Disappear Over the Sea: Burd Ellen Interview

Burd Ellen’s Debbie Armour talks to Stewart Gardiner about her last trip to Mull, radical vulnerability and experimental Gaelic 7″ Chi Mi Bhuam

Burd Ellen’s minimalist experimental folk music arrived fully-formed early 2019 with the release of debut album Silver Came. I described the work as “the sonic equivalent of Ingmar Bergman’s immaculate Winter Light” at one point in my review, and upon listening to new single “Chi Mi Bhuam”, the comparison appears to stand up. If anything, “Chi Mi Bhuam” navigates even more minimalist waters than its LP predecessor. Burd Ellen’s relationship with tradition seems to be going deeper, despite the increasingly experimental approach to form. It’s an intoxicating push and pull that is opened out by the Rev Magnetic remix on the b-side.

Debbie Armour joined me in conversation to reveal what’s going on in the world of Burd Ellen.

So, exciting times for Burd Ellen. What’s been happening since your debut album Silver Came was released earlier in the year?

It’s been fairly non-stop! We did a wee tour with Quinie and Me Lost Me to launch the record which was great fun. I’ve also worked with Rafe Fitzpatrick, Sharron Kraus and Angharad Davies on a very cool project called Yng Ngheredigion, been on tour with Alasdair Roberts, played Celtic Connections, recorded a new single, put out a record with another project, made two films… My children have forgotten what I look like!

You describe “Chi Mi Bhuam” as “an experimental Gaelic work” – can you talk about what that means to you? Is it a traditional song updated/abstracted?

The song was composed by Iain MacPhaidein (1850-1936), who was a bard from Mull that lived a lot of his life in Glasgow. I’m only using the first verse of the song and fragmenting that further still. I guess it’s experimental musically more than textually though. The text of the whole song is beautiful but I was particularly interested in the grammar and also in the idea of inverting or messing with the concept of the ode.

I’m intrigued by the lyrical drive – or perhaps stasis – within the song. The voice and music is incredibly spare and focused. It feels like a line of communication from the past that is haunting the present; the minimalist form its ideal delivery system.

Yes, the grammar is particularly interesting. It does convey a stasis. The tense tells us that the view is something the author sees sort of in perpetuity? I want to call it pluperfect tense, but that might be wrong. I felt very trapped and isolated as a young person on Mull. I wanted to explore that using this text which is an ode or devotional to the island. It was inspired by my last trip there, which might be my last trip there ever. I found it really emotionally taxing and when I left, I sat right at the back of the ferry sobbing like a maniac and just watched the island disappear over the sea. It is a song about past and present existing simultaneously and in perpetuity, and then kind of collapsing under the weight of itself. If that makes any kind of sense.

It seems to speak of the sea. I’m thinking of other – each very different – Scottish records from 2019 that have a psychogeographic relationship with bodies of water: Andrew Wasylyk’s The Paralian, Kinbrae’s Landforms and Sule Skerry by Erland Cooper. Are these waves of music something you’re conscious of?

No. Ha! I try not to listen to things that are close to what I’m doing, I find it really distracting. The Erland Cooper record is definitely on my list though. I’ve been working with the “Selkie of Sule Skerry” song myself over the past year or so, so I’m really curious about it. “Chi Mi Bhuam” is a very watery piece, that was always the intention. But I think it’s more about drowning or weight and the psychogeography comes from the land and the juxtaposition of my relationship to it versus MacPhaidein’s. The water is a place from which to look and a way to escape.

The video is an invitingly avant-garde piece of work that really complements the song. It seems at once personal and abstract. The 16mm footage of wreck diving off the Shetland coast is projected upon your body, which creates interesting juxtapositions. The action takes place on a new landscape, another narrative therefore begins to take shape. Could you talk about your intentions with the video and how it came about?

I knew that I wanted to work with film, and the intention originally was to hand-paint and create water. I am hugely inspired by Margaret Tait and I love the warmth and intimacy of her work, so this felt like a good way to connect to the very personal nature of the music. The 16mm was an accidental eBay find, bought because it had an image of a diver underwater in one of the stills on the listing. I had no idea it was footage of Shetland so that was a wee blessing. I wanted to take some photographs of me with the film projected on me for promotional images. It just worked out so well that it seemed natural to make that the tool for the video rather than painting the footage. It’s also such a beautiful piece of film that I kind of balked at painting on it!

As a singer, and particularly as a singer who prefers to work unaccompanied, I use my body to create my music so it felt like a natural extension of that idea to use my body in the visuals. The song is an expression of huge past and present vulnerability for me, so I also wanted to reflect that in the video. I want it to convey a kind of “radical vulnerability” though, and to show a strength. (As an aside, I’d highly recommend Tessa Norton’s excellent exploration of the concept of radical vulnerability via a close reading of Wayne’s World, in particular the character of Stacey. Joyous.)

In editing the film, I found myself drawn again in to the idea of repetition and perpetuity. I’m editing over the original edits, re-viewing the film, disrupting the shapes and frame edges, but still retaining the narrative thread of both my work and the original piece. It has evolved into a really nice conceptual fit through a series of happy accidents. Me, Luke Sutherland, Margaret Tait, Iain MacPhaidein, we’re all islanders of one kind and another and all with different experiences and angles for exploration. I feel like this gives a good sense of the complexity of my own relationship to my island.

Luke Sutherland, in his Rev Magnetic guise, has remixed “Chi Mi Bhuam” for the b-side. His approach is subtle, but adds different dimensions, plays with space differently. It recalls the warmest of Warp cuts or future R&B around some of the edges. How did the rework come about and how do you view this version of the song?

First of all, I just want to say that I’m still pinching myself about this collaboration! I’ve been a fan of Luke’s music and writing since I was a teenager. Venus as a Boy in particular resonated really deeply with me when I was still living on Mull. It’s a wonderful evocation of the claustrophobia of island living when you’re a wee bit left of centre. The initial idea to invite him to work on the song came from my engineer Jer Reid. They’ve known each other for a long time. I was totally blown away when he agreed to do it. His version of the song is so lush and expansive. I love it as a counterpoint to the minimalism of my take. It reminds me of Arca more than anything, with the percussive chords and limitless space. There’s a sense of quiet… hope? Peace? Something different from the sadness and unravelling of my version anyway. But it still feels true. Maybe his version is more about the “what next…”, he’s bringing the future.

The single is a very limited lathe cut 7” on Sonido Polifonico. I understand there are some objects of interest that come with it?

Yes! There will be a release of 99, clear vinyl 7”. I have absolutely loved working with Paul and his wee team at Sonido. Each of his releases are made by lovely Phil at 3.45RPM Lathe Cutting and come with some goodies. So with “Chi Mi” you get the standard SP badges (ours are the inside cover image and a map of Mull with the SP crow on); a beautiful ceramic token embossed with an image of the Ben Mor mountain range on Mull, made by regular SP collaborator Bev Suth; and I’ve hand cut and slide mounted a little piece of the 16mm film we used for the video to include in each package.

Where can folks buy the single and see Burd Ellen live?

The single is available now from Sonido Polifonico in limited numbers. The rest will be on tour with us this summer. You can catch us in a town near you: burdellen.com/live

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