Feeling a little under the weather today. Spent the morning shivering in bed watching an old B&W classic "The Pickwick Papers" with James Hayter, and now a cold has descended clamping my nose and throat... (man flu....)
To cheer me up and get my blood moving, put Martyn Bennett's Hardland on and turned up the volume.
Read about this album HERE, and check out 'Play', 'Snipe Shadow' and other chunks of folk fusion...

This album takes the idea of SCOTLAND as a Place and challenges it, but also reinforces the musical tradition. As it says on Martyn's site:

"Try and find those things that make us Scottish. They are not necessarily Tartan, but are no less colourful. They are in the sound of the kick drum, the bass line, the distortion, the punk guitar, the break-beat. Try and see the old ways in new surroundings. The folk tune of long ago can be heard above the constant traffic of urban life: hear it in the roughness of the fiddle, hear it in the sweetness of the chanter. They are just as valid now as any of our technology, nae, they are more valid than any of it. Hardland calls from the depths of a hard-beat urban underground, but it does so through the heart and beauty of a high land."

The reason for posting is that I can't be at this event, which takes place tonight and which I wish I could have attended.For a fantastic SENSE OF PLACE in music and the late Sorley MacLean's poetry, please check out the video of HALLAIG. A wonderful place to visit.
RIP Martyn.