leathaidean, meaning ‘slopes’ or ‘hillsides’ in Scottish Gaelic, is a series of improvisations for shakuhachi and double bass recorded under the duo name Fells & MacGlone in 2022 and released on the Elektramusic label.
Improvising with my long-term collaborator Ùna MacGlone, we wanted to explore playing together as a series of encounters with zones and boundaries – textures and gradients, surfaces and resistances – with a spontaneous sense of purpose or direction, heading to and away from peaks, plateaus and troughs as they appear or fade from sight. The notion of ‘slopes’ or ‘hillsides’ then was a metaphor for the playing; walking, and the effort or effortlessness of ascent and descent, a metaphor for the musical energy expended. The tracks are named in response to the way we felt in playing and listening back to each one – stepping (stapach), flow (sruth), in hand (fo làimh) – an attitudinal naming, embodying daydreaming of a walk in the hills: heavy-going through bog, light-going on paths, climbing and sweating it out; sitting on a rock, silently looking.
