Robin Williamson - New Album (2014)- "Trusting In The Rising Light" - ECM 2393

(Official Press - Release Date: November 7th, 2014) Nine years on from his widely-acclaimed 'Iron Stone' recording, Scottish singer-songwriter, harpist and guitarist Robin Williamson returns with an album of self-penned pieces - thoughtful and touching meditations on love, destiny, the natural world, roads travelled, and the daily pleasures of being alive today.

This fourth album for ECM finds Williamson in best creative form on his diverse instruments, drawing inspiration also from the ingenious improvisational input of two American musicians, violist Mat Maneri (further developing the association initiated on 'Skirting the River Road') and percussionist Ches Smith (last heard on ECM with Tim Berne's Snakeoil band). It was recorded in Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales, in January 2014.

Nine years on from his widely-acclaimed 'Iron Stone' recording, Scottish singer-songwriter, harpist and guitarist Robin Williamson returns with an album of self-penned pieces - thoughtful and touching meditations on love, destiny, the natural world, roads travelled, and the daily pleasures of being alive today.


Williamson, born 1943 in Edinburgh and a working musician for 55 years, is in fine voice as he enters his eighth decade, his harp and guitar playing is assured and inventive, and his creative curiosity as undiminished as the sense of wonder evident in his song texts. His ECM albums have continued to explore the nexus of roots and free experiment which made his old group, the Incredible String Band, so intriguing and his collaborations with improvising musicians have opened up new and broader possibilities in this regard. Of the singer/songwriters who came to public attention in Britain in the 1960s, none has more creatively mined traditions to shape new music.

'Trusting in the Rising Light', with its focus on Robin's own songs and sung poetry, follows three albums - 'The Seed-at-Zero' (recorded 2000), 'Skirting The River Road' (2001) and 'The Iron Stone' (2005) - which were concerned, in different measure, with his responses to the work of poets including Dylan Thomas, Henry Vaughan, Walt Whitman, William Blake, Thomas Wyatt, John Clare and Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

Trusting In The Rising Light finds him working with two US musicians, who joined him in Wales for this session recorded in January 2014, at Monmouth’s famous Rockfield Studio. Mat Maneri was a key contributor to Skirting The River Road and The Iron Stone, and he has toured in Europe with Williamson. A prodigiously gifted player, Maneri can shadow Robin’s vocal ornamentation through any style of music. “Our Evening Walk”, built on a sruti-box drone and a scalar melody shared between Robin’s Hardanger fiddle and Mat’s viola, leans towards raga. “These Hands of Mine” hints at Grappelli and jazz of the swing era. “Just West of Monmouth” veers between abstract sound painting and spontaneous underlining of Williamson’s imagery. “Your Kisses”, on the other hand, has a rockier drive than most Williamson music of recent vintage, with viola tracing a feverish path against Robin’s bluesy guitar.

Maneri and Ches Smith also have a proven rapport – latterly they’ve been working together in Smith’s new trio with Craig Taborn. Ches, last heard on ECM with Tim Berne’s Snakeoil band, was brought to the Williamson session to play primarily vibraphone, as he does on the piece “Swan”, for instance, conjuring shimmering reflections of the sailing bird “joining the worlds of air and water”. But as the session progressed the drum kit came into play, perhaps most strikingly on “Night Comes Quick In LA” a duet for free drums and bardic beat poet, a song of experience with some of Robin’s tersest commentary: “What a shadow is fame / Fame pollutes the heart / Fame’s toxic fume / Fatal fame treads the old alley”. Much better to trust in the rising light, the title track suggests, and “the way of the waves, their rise and fall.”

Where most of the album incorporates improvising into the trio settings of the songs, the single entirely solo track “The Cards” was also a spontaneous gesture in the studio. Robin’s melody for the song is based upon the traditional Irish harp air “The Coolin”, and is explored on the guitar for the first time here, as fresh and as daring as the rest of this remarkable recording.

2014 has been a busy year for Williamson. Amongst other activities he has been revisiting his Seed-At-Zero programme in the course of a number of performances for the Dylan Thomas centenary, playing his settings of the poems also in Thomas’s old hometown of Laugharne, Wales, and as part of the Knutsford Literature Festival. Songs from the Trusting In The Rising Light repertoire are embraced in his current solo concerts, details of which can be found on his web site at Pig's Whiskers Music as well as the tour pages of the ECM site.

Personnel: Robin Williamson (vocals, Celtic harp, guitar, Hardanger fiddle, whistles), Mat Maneri (viola), Ches Smith (vibraphone, drums, gongs)

Track Listing

Song Title		Time
1.	Trusting in the Rising Light	05:29
2.	Roads	05:23
3.	Our Evening Walk	05:41
4.	The Cards	03:02
5.	Just West of Monmouth	03:35
6.	Night Comes Quick in LA	04:43
7.	Alive Today	04:20
8.	These Hands	02:03
9.	Swan	04:14
10.	Your Kisses	03:59
11.	Falling Snow	04:22
12.	The Islands of the Inner Firth	04:12

Suggested Albums : Robin Williamson - "Love Will Remain" (2012)

"Robin Williamson" - Love Will Remain / New Release 180 Gram Vinyl LP + CD insert + booklet (Official Press)

After “Just Like The River And Other Songs With Guitar”, his last album with Quadrant Records, “Love Will Remain” is the second instalment from Robin Williamson, who offers his songs with the simple format of voice, acoustic guitar and other instruments played by himself. Williamson, an icon of British folk-rock, since in the sixties he revolutionized the scene as co-leader of the unique “The Incredible String Band”, now presents, in addition to ten songs on vinyl and CD, an approach to his paintings and a series of texts that includes both his thoughts and explanations on the creation of these paintings. Ten songs, seven of his own compositions and three covers among which we find The Band and Syd Barrett, making up the repertoire of this album, a work that is very personal, which largely takes us back to the personal and restless composer, closer to the aesthetics of the years immediately following the String Band than the deepened facet of traditional music in which the group plunged into after its split.

