Archive Trails
In January 2011, three bold stravaigers – Alasdair Roberts, Aileen Campbell, and Drew Wright – set forth upon a twelve-week commissioning residency in The School of Scottish Studies Archives at The University of Edinburgh.
This site tracks their progress as they listen to tapes, sift through photos, conduct their own fieldwork and begin to develop new performances from their findings.
On tour October 2011!
Oct 13 : Peebles, Eastgate Arts Centre
Oct 14 : Perth Concert Hall
Oct 15 : Cupar Arts Festival
Oct 16 : Edinburgh, Scottish Storytelling Centre
Oct 17 : Aviemore, Old Bridge Inn
Oct 18 : Tobermory, An Tobar
Oct 19 : Rosehall, The Achness Hotel
Oct 23 : London, Cafe OTO
Oct 28 : Glasgow, CCA
Curated and produced by Tracer Trails.
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© 2011 Tracer Trails
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31 posts tagged text
Helmsdale Herring
Another song available to download and this one is very much a direct outcome of the Archive Trails residency; a reworking of Ewan MacColl’s “Shoals Of Herring”.
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Black an white ane ti ither mairriet
I recently posted a virtual e.p Rhythm & Song for free download. The recordings have been kicking about for a while and are not a direct outcome of the Archive Trails residency but they illustrate an element of my practice i.e putting traditional folk tunes into new contexts. In this case Scottish folk meets Berlin dub techno via Jamaican DJ culture. I wonder what Hamish would have made of it?
Berrypickers of Blair
A few weeks ago I wrote about my imminent visit to Blairgowrie, home of the fabled berryfields which were eulogised in song by the late, great Belle Stewart. I’d been invited to a berry pickers’ ceilidh in the town hall there, and was interested to find out more about the workforce of today. Well, it turns out that the days when Scotland’s travelling folk toiled there are gone - the pickers nowadays consist predominantly of young eastern European students (which can only be a good thing both for them and for the local community.)
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Simplify Simplify Simplify
“The musician is the document. He is the information itself. The impact of stored information is transmitted not through records or archives, but through the human response to life” Ben Sidran
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Berryfields
Esteemed reader - I would like to draw your attention to a recently released CD on Greentrax Records (CDTRAX9024) in the Scottish Tradition series: ‘Scottish Tradition 24: Songs and Ballads from Perthshire Field Recordings of the 1950s’.
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Diary Room, Day 78
Tomorrow I am going to buy some air drying clay from which Shane and I will model the heads of the glove puppets to feature in our interpretation of the Scottish folk play ‘Galoshins’, which will constitute a part of my Archive Trails work. This is a new art form for me but it’s one with which Shane is familiar, so I’m looking forward to working with him on it.
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Thyme (the revelator)
With my recent move to Glasgow I haven’t been to the archive in a while but research is ongoing in other ways, not least with the recent delivery of a batch of cassettes picked up cheaply from Springthyme Records.
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Plans are crystallising
Today Shane Connolly and I met to discuss plans for our staging of ‘Galoshins’ for the Archive Trails tour. It was a helpful process to show him the script which I had collated as it currently stands and discuss it in some length. We discussed staging, characterisation, props, sound effects and musical accompaniment among other things; without wanting to reveal too much, plans are crystallising and becoming more focussed.
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A tour and other plans
My proposal for Archive Trails has now been submitted. Next month work will recommence in earnest on the creative side of the project, which I anticipate with some glee.
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Wee Nuggets of Wisdom
Since my interest in folk songs progressed from listening to them to singing and performing them myself I have often wrestled with various issues in my mind about why I sing certain songs, should I sing certain songs, is this right or is that wrong, and so on. Sometimes I wonder whether I think a little bit too much about such things. So I am grateful for a wee bit of wisdom learned from another visitor to the archive.
