IAIN MORRISON

A new record! Vermont/Scotland

2011-11-28T23:57:00.000-08:00

I've returned from my trip to Vermont where I started recording my new album with Michael Chorney (Hadestown Orchestra, Anais Mitchell, Dollar General) at the controls. It was an amazing time, fantastic people and an inspiring place to play music! Also had the opportunity to record with Geza Carr(drums) & Robinson Morse(double bass) which was an honour. Work on the album now continues in Scotland and i'll be working at it over the winter so i'll keep you posted when i'm seeing the light of day!

The Crow

2011-10-15T16:50:00.001-07:00

The Hermit's Castle....

2011-10-15T16:45:00.001-07:00

Transatlantic Sessions TV Programme

2011-10-09T03:25:00.000-07:00

I'll be appearing on the new Transatlantic Sessions TV Programme in the next few weeks. I'll be singing 'A Lewis Summer' & 'Broken Off Car Door'. It's aired on BBC2, Fridays @ 7.30pm.
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b015r5qf/Transatlantic_Sessions_Series_5_Episode_2/

Faclan Hebridean Book Festival

2011-10-09T03:00:00.000-07:00

Appearing Live @
Faclan Book Festival
Sat 29th Oct
An Lanntair
Isle of Lewis

2011-08-18T01:10:00.000-07:00

25th Sept
Woodend Barn
Banchory

www.woodendbarn.co.uk

26th Sept
Eden Court Theatre
Inverness
www.eden-court.co.uk

29th Sept
Gala Theatre
Durham
www.galadurham.co.uk

30th Sept
Kendal Arts Centre
Kendal
www.breweryarts.co.uk

2nd October
Queens Hall
Edinburgh
www.queenshall.net

All Dates Supporting Julie Fowlis

East Grinstead

2011-07-01T03:56:00.000-07:00

Saturday 1st October
Chequer Mead Arts Centre,
East Grinstead
with full band
& special guest Wallis Bird
£12.50
http://www.acousticsussex.org.uk/Artists_IainM.htm

Blas Festival.....

2011-07-01T03:50:00.000-07:00

Lochinver Village Hall
Sat 10th Sep

Inverness Airport
Mon 12th Sep

The Badenoch Centre
Kingussie
Tues 13th Sep

Lochcarron Village Hall
Wed 14th Sep

www.blas-festival.com

The Sky Throws You....Single Release

2011-04-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

'The Sky Throws You' will be released as a single on the 6th June accompanied by 2 B-Sides re-mixed by Calamateur !

Darvel Music Festival

2011-04-20T07:25:00.000-07:00

Friday 6th May
Darvel Town Hall
also appearing:
Drever/McCusker/Woomble & Heidi Talbot
www.darvelmusicfestival.org

a wee demo of a new song..

2011-04-09T03:33:00.000-07:00

Haunted Bird Short Film...

2011-03-16T15:48:00.001-07:00

'Haunted Bird' ALBUM LAUNCH SHOWS

2011-02-09T08:34:00.000-08:00

Sat 5th March

An Lanntair

Stornoway

Isle of Lewis

support from Jock Urquhart

TICKETS

...

Thu, 10th March

Real Marys King's Close

Royal Mile

Edinburgh

8.30pm

TICKETS
....

Fri, 11th March

Brel

Ashton Lane

Glasgow

support from Bear Bones

7.30pm

TICKETS

Sunday 23rd January

2010-12-28T03:14:00.000-08:00

Celtic Connections (Hazy Recollections)

ABC2,

Sauchiehall St,

Glasgow

Sun 23rd Jan, 2.30pm

with Daibhidh Martin & Pete Harvey(cello).

Also appearing are Joy Kills Sorrow.

http://www.celticconnections.com/whatson/event/105117-Hazy-Recollections-with-Special-Guests

Friday 21st January

2010-12-28T03:11:00.000-08:00

Anais Mitchell's 'HADESTOWN'
The Fruitmarket
Glasgow
Fri 21st Jan
I'll be singing the part of 'Orpheus'....with Ani DiFranco, Ben Knox Miller(the Low Anthem), Martin Carthy, Nuala Kennedy, Wallis Bird & Sharon Lewis.

http://www.celticconnections.com/whatson/event/103948-Hadestown-and-Joy-Kills-Sorrow

Thursday 20th January...

