We are working on a new album. Finally. And we’re very excited about it. The album is loosely connected with ideas of migration. The music is being mixed now with the assistance of Real World’s Tim Oliver and will be ready for release in autumn 2023.
Migration is not a new phenomenon but has been with us for thousands of years. Since homo sapiens came out of Africa between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago, humans have populated the planet at an increasing rate. There are now over 8 billion of us. And we move around a lot. Migration can be motivated by many different triggers – geological and geographic changes were key to starting the movement of people north from Africa as was climate change. And climate change is causing migration once more. There are forced migrations such as refugees from war or cross-Atlantic slavery. There are more voluntary migrations such as Europeans to America from the late 19th century onwards, or the colonisation of Australia. Then there is the recruitment of workers from abroad such as the supply of Turkish workers to West Germany in the 1960s, the use of Asian workers in the building of Gulf States’ infrastructure or the UK’s use of Commonwealth labour to fulfil new and vacant positions in England. And so on….
Ruth’s Scottish background has driven this album. The enforced eviction and subsequent migration of farmers and crofters from the highlands, as part of ‘the clearances’ which benefited wealthy Southern sheep farmers, provides the central focus. We have predominantly taken traditional Scottish tunes, performed on varying harps and reworked them completely keeping migratory ideas in mind.
We will be touring the UK in the autumn and into 2024. Please check back in May 2023 when the full list of dates will be available.
