Lauren MacColl: 'Landskein' - Accompanying essay

I was delighted to be asked by musician Lauren MacColl to write an accompanying essay to her most recent work, and forthcoming album, ‘Landskein.’ I’ve long admired Lauren’s music - including her band Salt House with singer Jenny Sturgeon, and chamber-folk quartet RANT - and so it wasn’t at all difficult to fall in love with her latest creation.

‘Landskein’ was recorded on location in Abriachan village hall, very near to where I now live, in the hills on the north side of Loch Ness. I visited Lauren briefly for a cup of tea while she was recording back in the winter (amazed to find out that she had managed to wheel a huge grand piano into such a small space!). We had a few conversations about her ideas and her vision for the work and how all the different strands connect. This music emerges from a direct and intimate experience of the landscape - the hills and straths and peats and burns of this part of the world. As a work, it is part of a much bigger context and ongoing story of people and place, the ‘carrying stream’ of tradition. In finding meaning in Lauren’s music, I was very much reminded of works of literature, those writers seeking out a way to creatively express something of this landscape too - Neil Gunn’s Highlands, Nan Shepherd’s ‘living mountain.’

Lauren also commissioned a piece of original artwork from Maireread Green, a pen and ink image of a landskein in Coigach and Assynt, seen from the perspective of the hill Sgurr an Fhidhleir / The Fiddler. You can read more about that here.

‘Landskein’ will be released on 7/8/20, with pre-orders available here.

You can read this essay on my website here and on Lauren’s own website here.