The Elephant Sessions performing at Northern Roots 2013. Photo by Roddy Mackenzie.

Hailing from Inverness, The Elephant Sessions are an upcoming act set to make waves on the traditional Scottish music scene this summer. I caught them last year at a gig in Edinburgh, where they blasted through a set of the grooviest folk music I’ve ever heard. They’re currently recording their debut album off the back of a successful online fundraising campaign, so I recently caught up with guitarist Mark Bruce to find out more:

Describe the members of the Elephant Sessions and the instruments you play:
The Elephant Sessions are:

• Euan Smillie – Fiddle
• Greg Barry – Drums
• Alasdair Taylor – Mandolin
• Seth Tinsley – Double bass
• Mark Bruce – Guitars.

Where are you from and how did you guys meet?
We met through a mutual love of traditional music and the fact we have similar ideas of how the folk/traditional genre can be pushed by adding influences from other genres. Four of us hail from the Highlands of Scotland, and Seth is from Northumberland.

You’re all excellent musicians – I was wondering how long you’ve been playing and how you got into this type of music?
We have all been playing traditional music for many years, we all got into it through things such as the Feisan movement and through traditional music groups in school. We are very lucky in the Highlands of Scotland that we are so immersed in traditional melodies and culture.

The thing that struck me the most about your band is the way you combine traditional folk music with contemporary genres such as funk – what makes your music so unique, and what kinds of things is the band influenced by?
I think what may potentially make our music a bit different is the fact the we self write all our melodies and we aren’t afraid to try and push the boundaries of where we can take it – I think not being afraid to fail is very important when you’re trying to do something a bit unique. We take influences from a wide range of music, everything from Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis to the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

I saw you perform last year in Edinburgh, and you definitely got the crowd moving for a subdued Wednesday night! Is this what usually happens at an Elephant Sessions gig?
Yeah, we usually try and noise the crowd up a bit. Basically, whether its an 11am or an 11pm festival slot we will try and give it all we have and hopefully we get everyone dancing

What’s been your standout gig so far?
I think our highlight so far has probably been opening up for the Peatbog Faeries at The 02 Academy in Newcastle. They have been a band we have all looked up to from early on in our musical lives and it was an honour to get the chance to do that.

I’m a complete newbie to traditional folk music – can you explain to me what it’s called when a song suddenly changes halfway through? Is this a round? Set? Jig? Help!
Erm, the best way to maybe explain this is usually a ‘set’ comprises of more than one tune. We try and arrange the tunes so there is a tempo change, it can be fast or slow depending on where we are trying to take the listener. A classic traditional music change would be something like a Strathspey into a reel, effectively this doubles the beat. The difference between a jig and a reel is, in a jig the notes are grouped in 3 and in a reel notes are grouped in 4. We hope this makes a little bit of sense.

The Elephant Sessions

You’ve just finished a successful Kickstarter campaign for the funding of your debut album – how did it go?
Kickstarter is a company that allows you to set up a page where the public can donate money to help fund a project. We plan to record our debut album with the money we raise from it, we are very excited!

Comparing the music that you’re currently performing with the music available on your EP, do you think it’s different at all? Where do you hope to take the band?
I think we ‘grew up’ a bit from what we were playing on the EP to what we are playing now, we have become more confident in our ideas and we think we are writing better material. We hope!

What’s the most exciting thing happening in Scottish folk at the moment?
We all really love Adam Holmes’ debut album ‘Heirs and Graces’. He is writing some beautiful songs and he has an amazing band. Definitely worth checking out.

Finally, what are your plans for 2014?
To release our album and hopefully do some festivals in the summer and tour Britain in October.

You can hear more by the Elephant Sessions at www.elephantsessions.com or check them out on Facebook.

The post Talking Folk with The Elephant Sessions appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.

After the ubiquitous ‘Happy Birthday’, the great New Year anthem Auld Lang Syne is the next most sung song on earth; bellowed out from graduations in Thailand to weddings across the globe. The funny thing is that many of the jovial partakers have no idea about the lyrics themselves.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

and Auld Lang Syne.

So, what on earth is an ‘auld lang syne’ anyway? Well, in the old Scots vernacular it simply means ‘long since hence’; and in the spirit of the song, essentially the days of long ago. This pithy three word phrase encapsulates beautifully the sense of remembering the great days of the past, and allows us a chance to wistfully reminisce with rose-tinted spectacles the fun days of our youth. It is about friendship, old friendships that as the years pass drift, perhaps even sour; but now in the twilight we can look back and never forget those long summer days long ago. This is what Burns was driving at, and we as we shed the old year for the new should think on this and remember the good stuff and the importance of love and friendship.

