Some albums become special through repeated listening: they grow on you, opening up over time to reveal more complex layers and hidden depths. Some are special because they represent a certain memorable point in the listener’s life: a graduation, a wedding, a death. Some are simply great from the word go, world-changing works of artistic genius. But very few come sprinkled with the kind of magic dust that coats the new album by Georgia Shackleton. This is an album with a story behind it, and that story is worth telling because it directly impacts the music. A distant relative of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton, Georgia recently came into possession of the Shackleton Violin, an instrument made from the floorboards of Ernest’s former home in Edinburgh. The luthier responsible for creating this and two other instruments (The Il Mare Violin and The Orca Viola, both of which are used on this album) was Steve Burnett, whose other projects have included violins commemorating Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Conan Doyle.
Shackleton has a history of weaving unifying themes into her work. Her 2023 solo debut, Harry’s Seagull was a celebration of East Anglian song, culture and landscape, built around the songs collected by the Norfolk singer Harry Cox, and on From the Floorboards, she takes this notion of unification a step further by structuring a whole series of songs around her unique instrument. The idea for the album grew directly from the violin, and the violin remains at the heart of the album. Furthermore, it was partly recorded on board the RRS Discovery, now a museum ship in Dundee but formerly Ernest Shackleton’s famed Antarctic research vessel. What’s most impressive is how a sense of history seeps into every corner of the recording. Even listening to it without prior knowledge of the context, you would soon become aware of the time, care and thought that went into making it.
‘The tunes I wrote on it definitely grew from its character,’ Shackleton writes of the violin. The keyword here is ‘character’. From the very first notes of the title track – the album’s opener – we are made aware of the richness and depth of the sound, but this depth is only half of the story: when paired with Shackleton’s nimble, flighty playing style, it sets up a kind of wildness, a tension that makes these tunes feel very much alive. This, in turn, reminds us that the wood that went into the Shackleton violin was once alive and has witnessed any number of historical events.
It is a testament to Shackleton’s talents as a composer and a performer that her tunes never feel overly sincere or melodramatic. Throughout the album, she is joined by a number of guest musicians, including Aaren Bennet (Guitar, backing vocals), Nick Cooke (Melodeon), Sam Kelly (Bouzouki), Christina Alden (Backing vocals), Nic Zuppardi (Mandolin) and Adam Clark (Banjo). Shackleton displays just enough reverence, both for her instrument and for the natural world, which forms the subject matter of many of her songs. The Seahorse, which takes its cue from a Katherine Rundell essay, marks her out as a deft songwriter. Plucked and bowed strings flit around her vocal melodies, and her lyrics offer a clear-eyed appreciation of one of nature’s strangest creatures. Her relationship with nature is based on a sense of wonder, and her songs readily capture this wonder, but at the same time, they can’t help but be political. Band of Mothers is a touching tribute to a group of sperm whales stranded on Britain’s east coast in 2016, their deaths hastened by human interference: climate change, noise pollution, habitat loss. The song is both sad and celebratory, a deceptively simple elegy told from a whale’s point of view. The suddenness of its open-ended denouement is especially effective.
The leap forward in songwriting is the biggest difference between this and Shackleton’s earlier albums. Where Harry’s Seagull contained mostly traditional songs, From the Floorboards is predominantly self-written. The exceptions come in the form of two songs by one of Ernest Shackleton’s crewmates, John Morrison, and one penned by Shackleton himself. The latter, The Engineer and the Doctorman, is the sprightly tale of two Scottish members of the Discovery’s crew. It offers a valuable insight into the lighter side of Shackleton’s character and sheds light on the important role music played in maintaining morale and comradeship during a long voyage. Morrison’s songs – Southward and The Ice King – reveal a writer of real talent. The Ice King has a delicacy of imagery that is perfectly suited to its frozen subject matter, and the propulsive, strummed melody does it justice. Southward chronicles the universal complaint of the sailor: the constant yearning to be back home with the girl he loves. Morrison’s lyrics handle these fraught emotions with subtlety and power, while Shackleton’s singing captures a distinct sense of romantic longing.
If anything, her own songs display an even greater emotional depth and breadth. Sea Legs, which she wrote with Sir Ernest in mind, describes the inescapable pull of the seafaring life with the perfect combination of tenderness and wildness. Happisburgh Tide, with its distinct droning undertow, manages to convey a message about the disastrous effects of rising sea levels with very few words. Here, below the gorgeous, if unsettling, violin tune, she uses field recordings of the coastline, sounds she collected during a residency in Scotland. And she is unafraid to tackle unusual topics. The cold but cute closing track Footprints in the Snow, jostled along by Adam Clark’s banjo, provides a dog’s-eye view of polar exploration, complete with a surprisingly catchy chorus.
The album is scattered with instrumentals, which are as impressive as you would expect from someone with such a strong history in traditional music. Oystercatchers/Down to the Rockpool is a contrasting pair of fiddle tunes, the first jumpy and dramatic, the second more complex, almost lacy in its delicate structure. The way they flow so serenely into one another shows the level of control Shackleton exercises as a composer. Elephant Island/Safe Harbour is even more impressive: the layers of instrumentation – including Sam Kelly’s bouzouki and the drone of Shackleton’s harmonium – create a vivid, almost visual piece, at times stately, always moving forward. East Neuk – another tune with its roots in Shackleton’s Scottish residency – is full of controlled energy, threatening to spill out over the sides. Again, it features Kelly on bouzouki (he also co-produced the album along with Shackleton and Aaren Bennett).
Maybe the most striking thing about From the Floorboards is how lightly it wears its history. Shackleton never sacrifices tunefulness or a crisp turn of phrase for an overabundance of scholarly detail, but nevertheless, you come away from this album feeling like you have learned something important. These songs are timeless and wise, bright and intricate, shot through with polar light and the glint of the sea.
Live Recording of ‘From the Floorboards’ with Aaren Bennett:
From the Floorboards (February 27th, 2026) Self Released
Pre-Order the album via Bandcamp (Digital/Vinyl/CD): https://georgiashackleton.bandcamp.com/album/from-the-floorboards
Forthcoming Tour Dates
February
- 18 Feb – The Willows Folk Club, Preston
- 22 Feb – St Albans Folk Club, Hertfordshire
May
- 22 May – Norwich & Norfolk Festival, Norwich (with Q&A and words from Steve Burnett).
- 8th June – Folk at Yalm, Norwich
September
- 11 Sept – Oak Folk, Wymondham, Norfolk
- 16 Sept – Romford Folk Club, Essex
- 18 Sept – Cley Marshes Visitor Centre, North Norfolk