The fate of a 200-year-old palm tree inspires a beautiful reflection on mortality and endings from one of Scotland’s finest voices, Karine Polwart.

COLLABORATOR PAR EXCELLENCE

Karine Polwart has been a leading light in Scottish music for over twenty years. Initially producing a series of wonderful albums bridging Scottish traditional with more contemporary sounds, in latter years she has become the go-to collaborator par excellence in folk music and has moved beyond music into theatre and print.

Her music has taken on a more poetic tone with increased use of spoken word as counterpoint to her exquisite singing, and her work has become more theatrical, and frequently combines physical media with the music.

TAKE BETTER CARE OF ENDINGS

2017 she joined with sound designer Pippa Murphy to translate her theatre project Wind Resistance to record, and seven years ago they were commissioned to be artists in residence at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. While there, they were captivated by the fate of a palm tree which had outgrown its palm house and was due to be felled as part of the rebuilding of the structure.

The pair used the story of the 200-year-old Sabal palm to compose a farewell, not just to the tree but also a meditation on “about how we might take better care of endings in our own lives, in this almighty broken and beautiful world.”

The ten tracks on the record are written from the perspective of the palm, looking back at its life, talking to the gardeners who looked after it, its regrets at being outside of its natural environment for so long and its acceptance , even welcoming, of its nearing end.

RECURRING MUSICAL THEMES

Musically the songs are piano led, with Karine’s regular collaborator David Milligan playing tunes which recall sea shanties and Scottish traditional melodies, with Pippa Murphy adding a soundscape echoing the ambience of the palm house.

Despite being a concept album based on a theatrical work with recurring musical themes which weave between the tracks, the songs nonetheless stand up well to listening in their own right, with Karine including several of them in her live repertoire.

The record comes with a beautifully presented hardback book with lyrics, notes, photographs and illustrations.

Karine Polwart at Celtic Connections. Photo: Stuart Anderton

ONLY BITTER NOTE

The music opens with Hear The Rigging /Last In Line, where the palm addresses its keepers that “you made me an island where the hurricanes don’t blow … now let me go.”

Bound Up Together explores the uses the palm has been put to in its native environment – baskets, fish pots and thatch. Lay My Old Body is a shanty which returns to the palm’s imminent demise, while Bend and Bow reflects on the mechanical restraints that have held the palm upright in its final years.

After Hours sees the palm contemplate the night after “you busy little people go home,” and has perhaps the album’s only bitter note, talking of “you with your budget projections and … a red tag around my bole.“

BEAUTIFUL AND ATMOSPHERIC

I Am Windblown is the record’s centrepiece, and forms part of Karine’s regular setlist, telling the story in a single song, from “I was an inflorescence once” to “I know my time has come.” A farewell to the palm comes in traditional form from Robert Burns in Silver Tassie.

My Secret’s Out documents the final twist in the palm’s story – it turns out it was not a rare palm at all, but one of a very common species. The album closes with a reprise of the Hear The Rigging theme.

Windblown is a beautiful and atmospheric record, which works for the listener even if you were not lucky enough to see the theatre production.

Karine Polwart: Website

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