The song was first published by Burns in 1788, and became hugely popular in Scotland. As Scots emigrated around the world they took it with them to create a global phenomenon. However, Burns was not the first to use the phrase ‘auld lang syne’ in a song, both Ayton and Ramsay had earlier, and the bard himself admitted that he had simply ‘re-written’ an old folk song. The tune wasn’t his either, nor the one he planned to use, but was added later. Whatever the origins, I’m sure that master playboy Burns would appreciate the gusto with which his lyrics are still appreciated by millions across the world.

Not all of Scotland’s songs are quite so cheery; over half of the ones I can think of tend to be about battles and cruel fate, usually at the hands of the English. Perhaps it is because Scotland was dealt the wildest of cards, and mixed with our natural Celtic melancholy we have so many lilting laments and heartfelt songs. Top of that list, must surely be the ‘Flowers of the Forest’.

I’ve heard the lilting, at the yowe-milking

Lassies a-lilting before the dawn of day

But now they are moaning on ilka green loaning

“the flowers of the forest are all wede away”

Written by Jean Elliot and again based on an earlier folk song, this mournful, yet intoxicating ballad expresses the anguish and sheer loss felt by those left at home when men go to war and don’t come back. It was written in the aftermath of Scotland’s darkest day on the bloody Field of Flodden: a scene of utter carnage and the loss of a national soul still yet to be recovered fully.

In early 1513 King Henry VIII of England invaded France as part of the Catholic League, and using Calais as his base he won a string of spectacular victories. As part of a more protracted conflict the Pope had become concerned at the growing power of Louis XII of France, and constructed an alliance including England to combat this threat. Scotland was allied to the French and the king, James VI, was the embodiment of the Renaissance and chivalrous to his core. He decided the only honourable course was to aid his ally and invade England in order to distract Henry and buy a little breathing space for Louis. He assembled an army of over 30,000 – the largest ever commanded by a Scottish king, and crossed the border at the end of August 1513.

King James IV

Henry had left the defence of England in the hands of his wife, Catherine of Aragon and the Earl of Norfolk. They dispatched a much smaller army north to meet the Scottish invasion. After a short stand-off the two armies clashed on the 9^th of September at Flodden, and while the Scots held the advantage the geography conspired against them and they were annihilated. The king was killed and hacked to pieces, and along with him Scotland would lose, 12 Earls, 13 Barons, the Archbishop of St Andrews and nearly 10,000 men. It was said not one noble family was spared, and every village in Scotland mourned a loss. The youth of the nation was torn apart, its nobility wrecked: these were the flowers of the forest, and now they were all wede (gone) away, leaving behind only empty fields, moaning and pain.

Today, the lament is usually heard played as a pipe tune at funerals or memorial services; sung only at the most heartfelt of times: but, played globally. It has an incredible weightiness about it; one that draws you back to that time and every war since, and the senseless misery of it all.

But, for every Flodden there is a Bannockburn – where the gods of fortune smile down on Scotland for once and deliver victory; oh, and how we celebrate. The Scots are a funny people, a concoction of doom and gloom and a rich, vibrant joie de vivre, and our music mirrors this. Flodden was a hammer blow to the Scottish psyche, and from then on we’ve had this inferiority complex, a chip on our shoulder often aimed south of the border. It’s hard to shake, but as a people our contribution to the world has been immense, and the Scots have much to crow about. Perhaps we are at last climbing out of the pit of self-indulgent grief. We do live in a Scotland transformed in the last 50 years, and although it looks back 700 years to Bruce and Wallace the song most played as a ‘National Anthem’ for Scotland reflects the re-birth in our own national identity.

Oh, flower of Scotland,

when will we see your likes again?

That fought and died for

Your wee bit hill and glen.

Drawing from the emotions of the lost flowers, Roy Williamson’s song, written in 1965, plays upon the fall then rise of a country. It implores us to look back to our ancestors and feel their sense of national pride and deliver forth a new vibrant and healthy Scotland. Flower of Scotland is a simple tune, with an even simpler message – rise up and be a nation again, the perfect ingredient for a national anthem: one that lauds the country, asks more from her people and can be sung by 60,000 on the slopes of Hampden Park. I don’t think you need to be a Scottish Nationalist or a believer in independence to feel national empowerment with this song.

Scottish Pride at Hampden Park

Each of these songs has it’s time and place; each reflects part of the emotional journey it means to be Scottish. Robert Louis Stevenson once said that the Scots carry the past around with them in a way that few others could understand; and perhaps, like the Welsh and the Irish, with our Celtic fire burning brightly that emotion is best expressed in song and music.

This article was written by David McNicoll, who runs Vacation Scotland – a travel company specialising in tours and vacation packages to Scotland. For more info – www.vacationscotland.biz

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