"Love Will Remain" kindly invites us to enter the universe of a singular and extremely unique artist, an artist whose influence has been openly acknowledged by some of the most important musicians of recent decades. The edition includes 180-gram vinyl, CD insert and booklet with large paintings and texts from this contemporary bard whose work continues to remain latent and timeless.

Feel free to listen some sample tracks on the Reverbnation Official Page

Celtic Poems: Sigil

Let night enfold,
let silence own
The kiss you spare for me alone
Time has awhile that none can bind
Tomorrow thieves your hand from mine

Then lean to me, darling, darling, darling
Your dear dark head my heart above

The summer's night that turns the tide
Yields this to those whom lives divide
Love has a right that none can bind
Tomorrow thieves your hand from mine

Then lean to me, darling, darling, darling
Your dear dark head my heart above


words and music by Robin Williamson
(c) 1981 Robin Williamson. All rights reserved

Celtic Poems : Verses In Stewart Street

How could I find you
So many years now
In some other marriage
Or some other town
All through the streets, love
I questioned in vain
But not one of your neighbors
Remembered your name

How many nights, love
You've haunted my rest
And the voice of your sighing
And the soft of your breast
In sorrow or pain, love
Your hurt is at my heart
And these words still to send you
Wherever you are


words and music by Robin Williamson
(c) 1980, '81 Robin Williamson - All Righls Reserved

Robin Williamson: The Inner Keltia Interview - Part Four

 Robin Williamson: The Inner Keltia Interview - Part Four. If you wish to purchase more of Kaledon books and works please feel free to visit the official website of Keltia Publications.

John: There is a Keltic Renaissance on at present - one branch of that is a form of paganism which is strongly matriarchal. What do you feel about Keltic religion with regard to Druidism or Paganism, or patriarchal and matriarchal forms of belief?

Robin: Well personally, my religion is art, and I do regard it as being a Spiritual activity. But I have certain pagan.....leanings, if you
like. But I don't adhere to the present-day operative forms of Wicca or any of those things. But the old gods have a certain meaning for
me, artistically.....and for real !. Also I am not entirely convinced
that there was ever total matriarchy in this country, although it is undoubtedly true that that was an element in the goddess religions.

J: I think a lot of the current matriarchal groups tend to overbalance things in the other direction, which is no better than patriarchy.

R: Yes, if one is really concerned about ending sexism, there doesn't seem much point in letting it go the other way and saying men are all evil. I think the seres are part of each other.

J: I've been talking to a lot of people about renaissances in Keltic culture, interest in Keltic things. There was one at the end of the last century/beginning of this one - quite a pronounged one -but then that died off in the 40'/50's. Recently there seems to be a new Keltic Renaissance. But people have said to me, "OK if there is one, it'll just be another short-term one for about twenty years , then it will die out and there will be a great lapse again." They said that there is not really time left enough for another renaissance and lapse, renaissance and lapse and so on, because they see the Keltic language, especially the languages, as dying out. If this renaissance, as it were, fails, we might not be in a fit state to attempt another 'Revival' containing genuine Kelticness.

R: Well they might get a lot of disagreement on that in Wales. Welsh is going from strength to strength at the moment, and Cornish shows every sign of making some sort of resurgence. Breton is stronger than it's been in a long time, and as for Scottish Gaelic, I mean it was virtually extinct when I was a lad, but it seems now to be doing better than it was then.» I think it shows definite signs of a resurgance.

J: I was just wondering about the possibility of a Keltic Renaissance coming which would stick, which would last, catch fire and continue. There could be a resurfacing of something which could then continue for a long time.
R: I think it is true to say that civilization runs on ideas, not on bullets, and that culture is founded, usually, on aesthetic ideas, and that someone unleashes some sort of aesthetic force which eventually bocones a city. In the end, all you can detect in history are these markers left by people of vision. I mean you don't see anything left of the wars....all that is left of the wars.....well the blood just -just drains away into the sand. But the statue with blind eyes is still staring across two thousand years later.

J: My ideas behind launching Inner Keltia were to promote this cultural, artistic, religious side, because I see this as being the most important aspect of Keltic culture, and also the most durable, and I think that's where a lot of the primal inspiration comes from, from that realm, art, poetry, music, religion.
R: Very very true.

J: Whereas most of the Keltic magazines on the market up to now have dealt with politics, economics, language, various thing like that, which are all important, but for me they are not as important as the other 'Inner' side. And yet Inner Keltia will be criticized for that approach, it will be "arty", "airy fairy", "non-substantial", etc......

Deirdre: "Out of touch with reality".....which reality, I ask?!

J: There1s a Keltic magazine called Carn which in a recent issue talked about the shutting down of a steel smelter in the West of Scotland, which is really relevant, but....I mean....think acceptable, that's talkable material for the general public, whereas the more esoteric things are not.

R: It's peculiar how often in Scotland you could go up to somebody and say, you know, listen, here we are in the Borders, until the sixth century this was part of Prydain (Britain) it was Welsh speaking, and some of the earliest Welsh poetry was written here, and that would be such news.....it's never taught in schools.

No-one's ever heard about it, no one's ever heard of Taliesin, no one's ever heard of any of those people. Or what the Arthurian connection is to the Borders and why there is an Arthur's Seat and a Merlin's Grave and all the rest of it.

