Post Description

Folk, Schots, en wat een mooi verhaal. Het vehaal is de kers op de taart. Lezen luisteren en tegelijkertijd, BOEM!!!

Grace Stewart-Skinner's debut album Auchies Spikkin' Auchie effortlessly intertwines field recorded conversation with her new compositions to create an ethnomusicological postcard of her wee home village, Avoch. This album is Grace’s musical tribute to Avoch, encapsulating a sense of the village’s proud community and special heritage.

The story behind it:

When folk musician Grace Stewart-Skinner listened to recordings of poems her grandfather had written in the unique dialect of the family’s home visit, she knew she wanted to use them in her music.

Now, her album, which features her grandfather’s words, as well as other conversations in the dialect of Avoch on the Black Isle, is the only Scottish nomination at next week’s Folk Album of the Year Awards 2026.

Ms Stewart-Skinner, who plays the clàrsach, recorded other speakers of the dialect in conversations for her album Auchies Spikkin' Auchie, as well as commissioning her father to record a new poem to complement those by her late grandfather.

 “My boba, who has sadly passed away now, wrote two poems in the dialect,” she said. “Thankfully, someone recorded them years before. That’s what gave me the idea.”

Ms Stewart-Skinner did not grow up speaking the dialect, however, she remembers her father and her grandfather speaking it together.

A fishing community in an area dominated by agricultural communities, Avoch's dialect developed in isolation. A traditionally Gaelic speaking area, it is believed speakers of Scots emigrated to the area to work in the fishing industry and the two languages merged.

“It’s a dialect that is really spoken only in the village, it was quite isolated,” said Ms Stewart-Skinner. “The Scots speakers came in to work in the fishing industry, but but they didn’t really integrate with the wider Black Isle so much.”

She added: “I really wanted to capture it in its most authentic setting. So although I did kind of interview them, really, I just wanted them to talk to each other.”

She added: “Nowadays, the dialect is really not used much, which is why I did my album because I wanted to capture it before it’s completely gone.”

The three older members of the community she chose to interview were two men who had worked in the fishing industry and the wife of a fisherman.

“I also got my dad to write and record a poem to complement those of my boba,” she said. “It rounded it off well.”

Spelled Avoch, the name of the village is pronounced Auch as the “v” is always silent.

Auchies Spikkin’ Auchie, which also includes three other musicians - Rose Logan on fiddles, Rhona MacDonald on double bass and Ewa Adamiec on drums - was awarded £10,776 from The National Lottery via Creative Scotland’s Open Fund in 2024. Ms Stewart-Skinner also received £4,000 in Crowdmatch funding.

Tracks:
01 Auchie
02 Th' Herrin' Must've Taken Fricht
03 Womun
04 Mrs Moira Reid of George St
05 Dad's Poem
06 G' In Th' Harbour In Fir a Dram
07 Boats
08 Whit's 'ad Lochie_
09 Boba's

Staat er compleet op, 10% pars mee gepost. Met zeer veel dank aan de originele poster. Laat af en toe eens weten wat je van het album vindt. Altijd leuk, de mening van anderen. Oh ja, MP3 doe ik niet aan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXzgBRghFG4