the Earth is never still,
it’s never still -
even rocks melt in the sun
- from ’Siccar Point’
In Midlothian, the schools return from the holiday break in less than a week’s time, so summer feels very much as if it’s drawing to a close. I hope this season has been kind on you.
Today, I’m delighted to open up pre-orders for a brand new album collaboration with my friend, pianist and composer, Dave Milligan. ‘Still As Your Sleeping’ is deceptively simple - one voice and one piano, nothing more. Yet it holds, I think, a lot of space, a lot of feeling.
Much of my writing, especially in recent years, has been steeped in a sense of place. But it’s never felt more important to me than it does now to make music, and tell stories, from exactly where I am, with the people I care about and live alongside. Both Dave and myself make our homes in Pathhead, Midlothian, as does Jenni Douglas, who created the album’s gorgeous, evocative artwork.
Though Dave is highly regarded as a jazz pianist, his writing and arranging often distils folk and traditional influences too. There’s an elegance, surprise and just-enough-ness about his playing that I find really moving.
The path that winds before us
is not for us to see
One breath and then another
is all we need
- from ‘The Path That Winds Before Us'
'Still As Your Sleeping’ is released in October but is available to pre-order TODAY.
The 10 tracks that make up the album are threaded through with images of stillness and flux, leaving and returning, and pivots of change. They include new songs from me, such as ‘Travel These Ways', written for Luminate, Scotland’s festival of creative ageing, and 'The Path That Winds Before Us’, dedicated to my home village.
There are a handful of beautiful songs by other writers such as 'The Old Men of the Shells’ by fellow Scot, Alasdair Roberts and Kate McGarrigle’s classic ‘Talk To Me Of Mendocino’.
And there are traditional songs too, including the Irish emigrant song, ‘Craigie Hill’, which minds me of my grandfather, and the timeless and poignant ‘The Parting Glass’, which was requested by Margaret Atwood for a specially curated BBC Radio 4 Today programme in December 2020, and featured also in a July 2021 edition of BBC Radio 4’s Soul Music. It will also be the first single to be made released from the album on Aug 23rd.
But since it falls unto my lot
that I should rise and you should not
- from 'The Parting Glass’
These songs walk the edge of things. People say goodbye to what they know, to loved ones, and perhaps even to life, whilst others are pulled back to the world of the living. There’s an acute sense of time too, both of those who went before us, and those who’re still to come. And even beyond that to the Deep Time geological history of this planet that sustains us all.
Tune in for a preview of some of our new album songs via a live set next Thursday 19th August for BBC Radio Scotland’s Travelling Folk.
We look forward to playing to a live audience as part of Edinburgh International Festival on Sunday 22nd August. Quite a BIG DEAL after most of 18 months at home.
And finally, we're delighted also to be performing digitally for Edinburgh International Book Festival’s Songs from Scotland on Monday 23rd August.
I’m really proud of what Dave and myself have crafted together. It has heart and heft. And apart from Dave’s musical grace, I feel it’s some of the best (and definitely most exposed!) singing I’ve ever mustered.
I hope you’ll find something that means something to you.
Thanks for your support,
Karine x
LIVE 2021
KARINE POLWART & DAVE MILLIGAN
AUG 22 : EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL - SOLD OUT
KARINE POLWART TRIO 2021
OCT 08 : GATESHEAD - THE SAGE - TICKETS
OCT 09 : LONDON - CADOGAN HALL - TICKETS
OCT 10 : LIVERPOOL - PHILHARMONIC - TICKETS
OCT 11 : BURY - MET - TICKETS
OCT 12 : BIRMINGHAM - TOWN HALL - TICKETS
OCT 13 : BRISTOL - ST GEORGE'S - TICKETS
OCT 14 : CARDIFF - THE GATE - TICKETS
OCT 15 : SHREWSBURY - THEATRE SEVERN - TICKETS
OCT 16 : MILTON KEYNES - THE STABLES - TICKETS
OCT 17 : BURY ST EDMUNDS - THE APEX - TICKETS
