Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh, 16 October 2011

THE existence of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Scottish Studies’ archive isn’t common knowledge, and only the fact that Emily Roff of Glasgow promoter Tracer Trails used to study there has brought about this eye-opening project.

Once you’ve been made aware of it, though, this newly-commissioned trio of musical works seems like an obvious idea.

Alasdair Roberts took an unexpected approach

Over the course of three months, contemporary Scots musician Alasdair Roberts, Drew Wright (aka Wounded Knee) and Aileen Campbell were given full access to the archive, whose contents include field recordings of Scots folk songs and stories curated by people like Hamish Henderson and Calum (brother of Sorley) Maclean, the recordings dating back to the 1950s and the texts and reminiscences themselves being much older. From their immersive experiences in the archive, the trio were invited to create their own musical responses.

All three are thoughtful and esoteric, although Campbell – a visual artist and improviser – had chosen probably the most out there, learning to sing songs before us in the space of half an hour, in a work called Conversations Around a Song. It set the tone for the evening, a personable dialogue between artist and audience, not at all like a concert but more like an impromptu folk set in a country pub. By the end of the thirty minutes, the audience were helping out and even singing along.

Wright, on the other hand, knew all his songs and more. Having jotted down a list of his own tracks, cover versions he knows and songs from the archive, he invited audience members to draw a number from a bag (or to have “a rummage in my bawbag”, as his droll jingle had it) and would then play the corresponding song either in a deep baritone vocal a cappella, or with the simple backing of a droning shruti box.

Playing his own works seemed like a bit of a cheat, but Wright’s justification was that “the musician is the document; he is the information,” and that his whole process has been worked through in an archival spirit. The distinctly folky tones of his voice and delivery allowed such disparate works as Eric B & Rakim’s hip hop classic I Know You Got Soul, Buffalo Tom’s Porch Light and his own Whither Wither and The 44 to Balerno – odes to East Lothian naturalist John Muir and taking a bus to the Pentlands, respectively – to share airtime. His closing track was a sublime combination of his own Pentland Noir, about army manoeuvres in the hills, and a version of The Dowie Dens O’ Yarrow after Ewan MacColl.

Finally contemporary folk artist Alasdair Roberts, who brought a show quite unlike anything he’s performed before. The musical element was minimal: instead, Roberts and puppeteer Shane Connolly of Sokobauno Puppet Theatre interpreted first a semi-masonic induction ritual for a secret farmhands’ society which existed in North-East Scotland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a somewhat creepy encounter between an ape-like man and a towering demon with a sheep’s-skull head, and then a more cheerful, puppet-assisted version of old Borders folk tale Galoshins.

The latter was gently amusing, rich in Scots character and demonstrated an unexpected ability as an actor from Roberts, whose slight woodenness was in line with a gangling, scarecrow-like presence. It was also, much like each of the works here, wholeheartedly crafted and utterly engaged with the process of revisiting and reimagining history. Hopefully more artists might be let lose in the archive soon.

© David Pollock, 2011

Links

• Archive Trails
• Tracer Trails