Post Description

Kate Daisy Grant & Nick Pynn – 2025 - Songs for the Trees (24-96)

Kijk even naar de genres, ik heb van sommige nog nooit gehoord, maar fraai is het. Ik noem het gewoon folk.  Een lust voor het oor. 

Acoustic, animist, Ogham, female vocals, folk, grief, keening, trees, Brighton.

An album of original songs and instrumentals inspired by, and for, the trees of the Ogham (Druidic poetic language from ancient Ireland and Scotland).

In Welsh, there is a word 'hiraeth' that can be translated to mean 'a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past'. These songs are reaching back into our collective memory, the green folklore and spiritual dependency on trees - using our living minds to contact the old ones, and to hear the whispers from the bones.

This album came about when storyteller Xanthe Gresham-Knight asked me to sing a folk song about a tree every month, at The Guesthouse Storyteller nights in Newhaven. Her idea was to loosely base the monthly get-togethers around the Ogham (Druidic) trees.

At first, I learnt pre-existing folk songs for each tree, but as I began to research the folklore around these incredible beings, it seemed that most traditional tree songs were about human dramas with trees as frames, as mute bystanders.

It seemed to me that there needed to be songs written to honour and portray some of the innate powers, characters and stories of the trees, so they could be central characters themselves. I researched folklore, herbalism, biological characteristics and made friends with trees themselves, asking them ‘Would you like to help me write about you?’ Some weren't interested, some just wanted to hear the finished song, and some gave me a leaf, a twig or a blossom as ritual objects to help me receive the melodies and words - tuning forks to catch the particular spirit of what wanted to come through.

The songs were so different to each other, just as the tree species differ, and the individual trees have their own spirit.

Nick Pynn was a spectacular midwife - devising arrangements with me, playing his exquisite wood-and-string instruments, and recording with care and fine artistry the fruits of this strange, numinous project. He contributed two beautiful pieces for the Elder and Holly for the album.

We hope you enjoy the buds, shoots, leaves and fruits of this collaboration with The Green...

Highly recommended! 

Tracks:
01 Oh Silverskin (For the Birch)
02 Fearn (Alder Song)
03 Mother Elder
04 Od's Song (For the Ash Tree)
05 The Yew Tree on the Downs
06 The Rowan Tree
07 The Shadow on the Lowlands (Willow Song)
08 Queen of May (For the Hawthorn)
09 Keening Song (For the Hazel)
10 Oh Joy Wassail (For the Apple)
11 Bring Us Back to Life (For the Oak)
12 Holly
13 Pine Song (Where Do I Go from Here_)

Staat er compleet op, 10% pars mee gepost. Met zeer veel dank aan de originele poster. Laat af en toe eens weten wat je van het album vindt. Altijd leuk, de mening van anderen. Oh ja, MP3 doe ik niet aan.