Home Visits

with news of a new BBC Alba music programme, filmed at folk musician’s homes across the country (my episode airs tonight), as well as links to other listening places … 

1.Ceòl Aig Baile / Folk At Home 

My home, like some of yours too, I’m sure, has become a place of industry these past two months. I’m a writer, so my kitchen has long been a working environment (and I don’t just mean the dishes and the laundry). But my home has never before been a place of performance, a place into which strangers are invited to peer. To be frank, it requires a whole lot more hoovering and tidying than I can ordinarily be bothered with. And then there’s the need for careful curation. I mean, how clever and idiosyncratic are my books? How manky is that carpet? Where am I going to stash all these non-minimalist piles of guff out of camera view? And how is anyone else, distantly appraising my home, supposed to know that so much of the stuff in this or that shot, represents memories, kindnesses, gifts and losses, rather than any innate aesthetic sensibility I’d want to stake my identity on?

Ocht, who cares, really, given what’s upon us? It’s vanity. Still, it’s oddly unsettling on an intimate, personal level. 

If we’re lucky, our homes are our safe, private spaces, our retreats from the world. I can fill big rooms with music and story, laughter and weeping. But my life is otherwise small, as most lives are. I need that sensation of stepping away from public view. But now my living room, my stairwell, my back door and my garden are gig and interview locations too. And whilst I’m well used to listening to myself in pursuit of writing and recording music, a constant attention to how I look and move, how I’m situated in space, is something else. There’s something almost unbearably narcissistic about spending hours scrutinising selfies and headshot video footage, in order to check lighting sources, perspectives and angles in pursuit of digital output for light entertainment!

Oh, how I miss my videographer and film-maker pals and colleagues, and the skill and artistry they’ve been honing their entire working lives. How I miss shared, civic spaces. Indeed, I worry for the vast, invisible creative teams that support musicians and live performers of all kinds, as the front-facing folks amongst us, like me, scramble to become everything all at once - venues, sound engineers, cinematographers, and promoters - in order to wade through this time.  

For me, the most sophisticated/creatively-challenging/head-melting/weep-inducing (all adjectives apply at different moments …) home-filming adventure so far has been the making of Ceòl Aig Baile (Folk At Home) for BBC Alba. This is a production born of necessity and invention, which involves a hive of brilliant, creative pals and colleagues working in music and TV. You can watch the fruits of that labour tonight at 10pm, including two songs partially filmed in my living room, with an extended musical crew that includes fiddler Lauren McColl, percussionist Signy Jacobsdottir, singer and songwriter, Josie Duncan and guitarist Hamish McLeod. The whole show is beautifully hosted by my ever-gracious pal, Julie Fowlis. 

On screen, it will, of course, be impossible to see the frantic workings underneath. For my own part, it involved tearing apart my living room, enlisting my 12 year old son as camera assistant (good job though), endless, dispiriting retakes due to power saws, lawn mowers, pigeons and bin lorries, extensive Netflix and Haribo child bribery and (the nadir of it all) losing the entire contents of my fridge-freezer (they’re helluva noisy, so I turned mine off for the filming, and, you know, two days later …). It’s not a great moment in history to lose your sausages and Mackie’s ice cream …

I can laugh at the daftness of it now.  And I’ve no doubt it will be beautifully done. I mean, I’m not working in a hospital in substandard PPE, so perspective is required! Besides, I’m genuinely grateful for work, and for the work generated for pals and peers. Nevertheless, two weeks ago, it felt like a monumental invasion of my home and family, and a step far beyond my creative skill set. 

But it’s here to stay, for a long time, this ducking and diving. And I, and others, need to adapt, and work out how best to make what we can, whilst maintaining wellbeing, integrity, and grace. 

Some areas of life and work are creeping back into circulation now, or soon. Carefully and with respect for others, I hope. Music and theatre aren’t going anywhere. It will be early next year, at best (and quite possibly much later), before venues or festivals re-emerge, if indeed some make it at all (and some won’t). Gigs are likely to be unrecognisable. There will be apps, masks, temperature gauges, seat spacing, stringent security, staggered arrival and departure times, Perspex corridor dividers. This isn’t sci-fi musing (although doesn’t life get more like sci-fi every day?). I’ve been in meetings where this is being actively discussed.   

Jings. I’m not sure how I feel about any of these possible changes. Or what it means for what I do, and the spaces I inhabit (and love). There’s nothing quite like shared bodily proximity. But what to do and how to be intimate without it? Next time, I’ll have some questions for you all around this, in hopes you can help. 

Meantime please do check out Ceòl Aig Baile. And my living room. And my kitchen (minus that sausage-busting fridge-freezer buzz …). And some of the sights around Pathhead, Midlothian. I’m curious myself to see what it looks like after editing! 
 

2.Read All About It 

If the truth has been forbidden
Then we're breaking all the rules

On Saturday night, me and the Scottish Songbook band share the bill with KT Tunstall, Snow Patrol and Hue and Cry as part of a Greatest Hits round-up from Radio Scotland’s Quay Sessions. We play our spurtle-clattering, percussive version of Emile Sande’s brilliant and profoundly apposite Read All About It. The programme airs on Saturday 30th May at 23.30. 

3.The Truth Of It

In my last missive, I mentioned The Truth Of It, a new piece inspired by my home village of Pathhead, Midlothian. It’s a meditation on what we see and what we don’t, and seeing beyond snap judgements. And it’s the length of a tea-break. My advice is to ignore the video, grab a cuppa and simply listen (let’s just say the iPhone video walk round my garden and local park was conjured at a moment of maximum exasperation with external demands for me to assume the role of a videographer!)

Thanks as ever. 

And take care,

Karine