Let alone any connections Finn MacCuil has to the Southern Hebrides or the Island of Arran.....or Ossian or whatnot. And the real Gaelic side is buried even deeper, the real Gaelic stories are away to Canada and lost with the people who knew what the name of that knoll was, or what that rock in the river was called and why.

J: I believe it's of importance, but what importance do you think there is for modern-day people, out there in the streets, to know stuff about the connections of the South of Scotland with Brythonic-speaking Wales?

R: It's not very important to a lot of people, but it's important to some, and it's important that it's not allowed to be lost, it's important that people should be able to revoice some of these things from time to time. One doesn't really think it's going to be important to a lot of people, but to those for whom it is, it's going to be extremely relevant.

J: 3o in a way you're almost talking to the few?

R: Well, some things you are only going to be able to talk to the few about.....I mean, without being elitist at all, or without even wanting to be - I mean I'd like to be able to talk to lots of people -there are some things you're only going to be able to say to a few. But they can be worth saying for all that. It's worth having a go.

Robin Williamson: The Inner Keltia Interview - Part Three

Robin Williamson: The Inner Keltia Interview - Part Three. If you wish to purchase more of Kaledon books and works please feel free to visit the official website of Keltia Publications.

Deirdre: The trouble is, if you want to make a decent living out of any form of creative activity, you've got to become commercial, at least to some extent.

Robin: It's almost an axiom that the better the piece is, the harder it
will be to get it across. Luckily that is not always true, some-times you can do something that's really great and get it across, but it then has to retain a lot of communicativeness to be understandable by people.

John: That is something I feel ..... a lot of the Keltic Bards are famous
for their very involved poetry, which used a a lot of kennings, symbolic terms, which you pretty much have to be schooled in Bardism to understand.

R: Absolutely ..... well there is a Bardic aecret, there genuinely is a Bardic secret, and the reason it is a secret is because you can't describe it to someone who doesn't know what it is. What does it mean, I mean what are these people on about? I mean it's like I'm trying to say in 'Song of Mabon', "There's a treachery hidden in words and human love." I mean, there's no way you can describe to someone what that is, unless they know what it means, unless they' re already aware of that treachery hidden in words and human love.

J: How difficult do you find it to incorporate some of these important but, to everyday people, obscure, ideas, obscure terms?

R: Well luckily, these things don't have to be comprehensible intellectually, provided that they have word-music, melody, provided they have musical movement, harmonious content, provided they create a spell. I think these things have a charm of their own.

D: Do you think then that these things which you're trying to express get through to people on whatever level they are able to understand them?

R: It seems to be so. I don't think it matters, because I think that when you get into talking about pieces that are involved with myth and so forth, myth being a subjective thing, it means different things to different people. The pieces as I wrote them have a meaning for me - they might have an entirely different meaning to somebody elae. I don't think it matters, because it's the performance of them that is important. It's the ritual aspect ..... it's the actual doing of the thing that has meaning.

There are extraordinary depths in the Celtic Heritage - I think there 's a sort of Renaissance coming in Scotland and Ireland. I'm getting more and more passionately Scottish the older I get, you know, I really want to see Scotland awake. It's been held under this dark waterfall so long that its fire has been quenched out. Victorian/Knoxian prudery has killed the passionate flower that it should really have been, and anyone looking at Scottish scenery and hearing the best of, say, Pibroch music, can see that there is undoubtedly a very wild soul there, which can still infect even the most mundane hearts with certain forms of •'xaltation. I'd really like to see Scottish art start to wake up to its (quote/unquote) "Celticness" instead of being quite so Tartan cimraick orientated.

D: Do you still miss Scotland a lot?

R: Well luckily I've been in and out of it a lot recently. But yes, I miss Scotland even when I'm here, the Scotland I miss is not here yet.

D: Are you still planning to move back here?

R: Oh yes ..... oh yes. But I think I will always be a traveller.

J: Some of the material you want to incorporate in your muaic/theatre at present is quite serious, involved with myth, involved with symbolism about meaning, about life, about seasons, about things like that, that's quite a serious content.....

R: 'Tree of Leaf and Flame" is that.....for better or worse that is what it deals with. But there are a lot of other things I'd like to deal with, including such things as humour, lighter things.

J: But even in the performance last night, there was a lot of humour. How much is that a natural expression of your character, or how much do you consciously say, "Well I've got quite a lot of serious stuff here, I'd better lighten it up a bit"?

R: Well I think in 'Tree of Leaf and Flame", I did that less than I've ever done in my life. I mean I very consciously perform, you know, but I think it's a temptation to overdo that, and I think this was the least I've ever yielded to that trap. But I do think humour has a definite place.....it's a marvellous thing.....laughter is very powerful. I like it! Ideally you should have both. Last night was presumably mostly serious, but I think it had its humorous bits.

J: Staying over here myself, I'm quite interested in how people in the States approach the celtic field. You know, there are a lot of Highland Societies, Gaelic Societies, Welsh Societies, and so on, in America. We tend to get get bad reports about them, that people are into them because of their name, because their name is Macintosh or suchlike.

R: There is that, there definitely is that, but on the other hand, looking on the more positive aids, there is a lot of really sincere enthusiasm, especially in music. For instance, some of the Scottish pipers in the States and Canada are absolutely staggeringly good. One of the best pipers I ever heard was a young American with a sort of German sounding name, from San Francisco, he was great. He was only about nineteen, he was a Pipe Major, and he'd been a member of the pipe band that won the competitions in Scotland the year before. Also some of the Cape Breton fiddlers are fantastic. So there is a lot of enthusiasm, which is very refreshing.

