Scottish folk singer Quinie unfurls a haunting fusion of dark Celtic folk and the music of the Scots traveller community to deeply evocative effect on her debut album.

Walking is, in many ways, the best way to fully understand a landscape, whether it be urban or rural. It allows you to experience the rhythms of a place, to slow yourself to absorb, even if only subconsciously, the fine grain detail of everyday life.  Scottish folk singer Quinie took this thinking to the next level as she embarked on a trek through western Scotland in company with her horse, Maisie.

Quinie had previously been inspired by the music of Scots traveller singer, Sheila Stewart.  This trip was an opportunity for her to explore the history of this musical tradition and to immerse herself in the interconnections between people and place, a process heightened by the slow pleasures and complications of travelling with Maisie.  This journey was to prove the catalyst for Forefowk, Mind Me.  Largely sung in Scots, the traditional dialect of lowland Scotland, forefowk means ancestors, speaking to the reflections that the trip provoked.

A spartan assemblage partners Quinie’s distinctively lilting, emotionally charged vocals with austere instrumentation spanning sombre viola, jaunty fiddle, and the almost primeval howl of the small pipes.  It’s swirling emotional eddies are perfectly embodied by the pipe fuelled opener Col My Love and the mournfully unaccompanied Generations Of Change.  It is an album saturated in a certain timelessness – on the one hand ethereal and otherworldly, on the other deeply rooted in the communities in which it was forged.