AN instrumental exploration of traditional Gaelic waulking songs is to be presented by celebrated Scottish fiddle player Laura Jane Wilkie.
Waulking songs are women’s work songs sung for hundreds of years by women in the Highlands and islands of Scotland. They were often sung whilst waulking the tweed – the process of beating tweed to shrink and soften it before use. A laborious process, waulking songs were used in a practical sense to keep the rhythm of beating but also as a social occasion, acting as an opportunity for women to catch up on local news and gossip.
Wilkie said she decided to call the record Vent – as in “to vent” – mainly because when she was exploring the songs, the recurring themes were the difficulties and struggles that a lot of women were having at the time.“And they used the workspace and the singing and these melodies to get things off their chest – to vent. Whilst going through these archives, I felt a real connection with. and relation to, this music – songs which come from women and speak to the universal idea of womanhood.
“Delving deeper into the source recordings and learning the stories from the brilliant wit and knowledge of Rona empowered me to take ownership of this music, be inspired by it and want to share its power further,” said Wilkie.
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