One thing I'd like to add: it seems that there has been a sort of pattern over the last few years in my own Keltic Path. The 'Glint of the Kindling' album was really about childhood and about growing up, particularly growing up in Scotland, and I then got into this whole thing about 'Merlin'sGrave' and the various connections of Wales to the South of Scotland, which I think are very important connections. Edinburgh really is the scene of certain very key events in early Bardic matter, and also in early chivalric matter. So we've got the Arthurian, the Chivalric, and of course that leads into the Masonic and what have you .....Knights Templars.....anyway, the next thing from there was, I got into the whole issue of Bardic and Provencal things, Amour Courtois -that's what the 'Songs of Love and Parting' album was about. But I'm currently in a very different state again, having actualized a lot of that.

Robin Williamson: The Inner Keltia Interview - Part Two

Robin Williamson: The Inner Keltia Interview - Part Two. If you wish to purchase more of Kaledon books and works please feel free to visit the official website of Keltia Publications.

John: The academia world classifies 'Keltic' as something from various times BC to about 600 AD and that for them is the Keltic period, and it takes a big jump in their understanding to think that Keltic things have been passed on to the present day. Depending on the individuals scholar's approach, they're willing to see Keltic things flowing on. My personal view is that I take Keltic Culture back very much further than a lot of scholara do.

Robin: Quite, and I'd like to say also that I would like to take it into
the future, I mean I see it asbeing very relevant now, and also not racial. I mean certain elements which I think are Keltic I find in such people as Kandinsky, who has no relationahip whatsoever to Scotland or Ireland or the language movement.

DEIRDRE: So you're really talking about the Keltic Spirit.

R: Absolutely.

J: With regard to your personal sources of inspiration in that field, how do you draw from the countries that you visit, whether it's Ireland, Scotland, Germany or America? I mean when you're in America, how do you get Keltic things from there?

R: Well.....where I am to me is in one sense quite irrelevant. I'm always where I have to be to do what you're talking about. That has nothing to do with being somewhere in the world - it is not in the world, it's in the heart.
But the other answer is that you can find places that seem to be specially significant tucked away in all parts of the world. I was at this incredible place in Cornwall recently called Modron'a Well - and of course Mabon being son of Modron you know (Robin's poem 'Song of Mabon' has been published in Poetry London - Eds.), I thought och well, that'll be an interesting place for a walk. I looked around and couldn't find it.
I went back to the place where I was staying and asked if there was a well around there, and they said "Oh yea as a matter of fact there is", and they told me how to get to it as I went back the next day, down this wee tiny lane to this big alder forest, a thicket of alder trees, and in the middle a little muddy puddle, a spring, with all the rags tied on the thorn trees, and next to it a 6th century (Or so) Christian oratory for the baptism. It was obviousaly still in use. What I felt was that people in really extreme, circumstances had gone there as a last resort to tie a rag on the tree and say "Help me in this situation, nothing else will do." You really felt that it was not just a sort of 'folkay I thing at all, it was something dating back to the most rootish Neolithic.....Megalithic.....Paleolithic.....lithic.... (laughter)

J: Obviously you have very much realised your aims, to a large extent, and your potential as a musician and a singer. Do you now wish to progress more into the writing field?

R: I'd like to try and do as many things aa possible, aa well as possible, in the time that I have left before death, I really think that every second counts. I'd like to continue doing these theatrical pieces very much ( Mabinogion;Tree of Leaf and Flame). There are a number of things that I'd like to do using the theatre and dance. But also I'd like to do some writing. And I'm really very much into the harp.

J: When you're planning a theatre production, how much do you have to take a very tight control of production to make it correspond to exactly what you wish? Or would there be a time when you could just write a score and write a script and hand it over to a theatre company? Do you think there might come a time when you could perhaps do that in California and perhaps send it to a Welsh theatre company to do across here? Would you feel happy about doing that, or would you think that you should have a very personal involvement?

R: I don't know, I've never got to the point where.... I've never become a playwriter, I've only ever written things for myself before really, and the dancers.....are really "pieces of muaic" I've written that Geoff Moore has choreographed. I've never really written theatre for anybody other than myself. It's all very much in its infancy. I don't know.....maybe.

D: Do you have any specific plans to bring other art forms into your performances?

R: No.....I honestly just try to take things one step at a time, and things seem to present themselves with a variety of possibilities, and I try to do the best I can with those possibilities. You see, what I'm doing now, it's taken twenty years to get here, and I haven't got there yet, but it's coming cloaer to doing aomething I waa trying to do when I was sixteen or aeventeen. But then, I didn't have the understanding, didn't have the knowledge, didn't have the abilities, the techniques, the connections. But gradually one acquires bits of those things.....

J: How much does running your own production - this record company, Flying Fish Records, that you're on in America, how much does that aid you in what you want to do, rather than, let's say, being signed on with one of the big record companies?

R: Well, big record companies aren't signing on this sort of things, there's not really any interest there in the sort of thing I'm trying to do.

J: I know quite a few other people who've pretty much had to form their own small record labels to do what they want to do.

R: It's the old, old story - if you really want to do something interesting, you've got to find alternative ways to do it. The things that sell the most aren't necessarily the beat. I mean the best selling newspapers aren't necessarily the beat newspapers. If you make a survey of newspapers you'll see that the really big sellers haven't got any particular quality, except being........ (Laughter)

Robin Williamson: The Inner Keltia Interview - Part One

I had the chance to get an approach to this magnificent magazine through Wendy Newton from Green Linnet Records who kindly send me some volumes as a present by the 80's. Thus I got acquainted of the outstanding work of J.A.Johnston (also known by his druidic name Kaledon Naddair ) who was it's editor and reviewer.Besides several articles each volume contained amazing interviews like this one published on Inner Keltia 3 issued on Jan '83 , and I thought worthy to post. If you wish to purchase more of Kaledon books and works please feel free to visit the official website of Keltia Publications. In this opportunity Robin was interviewed by John A Johnston and assistant editor Deirdre Green.