2010-12-28T02:59:00.000-08:00

Celtic Connections (Ceol's Craic),
CCA
Sauchiehall St,
Glasgow
Thursday 20th Jan
with Daibhidh Martin

http://www.celticconnections.com/whatson/event/104504-Ceol%27s-Craic-at-Celtic-Connections

Happy Christmas....And a Merry New Year...

2010-12-25T19:08:00.001-08:00

New Album Now Available...

2010-12-23T03:24:00.000-08:00

My new album 'Haunted Bird' is now available to buy via my online shop:
www.iainmorrisononlineshop.bigcartel.com

The album is a collaboration with Lewis poet/storyteller Daibhidh Martin.
It will be officially launched in March but you can get it here in the meantime.
Thanks

Haunted Bird...

2010-12-19T16:05:00.000-08:00

This is the video/animation for a song called 'Taketori', it's taken from the new album 'Haunted Bird'.....

By Colin Gordon......

A Lewis Summer

2010-07-31T09:53:00.000-07:00

Hebridean Celtic Festival Review

2010-07-22T07:21:00.000-07:00

For every boy who follows his father into the family business, there's a dozen more who push all that's expected away and tread their own path. Musically, Iain Morrison is the rare example of a man who has done both. His father, Pipe Major Iain M Morrison, is a distinguished piper of more than local renown, and Iain's handling of a set of pipes comes from tutelage at his father's knee. Yet, there was, by his own admission, a sometimes painful separation from the tradition into which most people expected to see him follow, and excel.

Iain picked up a guitar, and started to experiment. For anyone who remembers Crash My Model Car, it's obvious how far from tradition he was prepared to go. He's someone who compresses music styles, life experience and emotion into a uniquely crafted style both distinctive and impossible to classify.

Saturday night's concert was not quite a one-off. It was performed once before at Glasgow's Celtic Connections, but it's likely never to be performed again. It's a moment of completion in personal and musical terms, both for Iain and, probably, for his father - especially performed to a local audience here in Stornoway. Iain's been drawing together his band, his material and, for tonight, all the threads that have led him here. It shows all his painstaking work in pushing back musical boundaries, but also reaches back across the gulf of growing up to join hands once again with his father's generation.

The title of the concert, Ceòl Mòr, reflects the underlying influences of all the music performed. When the lights went down we were staring at an empty stage, but listening to a recording of Iain Morrison Sr explaining and demonstrating the canntaireachd style of teaching, by which the human voice is used to show how the pipes should sound. Iain ascribes to that style a subtlety and tonality In his understanding of music which explains why poetry and ambient sound can easily enter into his musical palette.

"I'm just going to introduce the older folk, here," said Iain after the opening number. "Rona Lightfoot and my old man." Not quite an introduction. Rona has been described as ‘a ceilidh personified' and is both a piper and a singer. She's also a proponent of Canntaireachd style, and a veritable Wikipedia of musical history.

There they sat, stage right, an elderly lady and gentleman, tapping a foot as crescendos of sound crashed around them, and coming in with sung syllables or spoken Gaelic as the moment required. Iain has built many of his songs around melodies taken from the classical piobaireachd repertoire, but it's astounding how far he has taken what can be done with that. I can only give as an example the last in the set - the oldest recorded piobaireachd, Macintosh's Lament, written in 1526 "And we're going to butcher it," said Iain, before launching into a sound that Led Zeppelin would be quite pleased with.

I am absolutely sure some people in the audience were bamboozled, even affronted, by what was happening. It was a performance of high emotions on and off stage. Respect both to Iain for making the arduous journey, and to PM Morrison (and Rona) for guiding and supporting and for being right there, on stage, in the eye of the storm. For me, this was the concert of the festival.

We had to work extremely hard as an audience to bring the band back for an encore, but we persisted, and got a repeat performance of an earlier number of his recent album Trust the Sea to Guide Me. "But we'll get it right this time," said Iain. It's possible his standards may be too high.
www.hebceltfest.com/festival/reviews/

Hebridean Celtic Festival

2010-07-22T07:18:00.000-07:00

7th Floor Video

2010-04-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

Filmed and Edited by Daibhidh Martin & Natalie Moss

7th Floor...

2010-03-29T13:54:00.000-07:00

Coffee and Cakes...

2010-03-25T12:19:00.000-07:00

"Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot. ... Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats."
Diane Arbus

We'll join the circus, travel the world!

2010-02-13T12:30:00.000-08:00

The Kid Who Hid Under the Water...

2010-02-13T05:54:00.000-08:00

doubleclick on the image to get the full screen..
By Colin Gordon....

