nature is incredibly important and many other musicians feel the same way. For me, they’re easier to write about than human beings!’
But as well as being steeped in nature, Swilkie is full of incredibly rich historical detail. I’m keen to know whether she needed to do a lot of research, and if so, how did she go about it, and is it an aspect of the work she enjoys?
‘Yes, research is a massive part of the writing process. A lot of the research was done in the places where we wrote the album, so on the Isle of Eigg, Isle of Mull and Sanday in Orkney, from the people we spoke to but also books about the places.’ She is also quick to emphasise the importance of more modern methods: ‘I did a fair amount of online research and used resources such as Tobar An Dualchais / Kist o Riches – it’s a great online resource. YouTube is also a big resource… I watched so many documentaries on lighthouses! I also love studying maps, you can learn a lot from a place by how the maps have developed over the years.’
One such piece of online investigation led to one of Swilkie’s most strikingly original songs, Albatross, which tells the true story of Albert the albatross, whose presence around the Shetland Islands made him a bit of a folk hero in the 1970s. Much has been written about Albert, including pieces by Bruce Chatwin and Gavin Francis (in his book Island Dreams), but Iona discovered him via a less conventional, more serendipitous route.
‘I think I found out about him on Geograph initially. Geograph is a website that has a freely accessible archive of geographically located photographs. Photographs in the Geograph collection are chosen to illustrate significant or typical features of each 1 km × 1 km grid square in the Ordnance Survey National Grid. I stumbled across one of Albert when looking at images of Hermaness in Unst!’
A few of Iona’s songs feature birds – Curlew and Staffa, as well as Albatross. She stresses the significance of birds in her life, but is self-deprecating when it comes to her own skill as an ornithologist.
‘I love birds,’ she says. ‘I think they’re such amazing creatures! Sadly I am not very good at IDing them but I feel their presence in landscapes is important and often hearing birds makes me feel grounded and safe. Seabird populations are so present on the islands that I think it would have been quite difficult not to write about them!’
Another important facet of Swilkie is its sense of community and collaboration. Her primary musical partner was Malin Lewis, who is credited as co-writer on many of these songs. How did she come to work with them and what was the songwriting process like?
‘I met Malin on the Making Tracks Residency in 2022 and I thoroughly enjoyed writing with them at the time. I love collaborating within songwriting and thought it would be fun to work with an instrumentalist rather than another songwriter. Malin brought an amazing energy to the writing process and they helped me create the album in a way that I would not have been able to alone.’
In a sense, the countryside and its topography, as well as people who inhabit the villages and crofts of rural Scotland, were as much a part of the collaborative process as Iona’s fellow musicians. This is particularly true of the album’s bonus disc, recorded live in various small venues. What made her want to include the disc of live recordings?
‘Sense of place is at the core of these songs and feeling connected with the landscape was a big part of the writing process. I wanted to capture some of the early stages of these songs and feature a few musicians who also feel a connection to those places. All of the location recordings are in different places and I thought they created a documentation of the creative process.’
And what about musicians beyond this immediate circle, who has inspired her work?
‘Karine Polwart is a huge inspiration of mine – her writing is just phenomenal! I also take a lot of inspiration from Joshua Burnside, Rachel Sermanni and Kris Drever. I’m really enjoying Joshua Burnside’s new album ‘Teeth of Time‘ at the moment.’
It’s something of a surprise that she has the time to listen to anything at all, given how full her diary is at the moment. But this hasn’t curtailed her enthusiasm, and it’s good to hear that she’s already thinking about future projects.
‘I’m super busy this year with touring the new album! I’m currently on tour in Germany, Denmark and The Netherlands and from the end of May I’m touring across Scotland, England and Wales. I am doing a wee bit of writing though and I have ideas for the next album. I am also running another Humankind Songwriting Retreat with Katie Spencer in April 2026 – there are limited spaces left if anyone is interested in booking on!’
Anyone who does manage to snap up one of those final spaces will be in for a treat – Iona Lane is one of the most talented and engaging songwriters around (details below).
Swilkie is out now – (DL/Double CD & Ltd Ed. Vinyl + Songbook) – https://ionalane.bandcamp.com/album/swilkie
Find out more about Iona Lane and Katie Spencer’s Humankind Songwriting Retreat: 20th-24th April 2026 – https://www.ionalane.com/humankindsongwritingretreat
“Iona and Katie are fabulous teachers and hosts. Kinlochmoidart is a stunning place to grow into a better songwriter with like-minded and enthusiastic people of all ages and experience. I came away with some big precious memories.” – 2024 attendee
You can also hear Iona on the latest KLOF Mixtape No. 46 here.
Upcoming Tour Dates
Tickets: https://www.ionalane.com/live
15/05/25 – Haus Eifgen, Wermelskirchen GERMANY
17/05/25 – Cultureel Trefpunt Voorne aan Zee, Hellevoetsluis NETHERLANDS
18/05/25 – Kleine Walhalla, Rotterdam NETHERLANDS
SCOTLAND & ENGLAND
29/05/25 – Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal
31/05/25 – The Lost ARC, Rhayader
01/06/25 – Tree House Bookshop, Kenilworth
04/06/25 – Ashburton Arts Centre, South Devon
05/06/25 – The Acorn, Penzance
08/06/25 – Cafe #9, Sheffield
09/06/25 – Lightship, Blyth
10/06/25 – Alnwick Playhouse
11/06/25 – Lakeside Arts, Nottingham
12/06/25 – Unicorn Theatre, Abingdon
13/06/25 – Ilkley Manor House, Yorkshire
16/06/25 – Tonbridge Folk Club
17/06/25 – Colchester Folk Club
18/06/25 – Green Note, London
19/06/25 – Rosslyn Court, Margate
20/06/25 – Canopy Theatre, Beccles
21/06/25 – Deepdale Camping, Norfolk
24/06/25 – Hoy at Anchor Folk Club
25/06/25 – Redbourne Folk Club
26/06/25 – The Rankin Club, Leominster
27/06/25 – St Anne’s Church, Bewdley
28/06/25 – Violets Tea Room, Bridgnorth
30/06/25 – Lowther Pavilion, Lytham St. Annes
03/07/25 – Tolbooth, Stirling
05/07/25 – Knockvologan, Isle of Mull
06/07/25 – Resipole Studio, Acharacle
11/07/25 – The Ceilidh Place, Ullapool
18/07/25 – Knoydart Community Hall, Knoydart
31/07/25 – Gregson Arts & Community Centre, Lancaster