Tag: Joanna Nicholson

A recent review apologised for being a month or so late to the party; this time, it is hard to even establish when the party was, other than hard copy only arrived recently, as in this year, to the F.com offices. Go to the associated Bandcamp page and Sand, Silt, Flint is cited as being on the Guardian’s round-up of the most under-rated albums for 2022!? Be that as it may, in possibly a bid to counter that categorisation, a re-launch and re-release seems likely. And I, for one, am glad to make the belated acquaintance.

Fiona Soe Paing is an Aberdeenshire avant-folk experimentalist, singer and producer. Here, the always slightly worrying avant-folk monicker seems only to mean there is a wash of electronica running through this album, which is otherwise populated by fiddle, guitar, cello and clarsach, with occasional clarinet and drums. Very little to frighten the horses, who would any which way be then calmed by her calm and soothing vocals. By way of a change, these are sung in the local to Aberdeen dialect/language of Doric, as opposed to the Lallans Scots of further south. It seems to be her second release.

So, braving the challenge on her website, “For curious explorers”, in I dived, discovering the album a mix of traditional songs and newer material, she still at pains to point out these are all “Immersive and unsettling re-telling of ancient tales for new times”. Hence, ‘The Ballad Of John Hosie’, a new song, co-written with Clutch Daisy, aka Anthony Cowie, an interesting fella, a sound artist, whose speciality is within field recordings. Based upon the tale, Hosie’s well, associated with the last great Scottish clan battle, of Harlaw, in 1411. It starts with Paing’s voice, singing over a distorted stand-up bass line. Further electronic distorts of fiddle and cello blend in, at odds with her simple unadorned vocal. Eerily effective, the mix of orchestral discord, a military snare and voice instils immediate interest.

‘Maggie Machlinn’ begins with a drone, a hint of clarsach and clarinet. The tune sounds traditional, a yearning ballad in style, even if the arrangement is based within further dystopian textures. Something is screaming Third Ear Band and Macbeth at me, deep in my consciousness, but, in truth, it is more approachable than that. Paul Anderson and Alice Allen, yes, the Alice Allen, add fiddle and cello, the clarsach comes from Irene Watt, with Joanna Nicholson on clarinet and David McKay on drums. That man again, Cowie, plays guitar, if under another guise, Thee Manual Labour. Paing seems responsible for all else, the electronic sound manipulation, and is the producer overall.

The first traditional adaptation comes with ‘Auchindoun’, with more of that bass and some slippery synthesised squelches. Metallic percussion slots in and, drones, orchestral and fauxchestral, swoop in and around her haunting vocal. Similarly, ‘Bessie Bell ‘is an old ballad, recounting how the eponymous Bessie, together with Mary Gray, fled from the plague, in a bower of rushes. Multi-tracked choral vocals conjure up a misty riverside existence, Paing then taking up the lead melody, drifting therein and out. Macbeth is again the imagined imagery this conjures up, if more now as in witches, cauldrons and something wicked this way comes. (I note we are in the right sort of territory, with all these songs set in the Perth through Aberdeen countryside; there is even a handy map on the CD cover, together with a QR code, with which you can access sound-walks to accompany each song, via an app.)

‘Fisher’s Lullaby’ begins with crashing waves, off the coast, at Gardenstown. Paing sings over harmonium and a burbling synth, with the waves never far away. Multiple Paing’s spark up a kelpie chorus and it feels like the lullaby it is, for the wives of fisherman to sing to their children, their husbands far out at sea. This then leads into ‘Forvie’, further around the coast, the song built around the destroyed village, cursed by three wronged sisters. (Me, too, those same weird three again, from the Scottish play, I’ll be bound.) Little more than a tone poem, Cowie’s guitar sets up a repeating motif, over a haze of strings and, initially, the sound of playing children. She does break into song but it is the spoken parts that linger, somewhat hypnotically.

‘Bonny Udney’ is maybe the best-known song here, celebrating the village of that name. Sampled speech, of John Strachan, from the Alan Lomax collection at the US Library of Congress, starts it off. Cowie adds guitar, ahead Paing singing a slower version than Iona Fyfe’s. Occasional bleeps booster the maudlin feel that is brought to bear, and it is possibly a favourite, not least as the clarsach tinkles in, with a ghostly Strachan piping up, with the self-same song as it closes. More vocal samples too, open ‘Lass Of The Lecht’, the tale of a Margaret Cruikshank, who perished, during a blizzard in the Cairngorms. (Lecht is a place, frustratingly, I was hoping it a tale of a doomed lighthouse keeper.) Bass, guitar and electronics are the main accompaniment here, Cowie stretching some glorious acoustic twangs from his instrument, in a deep snow Caledonian country blues.

‘Tifty’s Annie’ is better known as ‘Andrew Lammie’, and, if you don’t recognise ‘Bonny Udney’, you’ll recognise this. Anderson and Allen mimic a full string quartet, with McKay tapping dolefully along, the full band eventually all contributing. A spooky and slightly malevolent rendition, of course it ends badly, not that many fare any better in any these songs. Synthesiser mimics trumpet, for those forgetting Lammie was Lord Fyvie’s trumpet player. After all the bloodshed, the closer, ‘Forglen’s Plantins’ is possibly more reflectve, a meditative piece where FX graze peacefully alongside the more traditional instrumentation. It makes for a thoughtful end to an album that is actually quite different from the expectations instilled. Check it out!

Seuras Og 

Artist’s website: www.fionasoepaing.co.uk

‘The Ballad Of John Hosie’ – official video: