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Garefowl was the name given to the Great Auk, a bird prized for its down and eventually hunted to extinction. In 1840 the last Great Auk of St. Kilda - the remote Scottish archipelago at the westernmost tip of the Outer Hebrides that was abandoned 90 years ago - was killed by an ancestor of Ewan Macdonald, the man who is one of the driving forces behind this album. Cliffs commemorates both events.
Most of the pieces draw on music collected on St. Kilda or recorded later by those who had lived there. Others, composed for this album, find their inspiration within the grater orbit of St Kilda and its history: family stories, journeys on the water, or a glimpse of someone on the street. Recorded during lockdown, with the North Atlantic water and air and the cries of the birds as the backdrop, it’s an original, thickly-textured, thoughtful and sometimes profound piece of work.
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It’s slow music, that develops like waves moving gradually from the deep to the shore. It envelops all the senses and emotions, taking its time to build and swell then recede again. “Ňran Hiortach” weaves its magic moment by moment (the composer Haydn wrote a setting of the tune called “By The Stream So Cool And Clear”), carving a rough grace and elegance, while “A Bird From A Rock,” the lengthy musical centrepiece, gives the musicians chance to tunnel deep into their sound and create something that is quietly, overwhelming. The fact they create it all with just cello, fiddle, harmonium, viola and some touches of synth comes as a shock. That basic line-up of instruments seems too mundane. Certainly there has to be magic behind it all, the ghosts of fishermen, birds and islanders nudging the musicians along as they play.
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Garefowl mine seams faintly parallel to the band Lau, but Cliffs is absolutely its own album. The Scots root runs through the heart of it all, but only peeks out in a couple of instances: the light-hearted dance of “Pink Sandals On The Street” skips along (the closest Cliffs comes to a conventional tune) and the sprightly opener “Hio Daila Horo Ri Ho,” which musically connects a rock in the Atlantic to the First Nations/Native America in its repetitive chant/calling of the words and the steady beat that gives the pulse to the tune. It’s stands out, louder, more demanding than the rest of the album, with voices front and center. It’s not the only track with vocals, but on the other, the puirt-a-beul “Cas Caroa Hiortaich O”, they’re buried, subsumed to become another layer of melody.
Don’t come to this expecting easy entertainment or something to fill the background silence. It’s going to consume you, in the very best way. It’s a gorgeously different kind of folk album. - Chris Nickson
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