New Voices Review...

2010-02-13T05:50:00.000-08:00

NEW VOICES: IAIN MORRISON
The Scotsman *****

GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL
THERE were actually two Iain Morrisons among the eight-piece ensemble put together for this show: the Lewis-born singer-songwriter, piper, guitarist, erstwhile member of Glasgow indie-popsters Crash My Model Car, and composer of the music premiered here, together with his pipe-major father, who first taught him to play using the ancient vocal method of canntaireachd (during the thanks at the end, the old man received a touchingly heartfelt tribute "for giving me music").

It was to those earliest traditional roots that Morrison Jr returned for inspiration in writing the dozen or so songs he'd collectively titled Ceol Mor/Little Music, meanwhile bringing to bear all his diverse creative journeyings since then.

An array of sumptuous, powerfully stirring melodies were all based on excerpts from piobaireachd, the original ceol mor, or "big music", of the Highland bagpipe repertoire, while the lyrics engaged with the stories attached to the source material, where known, or with their titles if not.

Deploying his multi-talented band on viola, cello, piano, whistle, electric guitar, bouzouki, bass and drums, with Dad and fellow piping luminary Rona Lightfoot singing canntaireachd, Morrison concocted a spellbinding admixture of rock, folk and even classical stylings, by turns heartrending and uplifting, at once timeless and modern.

Splendidly anchored by their author's ruggedly resonant, richly emotive vocals – themselves further illumined by drummer Seamus O'Donnell and bassist Graham Neilson's radiant harmonies – these were songs you instantly wanted to hear all over again: lets hope there are plans for a recording.

Ceol Mor/Little Music...

2010-01-10T03:14:00.000-08:00

I headed to my folks for New Year and experienced the full force of a proper winter, it was quite a hairy journey! Had a fine time when we got there, got fed and watered the Hebridean way. Water and Carrots is the diet for the next week though! Anyway, I had a good chance to work with the Old Man on some of the pieces for the New Voices Commission and it's going to be great to share the stage with him. I think this should be the setlist:
Too Long In This Condition, Catherine's Lament, I'm My Father Undercover, Flame of Wrath,Corrienessan's Salute, Scarce of Fishing, Hiro, Lament for Mary Macleod, Omu Prin's Lament,The Little Spree, Sound of the Sea, Mackintosh's Lament, Re-Birth...............

Iota....

2009-12-08T04:46:00.001-08:00

An amazing short film that a friend of mine did the music for....

2009-10-29T03:28:00.000-07:00

So, i'm now going with a song called 'Tripping Alone' for the single release. My indecisiveness! I sometimes can't decide on which socks to wear in the morning or whether to even go with socks at all!! Anyway, there is no turning back so it's making it's appearance on the 30th Nov accompanied with the B-Sides 'Death to the Sea(the Dawn)' and 'Seabird'. The video for 'the kid who hid' is nearly done and is looking great so that will go up online closer to the album release.

I'm also working away at the moment on a 'New Voices' Commission for Celtic Connections in Jan 2010. It's a piece called 'Ceol Mor/Little Music' which is a collection of new songs i'm writing based around Piobaireachd, the classical music of the pipes. I've just finished writing a song for the tune 'Mackintosh's Lament' which was written in 1526, it's exciting trying to throw new colours at these amazing melodies. Hopefully i can do them justice. It's always a fine balance of holding on to what is there but to also try and push it into edgier ground. It's great sitting thinking about the person who actually wrote that melody, you forget sometimes that they were real people who had the same types of feelings that we have. I wonder if he struggled with what type of socks to wear in the morning?!

The kid who hid under the water..

2009-09-24T03:03:00.000-07:00

I've just returned from filming a video for the forthcoming single. We headed to the very north of Lewis to a village called 'Skigersta' and then onto an old chapel which sits on the edge of the most amazing cliffs. It felt very much like the edge of the world. The video should be ready in the next few weeks:)

A crowd of people turned away...

2009-06-27T16:47:00.000-07:00

I watched Neil Young sing 'a day in the life' last night while lying in my bed watching glastonbury on the TV.
It was one of the most amazing things i have ever seen and heard..Reminded me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRkA6zugNMQ

xxxxx

Britain's Got Talent...

2009-05-06T16:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E21MdXe3BOQ

The Studio......

2009-04-17T02:36:00.000-07:00

Instruments - check, Mics - check, Songbook - check, Kilberry Book - check, Coffee - check, Haynes Manual - check, Sleeping Bag - check......