To most people Robin Williamson will need no introduction, being popular from the Sixties as a member of the Incredible String Band. Since the dissolution of that group Robin has continued to follow his Muse, first of all with his "Merry Band" and of late in solo ventures. Over the years his sources of artistic inapiration have varied (e.g. Egypt-ian, Gypsy, Troubadour etc.); the prevailing trend has led him back to his Spiritual Homeland, Keltic Culture.

The interview which Deirdre and I conducted with Robin was a very informal chat, no pre-arranged questions and no pre-arranged answers. There was however a notioeable amount of agreement and conoord in the ideas and aentiments expresaed. Indeed if I had concocted answers which I would nave 'liked' Robin to have given to 'set' questions, I couldn't have come up with anything better than he actually said in natural conversation. The concord was (i feel) in the main due to the similarity of our Spiritual Paths, and where we've reached on them. This was strengthened by Deirdre already being friends with Robin, and I, like Robin, am an Edinburghite Sagittarian so we have many character traits in conmon (a strong creative drive, an indominable sense of humour, counter-balanced by a serious interest in Religious Philosophy and the Hythopoetic Muse).

This Muse has called to us, as She has called to many, and as She calls still:-
"I am the secret Heart-land of your fathers
In me the virtue stays
I will bring back my children
After certain days."

JOHN: I've noticed over the laat couple of albums you've released that you distinctly wanted your musical productions and creations to be linked to Keltic themes. I was wondering what are your reasons for doing that.

ROBIN: Reasons.....it's a kind of home.....it's the kind of music I've always enjoyed most really, and I always thought there was a tremendous hole in the whole music field and that no-one was writing much in the way of new material in Scottish or Irish folk styles, although there's a lot of very good playing in traditional styles. But more than that, I also like storytelling, and currently, having looked at a variety of Keltic things, I see myself directly in a literary tradition that goes back through Dylan Thomaa, Teata, Joyce, and through a variety of other things, back to the days when poetry and music were not so rigidly seperated as they are now.

J: The performance you did in the last few days, 'Tree of Leaf and Flame', contained a blend of music, poetry, stories, dance, and even a backdrop of a Keltic design. Have you any further plans to weave those different artistic fields together?

R: Very much s0.....that will be an ongoing project.....'Tree of Leaf and Flame' is really a ritual piece, you know.....it'a a ritual piece, in the same way as Yeats was trying to do with his plays for dancers, except he was very much into the Japanese No plays, where as I am much more interested in doing it as a vaguely contemporary theatre piece, but with strands of other things running through it, In and out, and using the dancers very much in their own right rather than as a chorus to the action. I want the dancers and the dances to have the same sort of stature as ths spoken word and the tune and to have them all blend in. And also it's a ritual piece because of the nature of the subject matter, which ia basically a Keltic theme relating to the changing of the
year from Midwinter to May to Summer'a End.....and possibly ultimately there'll be a third piece, from Summer'a End to Midwinter. The idea, of course, of the three dancers and of the storyteller/singcr/harper which I play, has a good solid archetypal grounding.
The three dancers is a marvellous image, you've got all the Goddeas connections, the Three Graces connotations.....Greek mythological ideas.....and so on.

J: I've seen similar things done by other people and I was wondering what you felt about using back projection, or film projection, as part of that multi-art approach?

R: Well Geoff, (Gooff Moore, choreographer of 'Tree of Leaf and Fíame' - Eds.) you are, being a, sort of pioneer in mixed media stuff - all the way through the Sixties he was one of the originator of the whole concept, music, film, spoken word, slides and stuff.....we both felt that it would be nice to use what was a very simple and direct approach to it. So I think that it's again that sort of Yeatsian No play, a very minimal sort of approach that is exciting.
You were asking me what I would do to continue that - the point is, it's an ongoing project, and next year I'm doing the music for the open-air performance of the Mabinogi which ia being done at Caernarvon Caatle and also at Cardiff, and which ia being taken on on a yearly basis by the City of Cardiff as part of their City Festival. It's got a cast of fifty. It's being done in Welsh and English, in the open air, by torchlight, actors on horseback, in the middle of a medieval fair.
It's a massive thing, I'm doing both the live score for the musicians there and the taped stuff, and some of those pieces that we did last night will be included in that.

Robin Williamson : Cool Interview Links

Hi to all!...

For those who love the work of the scottish "bard" Robin Williamson, I attach hereby a couple of cool recent interview links...

* A 2008 Interview done by my friend Tim Hoke and published by Green Man Review. Click here for the source since I am not authorized to post it.

* A 2009 video interview done by the Spanish Television due to a concert held by Robin in Cadiz, promoting his last work "Just like the river and other songs with guitar". Click here for the source.

Faerie Lore : “Invocation” by Robin Williamson

This is one of my beloved poems from the Scottish musician Robin Williamson, it belongs to the track of the same name issued on the double album “U” while being member of the Incredible String Band in 1970. The poem recited by Robin, was recorded with an ambient musical background that reflects indeed a sheer invocation to Faeirie dwellers.

