Originally hailing from Northern New Mexico, Cahalen Morrison has lived in Glasgow, Scotland, for the last five years. Starting a new life in another country is always life-changing. In Morrison’s situation, hearing about the ongoing shifts in the political landscape from distant shores and the impact this has had on the lives of many friends back home must be quite a strange experience in contrast to the strong pull of his new home.
His new album Broken Bell, coming on January 29th via Hudson Records, certainly seems to have absorbed all these changes, as he “draws together stories of friendship, grief, landscape and belonging, rooted in a strong sense of place while reaching far beyond it”, but this story runs deeper:
Morrison’s great-grandfather was a published Gaelic poet who emigrated from the Isle of Lewis to America. Discovering his ancestor’s words in an old, dusty book in the high desert of New Mexico was an extraordinary experience; one that brought his family history into a living, breathing form. On his first trip to Scotland, Morrison returned to the Isle of Lewis, where he heard, for the first time, his grandfather’s songs performed by Mischa McPherson around a peat fire. BBC Alba documented the visit in Dileab a’ Bhaird/The Bard’s Legacy. These encounters deepened a connection to Scotland that has continued to shape his life and musicianship. On his new album, he is joined by a group of musicians who will be familiar to our readers, many of whom have become close friends and creative collaborators during Cahalen Morrison’s years in Scotland, including: Tim O’Brien, Kris Drever, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Kim Oehme, Kathleen MacInnes, Norman Willmore, Euan Burton, Tom Gibbs, Fergus McCreadie, Su-a Lee, and Donald Grant.
Distance, new experiences, and friendships often change how you perceive life, both in perception and awareness. This new, wide-eyed view seems especially present on Morrison’s first single, Weaver’s Cottage. Written after watching a sparrowhawk perch silently in a garden, it’s the contrasting surrounding hills and the scars of logging and burning that lead him into deeper reflection on permanence and impermanence: the brief span of a human life against the enduring natural world.
He also recently shared a live session (Falkirk Council/Folkness Sessions) which you can watch below:
The unique and beautiful landscape of Scotland has long shaped the words of poets; after listening to and reading about Weaver’s Cottage, it reminded me of how frequently permanence is present in Scottish poetry: Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain reflects on both the vastness and familiarity of the Cairngorms: “to be with the mountain as one visits a friend”, and Norman MacCaig’s A Man in Assynt offers a reminder of the landscape’s giant geological presence and our fleeting presence: “for this landscape is masterless and intractable in any terms that are human.” While life can be fleeting, in Scotland the ghosts of the past can often seem to cling to the landscape; in his masterpiece Hallaig, the Gaelic poet Sorley MacLean felt this presence when he revisited his ancestral village on the Isle of Raasay.
Broken Bell is shaped by similar moments of wonder and reflection, and it is also present in the here and now and looking forward: a body of work grounded in landscape and shaped by ancestry, change, and friendship. From the high desert of New Mexico to the hills and islands of Scotland, it explores how a place becomes home, honours the people who sustain us, and celebrates the enduring possibilities of making music together.
Broken Bell is out on January 29th, 2027, on Hudson Records (CD/LP/DL)
Pre-Order/Save: https://hudsonrecords.ffm.to/brokenbell