Malcolm MacWatt. Settler. Need To Know Music

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Transatlantic Connections is of course the title of a series of successful TV shows and an ensuing (and usually sold out) live gig franchise. It might be a fear of being sued which prevented Malcolm MacWatt from giving this title to his excellent debut album but it would have been most appropriate. MacWatt, a Scots musician from Morayshire, has crafted a set of songs which relate to the Scottish diaspora, those who settled in the new world and elsewhere, usually leaving everything behind but their culture. In the end, MacWatt settled on Settler as the title and we’ll just have to settle with that, given that it is also quite appropriate.

While MacWatt’s songs have Celtic blood and a healthy dose of Appalachia coursing through their veins, he opens up the connections by having Jaimee Harris, Gretchen Peters and Laura Cantrell join him on the venture and Eliza Carthy adds a fine dose of English earthiness. These four song sirens might be considered the icing on the cake but all of the songs here stand tall on their own merit. On the strength of them MacWatt deserves to be considered alongside Jackie Leven, Ross Wilson of Blue Rose Code and even Dick Gaughan.

While several songs do address relocation and emigration, many are engaged with the perils and tribulations our settlers faced and there are also occasions when MacWatt nods to contemporary issues. Trespass begins as a diatribe against land ownership depriving local folk of access to their traditional country ways and ends with a dour description of run down town centres, local shops shut while the supermarket is a magnet. The opening song, Avalanche And Landslide is another contemporary number and, while it’s an attractive listen, one can’t help wonder why it’s placed first and foremost. With a jaunty beat and snakelike slide guitar it’s the most American sounding song here and it seems essentially to be a protest song and somewhat out of kilter with what is yet to come. It sounds great and Jaimee Harris adds some excellent gospel inspired vocals but we can’t help but think that this might have been a song to close on rather than open with.

No such quibbles regarding Letter From San Francisco which is a rousing tale of a hardscrabbled sailor’s life stranded in San Francisco, his money gone, his only comforts prostitutes and opium, his words a last testament of sorts, destined to be sent to his mother once he’s dead. This is ten times better than any old sea shanty which might be getting pushed your way these days. Ghosts Of Caledonia is where MacWatt starts to emulate some of those mentioned above. It’s a sinewy and twisting folk rock song, misty and evocative with some brilliant lyrics – “All you ghosts of Caledonia before Columba came/To put you pagan Picts and Celts and witches to the flame.”

We drift somewhere amidst the Appalachians and ye olde England  for The Curse Of Molly McPhee which has Laura Cantrell joining in on a song which ticks all of the boxes to be considered a child of The Child Ballads. It’s a deliciously dark tale of love, lust and witchcraft, ending with an execution. It has the cut and thrust and sheer brio that inspired Fairport Convention’s Matty Groves and it’s really quite astonishing to realise that MacWatt wrote this song. Gretchen Peters is next up, joining MacWatt on another powerful song, a valediction for those settlers who sailed from Scotland’s shores on My Bonny Boys Have Gone. If a song could weep tears, this one would and Peters closes the song with a perfect balance of sentimentality and regret. Somewhat astonishingly, MacWatt goes one better on The Miller’s Daughter which is a gnarled and windblown blast of rural lust which comes across like a Thomas Hardy novel. Eliza Carthy is the vocal foil here and she is indeed, earthy and compelling.

While the album reaches its apogee on this delightful vocal collaborative trilogy, there’s a fine historical bent to the tale of John Rae’s Welcome Home which is the true tale of an Orkney born Arctic explorer, celebrated in Canada but vilified in his time by the establishment. With Kris Drever providing subtle guitar, it’s another example of MacWatt invoking a folk strain and bringing it bang up to date. The album closes with MacWatt’s impressionistic evocation of his homeland coast on North Atlantic Summer, a return of sorts to the spirit of Ghosts Of Caledonia and suffused with the spirit, the history and geography of our highlands and islands and those brave emigrants. A sorry tale which continues to this day as beleaguered folk still take to the waters to escape ruin.

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Songs of Separation. Navigator Records

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Aside from being an excellent platform for a multitude of musicians to descend on Glasgow in the dark winter nights Celtic Connections has a reputation for commissioning or being a focal point for unique events; collaborations, celebrations, tributes, meetings of minds and songs. This year has seen the “Celtic” appropriation of Joni Mitchell’s Hejira and tribute is paid to the late Bert Jansch. The plight of Britain’s lost children is commemorated with The Ballads of Child Migration concert and Roaming Roots continues its multifaceted memories of songwriters and troubadours.

Today we’re paying attention to an album released in tandem with the Scottish premier of its live setting on Sunday 24th January at The Mitchell Theatre. Songs of Separation is a magnificent collaborative effort from ten of the UK’s leading female folk artists who gathered together on the Isle of Eigg in the Inner Hebrides last year. Separation was the theme and the stroke of genius was to offer it to a female cast as throughout history it has been women who have carried the burden of carrying on as children and men folk have left them, off to war, to sea, seeking fortune or fame or into the grave. The memories carved into song by the womenfolk who stoically carry on. The original idea was conceived by Jenny Hill as the turbulent waters of the Scottish Independence Referendum washed over the land. A travelling musician, she saw the differing views offered north to south, the idea of separation welcomed or decried hence her wish to investigate the concept.

The ten (Eliza Carthy, Karine Polwart, Mary Macmaster, Rowan Rheingans, Hazel Askew, Hannah James, Kate Young, Hannah Read, Jenn Butterworth and Jen Hill) have certainly risen to the occasion. The 12 songs here, traditional and new, sung in English or Gaelic, don’t fly any political flag and indeed, concept put aside, the album is, at base, a gorgeous collection of traditional sounding folk songs that is somewhat sublime. From the opening croak of the titular endangered bird on Echo Mocks The Corncrake (with Polwart taking the vocal here) to the closing birdsong on Road Less Travelled there’s a sense that the album was conceived in communion with nature. Indeed several of the pieces are “field recordings,” the ensemble gathering in Eigg’s Cathedral Cave for acapella renditions of Sad The Climbing and the Unst Boat Song, both haunting. Gathering songs and stories from Scotland and Yorkshire along with songs inspired by Danish and American poetry they relive the legend of the Pictish “big women of Eigg” on Soil and Soul, tell the tale of a mermaid unable to return to her land family on Sea King and recall a clan massacre on Sad The Climbing. London Lights sees Hazel Askew bemoaning the fate of single mothers with an almost music hall arrangement that recalls the warning songs of Victorian times, the sentimentality tempered by the sheer brilliance of the voices and arrangement. Eliza Carthy’s Cleaning The Stones visits similar territory musically while its lyrics are opaque and reminiscent of vintage Richard Thompson. Over The Border delves into traditional songs (including Flowers of The Forest) with Polwart pointing out the contemporary issue of refugees hindered here and there by borders that fail to see their desperate need.

It’s a wonderful album, soaked in history and tradition but bang up to date as we repeat the mistakes of the past. The singers and players excel themselves and it’s almost impossible to have a casual listen as the songs (along with a fine website) demand further investigation.

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