You that create the diversity of the forms
open to my words
you that divide and multiply it
hear my sounds
I make yield league to you
ancient associates
and fellow wanderers
you that move the heart
in fur and scale
I join with you
you that sing bright and subtle
making shapes that my throat cannot tell
you that harden the horn
and make quick the eye
you that run the fast fox and the zigzag fly
you sizeless makers of the mole and of the whale
aid me and I will aid you

I make a blood pact with you
you that lift the blossom and the green branch
you who make symmetries more true
you who consider the angle of your limbs
who dance in slower time
who watch the patterns
you rough coated who eat water
who stretch deep and high
with your green blood
my red blood let it be mingled
aid me and I will aid you

I call upon you
you who are unconfined
who have no shape
who are not seen
but only in your action
I will call upon you
you who have no depth
but choose direction
who bring what is willed
that you blow love upon the summers of my loved ones
that you blow summers upon those loves of my love
aid me and I will aid you

I make a pact with you
you who are the liquidness of the waters
and the spark of the flame
I call upon you
you who make fertile the soft earth
and guard the growth of the growing things
I make peace with you

You who are the blueness of the blue sky
and the wrath of the storm
I take the cup of deepness with you
earthshakers
and with you the sharp and the hollow hills
I make reverence to you
round wakefulness we
call the earth
I make wide eyes to you
you who are awake
every created thing both solid and sleepy
or airy light
I weave colours round you
you who will come with me
I will consider it beauty

Robin Williamson © 1970. All rights reseved by the author

Suggested Albums : Robin Williamson - "The Iron Stone" (2006)

Robin Williamson: “The great adventure of life”. (Excerpt of the Review Published in “La Mano” Magazine, Argentina, in 2007). Interview in conjunction with the release of the album "The Iron Stone" (ECM, 2006) by Alfredo Rosso and Pipo Lernoud. Translated from the original post in Spanish featured at mundorosso.blogspot.com

Williamson faced an active career during the last decade. Besides participating in the brief reunion of the Incredible String Band original trio (2000-2002), Robin recorded a remarkable number of albums on his “Pig's Whisker” label and also joined the ECM catalogue, a hallmark for jazz and experimental music, renowned for generating a special atmosphere in their recordings, which are always performed live in the studio with minimal instruments and overdubs, in order to express the artist in his most natural and naked way as possible.

“The Iron Stone” is the third album for ECM Records, as in his previous two, “The Seed-at-Zero” (2000) and “Skirting the River Road” (2002), the repertoire for this album is a combination of his own works along some musical scores for poems from poets of the great Anglo-Saxon literature. However, the extent of their sources, the wealth of sensations and areas that recreate the fifteen subjects, The Iron Stone is far from being another album on Williamson’s discography, but it shows a peak of artistic sensibility.

From his home in Wales, Williamson recounts some details of “The Iron Stone”:
"Regarding the three albums recorded for ECM, the working concept was based on the creation with different types of texts and songs. In this case I wanted to take lyrical poems and improvise music to accompany them. In some works, such as the ballad 'Sir Patrick Spens', which is supposedly based on actual facts, I replaced some words of the original song, but altered the whole music, in order to address it from another angle. The sounds flow without a formal melody, as in jazz. I liked this, instead of working a song with chords and melody, making the music go step by step. Even the songs themselves on this album were faced in a new way. Arguably The Iron Stone in the text is fixed but the music is free, whereas in the old days of the'60s tended to let the words flowing like water, letting them move freely. Now I try to do the same with music. "

In conjunction with that spirit of spontaneity, The Iron Stone was recorded entirely based on first takes, with the help of Mat Maneri on violin and Viola, the bassist Barre Phillips and Swedish Ale Möller in a variety of instruments including mandola, accordion, clarinet, Jewish harp and various types of flutes.
The Iron Stone begins with "The Climber," an esoteric story about the last will of a climber, urging their three children to climb the clouds, nothing less. Two of them die in the attempt but the third gets the goal, using a rope made of light from the moon.

The metaphor of Williamson |is accurate for establishing the central motif of The Iron Stone: the eternal search for meaning for our earthly days and our compulsion to reach the heights in pursuit of that elusive dream. In turn, "Sir Patrick Spens" - a traditional story of sailors who stirred the ghost of predestination: Despite warnings, the king of Scotland insists on sailing in the middle of winter raging sea to complete the commitment of carrying the Norway’s king daughter back to her land. The gloomy atmosphere of the stanzas anticipate the predictable disaster: the ship sinks and along with it will also pique the real arrogance.

Clouds, waves, rocks, iron ... Williamson is the spell that makes the steam and the blue salty sea become as real to the listener as for the characters of those stories. But the core of his stories is always the man, any man, all men...

The Iron Stone’s content is also varied. "Wyatt's song of reproach" belongs to a sixteenth-century poet who was also a diplomat in the service of King Henry VIII. It is a poem that laments the inexorable passage of time and growth of children who will ultimately forge its own identity no longer dependent on their parents. Another poet that brings his work to this album is Sir Walter Raleigh, who many associate with that rather navigator and explorer of the court of Elizabeth I that introduced tobacco in England. "It would have to pay multiple accounts, right?" Says Williamson. "Some consider him a pirate, plain and simple. The poem that he recorded, 'Even such is time' (This is the time) wrote on the eve of his execution."

And what of "Bacchus", the Ode to the American wine composed of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was able to sponsor another great poet, Walt Whiltman. "In my opinion," said Robin, "a poem is not only about wine but about the spirit of life. I no longer drink, but I love this poem because it speaks of the wine and living the life .."

But while The Iron Stone refers to minerals such as iron and stone, is a charming presence in their animal subjects, such as The Badger, from the English poet John Clare. Robin: "It is a very sad poem because is about a very cruel sport which, fortunately, is no longer practiced, the hunting of badgers. Threw a pack of chasing the badger and seeing how many are reveling kill dogs cornered the animal and then kill him without mercy. Bloody sport that has disappeared, but the poem comes, by extension, how life is slowly eroding into a human being. In the same way that the badger is tormented, often human beings mortify to each other..."