I hope God likes Creedence....

2009-04-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

You'll always fly with the wind....

Toy Planes...

2009-03-21T10:03:00.000-07:00

Mister Pip, amazing book....Hunger, amazing film....Island by the Phantom Band, amazing song....I'm in the middle of working on the new record, the pieces are all coming together..good fun times...
xx

Super Snowman....

2009-02-09T06:52:00.000-08:00

My brother in law with a new found friend....

22nd December...Back, Isle of Lewis

2008-12-23T10:09:00.000-08:00

Eden Court Theatre...

2008-12-06T02:56:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pics from the recent Inverness show, we had a great night. I was also kindly asked onstage to play pipes with Capercaillie at the end of their performance, it was a couple of tunes i hadn't played for a few years so it was a tad scary but great fun..Thanks to John Paul & Pete Harvey for the pictures..

Bird in the wall...

2008-11-26T15:52:00.000-08:00

There's a wee bird that lives in the wall just outside my bedroom window, i see him pottering about his daily grind now and again. He seems a happy fellow but he's now got trouble in the form of the neighbours cat 'Freddy' so it maybe a long winter for the wee thing. Anyway, he inspired a song from me which i've just recorded... Realised the other day that i had spent most of the morning daydreaming waiting for him to return from his days travels, feel like i should look out for him with Freddy on the prowl but i suppose i need to let him fight his own battles..Power to his beak!! I'll hopefully get a photo of him by the year-end.Anyway here's a picture of his door/window/chimney??

2008-11-09T11:07:00.000-08:00

Iain Morrison & The Sleepy Cafe Band, 19th July 2008, An Lanntair (review)

2008-07-31T01:37:00.000-07:00

Performing songs largely taken from the recent album, 'Skimming Stones...Sinking Boats', and the earlier, 'Empty Beer Bottles and Peat Fire Smoke', Iain Morrison's music is an enigmatic and truly original mix of creative elements, that in a very large part is very much his own, and which, beyond its immediate sonorous beauty, has a depth of startlingly imaginative, even surreal, observation that equals the likes of Bjork (but without the twee, pouty twists) and Howe Gelb at their most introspective and personal best. At times it's contemporary acoustic rock, at other times, its part folk band, part troubadour's tribe. But then, you're running with some lightning quick sets on pipes and whistles.
In this musical journey, Iain has taken with him fellow poet Daibhidh Martin of Lochs who contributed the words to two of the bands finest songs - 'Skimming Stones' and 'Winter, Part 1' - and performs with the band in a kind of speak-over, recital style above the music. Daibhidh's contribution, one senses, is as much directional as it is material, encouraging his counter-point (not too much encouragement needed, one suspects) in pushing the shape and imagery of the material into some truly original places. The impact is really in terms of narrative, of story-telling, of mythologising, but also of grounding the entire scheme in new island sensibilities.
Attempts to pin Iain Morrison's style into neat comparisons and influences have, as a consequence seen mentions for the likes of Leonard Cohen and Nick Drake. But think also of Donovan, Lou Reed and David Byrne, and yep, you'd be no closer to forcing Iain Morrison's music into the mould of your choosing. What can be said for certain is that Iain Morrison has managed to find a sound world in which all the disparate parts of his musical knowing and inclination combine in an invisible and effortless blend. That, and the fact that he is as good a piper as you'll see anywhere on your musical travels - but then, you'd expect nothing less from the son of the great pipe major himself, Iain Morrison (a.k.a Dad, as Iain Jnr calls him) - makes this one the most original bands to emerge from the Long Isle in many a year.
The large, very mixed crowd at An Lanntair confirm the wide appeal of Iain Morrison's music, that and the fact that the Gaelic music and piping he grew up with have no need to lurk in a cosy, self-reflective ghetto.
(Peter Urpeth - Hi-Arts)

winter, part 1

2008-01-30T16:20:00.000-08:00

Seasamh air an acarsaid,
gaoth a’ gheamhraidh sèideadh
mun cuairt
Chi mi isean beag anns an astar,
ag itealaich na h-aonar,
‘s airson mionaid bheag
tha mi a’ dìochuimhneachadh

Standing on the harbour,
the winter wind dancing around me
I see a small bird in the distance,
flying alone.
For a moment
I forget

(by daibhidh martin.....)

at long last....a post....

2007-10-10T12:44:00.001-07:00

welcome to my other office...

2007-01-05T22:47:00.000-08:00