The other animal present in the disc is the mountain hare, with which say that you need to be very nice if you found it, because it brings bad luck to be rude to her. Seamus Heaney inspired me on 'The praises of the mountain Hare', a famous Irish poet who won the inspiration from an Anglo-Saxon poem. For my part, I also took the liberty of writing my own version of the story. "

Williamson agrees with our view that the central theme of The Iron Stone is the human condition and the passage of time. "Life does not last forever," says former Incredible String Band. But in addition to the selected poems, Robin brings a handful of ideas, among which are "To God in God's absence" (God, in the absence of God) and "Political lies”, a topic was originally Robin composed for his album Ten of Songs, 1989. There is a Nuance existentialist in its stanzas, which include without bitterness but with a touch of irony, the passing of the years and the tripping of the Politicians that govern nowadays.

About the various outrageous political campaigns we asked him about his point of view of the Clash of civilizations and Cultures that put the world in check at this time. He said: "I think the world today requires to be optimistic, as if this would be an act of magic. Because if you look at the facts coldly, there is not much grip to be optimistic. But we must try to trust in the essential goodness of human nature, even when there is not much evidence to support this view. If one goes by the world realizes that humans are basically good, and when you find one, anyone can be your friend. It is only when they are together in large groups, committees and governments, when things start to go wrong. "

In recent times there was a Folk Revival in the British Isles. What does Robin Williamson thinks of the legacy of his old group, The Incredible String Band and their influence on emerging artists?

"I love much of the music we did in those days. They were good times, no doubt, but I'm always looking ahead. Now I'm recording a new album with my wife Bina, who also plays and sings. We want to make a record about the spirit of life, with music and mystical magic, without dogmas. Will the coming months and will have songs from India and also the subjects of traditional Celtic and American Folklore. All subjects held, in different ways, the magic of being alive. We have already Recorded nine songs and we finished in the next weeks. Also in my future plans is a recording of spoken works and the publishing of a book. "

By way of farewell we confess our feeling that Williamson has concentrated more in the spiritual life of late, talking again, as in the days of the Incredible String Band, "to the music of laughter, the song that water sings."

"That is very true," he says with a thoughtful tone. "I have sixty-three years and put my life in the hands of the Great Creator. I didn´t create the universe, so-just-me support in the very spirit of life. I am very happy to be alive. I think that birth is an adventure. Being alive is an adventure. And anything coming in the future will also be an adventure. "

-- A Quote from Celtic Sprite: “The Iron Stone” is also the title of a song penned by Robin Williamson and featured in the double album “Wee Tam & The Big Huge”, hereby it’s first stanza, that in fact reflects the spirit of the above commented Iron Stone album.

A long wind a weaving mind
Over all the land the wild flowers grow,
Echoing kind to kind
On that day when I found the iron stone
Heavy in my hand in the sloping rain
Ever the seas rolled on and o'er my heart
They roofed their slates of grey
The iron stone I found it on that day

Faerie Lore: “The Swan Maidens”

Commonly these enchanted maidens are the daughters of a royal magician. Legendary heroes are featured spying them bathing or dancing, and marvelled by their beauty, they steal their feather cloak.

A Swan is the most usual form of the maidens to assume but they're often doves or partridges. In the main type of the Swan Maiden tale, the hero is set tasks by the Magician or rather Wizard’s father and helped by his future wife. He always follows the same patterns, with the obstacle flight, the destruction of the Wiz and the breach of Taboo qhich causes magical forgetfulness resolved by the motif of the bartered bed.

- Hereby a link to the well known legend is the one of “The King of Ireland's Son and the Enchanted Daughter”.

A variant from the Swan Maiden type is the Seal Maiden, more simple with the stealing of the skin and the discovering of the lady's hollow back.

A very nice storytelling regarding Swan Maidens has been recorded by Robin Williamson, on his Four Gruagach CD album, resembling the classical ways of retelling and structure with additions that make the whole stories more interesting and exciting including Celtic subjects and mythology.

This version of the story of “Prince Dougie”, recalls me of two folk motifs.

The legend of “Nicht Nough Nothing” appears in the motif :"There once lived a king and queen. They were long married, and had no bairns; but strangely, the queen had a bairn, when the king was away in far countries." up to here some basic coincidences. The other is referred to “Green Sleeves”. The hero, son of Scot's King, who finally arrives to tho river 'Ugie' to intercept the three daughters of Green Sleeves who would come to bathe as swans. We may think of certain character parallel between Dougie and Ugie.

The legends included on Robin’s CD are :

1. Fisherman's Son & The Gruagach of Tricks

2. Blind Rafferty & The Jealous Hero

3. Rory Mor & The Gruagach Gaire

4. Prince Dougie & The Swan Maiden

To purchase a copy click here.

Faerie Lore: “Gruagachs” – The ability of the separable soul.

We may find on Faerie Lore three different types Gruagachs:

1- In the Highlands, it emerges as a female kind, dressed in Gren with Golden hair, ranging from beautiful to haggard. There is also a belief of her as “ A Glaistig”, the “Gruagach” or the “Hairy One”, it is an epithet of her. As the Glaistig, always in the habit of enterin in houses dropping water from her clothes and asking herself to dry by the fire.

2- Male Gruagachs are less common, though there are recounts of handsome young laddies and naked and shaggy ones in the type of the Brownie. Both kinds had offerings of milk due to their tasks. In Northern Ireland the parallel is the Grogan.

—It is in Southern Ireland, that the Gruagach plays the role of the Supernatural Wizard. Opposite to the plain Wizard, he has adquired skillness not by usual ways of learning but from some inborn aptitude.

3- The wizards of the Sidh (Fairy People) are considered minor Supernatural, they often appear as Giants who've got the capacity to hide their souls in Eggs or Stocks (separable soul type).

Celtic beliefs seem to consider True Supernatural Wiz or Gruagach, those who started as gods. (e.g.: Bran & Gwydion). Being considered as Bran The Blessed the brother of Manawyddan and the son of Llyr -story told in the Mabinogion-. And Gwidyon or Gwydion, tho equivalent to the Irish “Lug” the many-skilled god.

The Separable Soul ability isn't usually find in fairies but in Gruagachs, Allied to this power is a general invulnerabillty qualified by one vulnerable spot, both acquired by inmersion (e.g: Sigfried, Aquiles). Gruagach stories are amusing, generaly the hero. wins first the Chess contest and must always try no to fall under the Gruagach’s tempting offerings. J.F.Campbell recounts the legend of “The Young King of Eassaidh Ruah & the Gruagach Carsalach Donn” , which is a pretty example.

A very nice storytelling regarding Gruagachs has been recorded by Robin Williamson. Four gruagach tales resemble the classical ways of retelling and structure with additions that make the whole stories more interesting and exciting including Celtic subjects and mythology. The legends included on Robin’s CD are :

1. Fisherman's Son & The Gruagach of Tricks
2. Blind Rafferty & The Jealous Hero
3. Rory Mor & The Gruagach Gaire
4. Prince Dougie & The Swan Maiden

Three of these four stories ("The Fisherman's Son"; "Rory Mor", & "The Gruagach Gaire") stem from the early 1980's when Robin recorded them at Chick Corea's Mad Hatter Studios in Los Angels. The Story of "Blind Raferty" is a brand new recording performed by Robin in Wales in 2006. Gottdiscs.

To purchase a copy click here.

Robin Williamson: Film, Theatre & Television Appearances (1968-1988)

Be Glad for the Song Has No Ending film 1968
Rehearsal Incredible String Band film.
U theatre 1970
Performance in the play entitled "U" by the Incredible String Band at London's Roundhouse Theatre and the Fil-more East in New York City.
Film 1973 Appearance in the James Archibald film.
TheWatcher - film 1979
Appearance in the American Film Institute production, featuring Eduard Franz and Diana Douglas, with Robin as "the watcher." Screened in Hollywood, November 1979.

FILM, TELEVISION, & THEATRE SCORES

Tree ofLeaf and Fíame music-dance-theatre 1982/83
Words and music performed by Robin; dancers from Moving Being choreographed by Geoff Moore. Edinburgh
International Festival Fringe August 1982. Also presented on Scottish and Welsh Arts Council tours, Spring 1983.
The Mabinogi- multi-media theatre production 1981 Music composed for a presentation of the Mabinogion, a cycle of ancient Welsh legends, as performed by thetheatre dance company Moving Being at Cardiff Castle,Wales, April 1981.
The Mabinogi - theatre and television 1983/84
Open air production, Caernarfon Castle, May/June 1983 and Cardiff Castle, August 1983; Channel Four TV, 1984.
The Dragon Has Two Tongues - Television Score 1984 -13 part Welsh history series for Channel Four TV.
Prospect of the Sea - theatre 1984/85 - Moving Being and Robin; theatre/dance portrait of Dylan Thomas.
Every Window Tells a Story - television theme music 1986 - Six week series on Channel Four TV, Spring 1986.
Paintability - televisión theme music 1986 - Six week series on Channel Four TV, Spring 1986.
Crime Pays - televisión movie Channel Four 1986 -
The Mabinogion-The Arthurian Romances - theatre 1986- St. David's Hall, Cardiff, Wales. August 1986.
Willow (specialty musician) movie MGM/Lucasfilm 1988
Merlin the Magician - theatre 1988 -St. David's Hall, Cardiff, Wales. August 1988

Memorable Data: Robin Williamson - A 1984 Letter Concerning Mabiongi & Other Works

Hi to all... I would like to share with you this letter by Robin Williamson which was part of our 1984 mailing. I decided to post it not only because it has comments regarding the Mabinogi (it is to note that he employed keyboard layers also for The Dragon Has Two Tongues cuiously related to Wales too!), but also to show up his vast work releases of those days. Undoubtedly,Robin has always been a constant composer and researcher indeed.

Memorable Data: Robin Williamson (1983) Music for the Mabinogi Official Programme

Hi to all... I would like to share with you the scan of part of the Official Programme for the Mabionogi shows, with artwork by Janet Williamson. Let us recall that the album Music for the Mabinogi by Robin was the complete score of the presentations. The stage productions along with the Moving Being Company directed by Geoff Moore were held with Medieval Fairs previous to the shows at Cardiff Castle through Aug 18th-29th, and at Caernarfon Castle through May 28th-June 8th.

As shown, these performances in both Welsh and English languages,were filmed as a coproduction by S4C and Channel Four TV for 1984 releases in Britain. I would much appreciate comments of anyone who owns a copy of this broadcasts!

Memorable Data: Robin Williamson (1983) Music for the Mabinogi Press Letter

Hi to all...hereby I would like to share with you this 1983 Press Letter concerning "Robin Williamson's Music for the Mabinogi Album Release" . Note that it is dated after the official stage performances in Wales.

Memorable Pics: Robin Williamson (1983) Music for the Mabinogi

Hi to all. Hereby I am posting this cute B & W photograph by Janet Williamson used as a promo for Robin Williamson's Mabinogi album. By those days Janet was the one who undertook the design and photography of the whole project. It is to notice that she also used to published her drawings on some of Robin's books, covers, and flyers.
I scanned this pic at 768x971 pixel size - 24bpp
Janet Williamson - All rights reserved - (1983)