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Where two genres meet, it is tempting to think in terms of an intersection or a single, identifiable point. But where traditional music coexists with the more experimental end of the DIY scene, there exists a wide and fertile swathe of land, a musical pasture verdant enough to sustain whole collectives. Here we find London musicians like Milkweed, Jacken Elswyth and the Goblin Band, but there are also wildly different cores across Britain and Ireland, where similarly experimental creative urges result in completely different sounds. Dublin, Bristol, Manchester and big chunks of Yorkshire are home to some of the most striking, boundary-pushing folk music of recent times, and each scene has its own distinct feel, influenced partly by regional topography, culture and history.
Scotland – and Glasgow in particular – has long been a shining light in this loose avant-trad constellation (think Alex Neilson’s pre-Trembling Bells noise-folk outfits Scatter and Directing Hand, or cultish noughties psych-folkers Nalle), and Glasgow-based singer Quinie (Josie Vallely) is the latest in a long line of traditional singers and musicians doing things in ways that challenge the folk orthodoxy. Her aesthetic is one of deliberate sparseness, and her influences are the Scottish folk singers and song collectors of the early and mid part of the twentieth century, particularly Lizzie Higgins, the Aberdeenshire singer whose mother was the incomparable Jeannie Roberston.
Forefowk, Mind Me is Quinie’s third full-length solo release, after her 2017 self-titled debut and 2018’s Buckie Prins (she also shared a split tape with Jacken Elswyth as part of Elswyth’s Betwixt & Between series). It is the most thoroughly researched of her releases to date, but also, perhaps unexpectedly, her most natural sounding. A normative reading of folk music history traces a line from the shared, accessible and democratic roots of the genre to the complex, virtuosic and exclusive nature of much contemporary folk. One of the most important aspects of Quinie’s work is her rejection of virtuosity and the boundaries it creates. This results in a music that is gloriously free of expectation, and which erodes considerations of class or gender. Songs like the unaccompanied Bonnie Udny – one of a handful from the collection of Lizzie Higgins – feel like they were recorded beyond the confines of time and technology: it feels like Quinie has a direct link to very first women to sing these songs, and it’s a thrilling thing to think about.
But this is also an album that relishes simple fun. Macaphee Turn the Cattle (another song from Higgins’ repertoire) relishes the pure human joy of letting your vocal chords perform twists and tricks, and also features a jaunty fiddle section and a sinuous percussive spine of foot taps and handclaps. Auld Horse – an improvisation based on a bothy ballad – gets its kicks in a more experimental manner, but even here, the simple pleasure of people playing music together shines through at every point.
The album’s powerful, uncompromising opener, Col My Love, sees Quinie’s vocals mirror the drone and then the melody of Harry Górski-Brown‘s pipes, using a technique called canntaireachd, an ancient method for teaching and memorising bagpipe melodies. It relies on the singer producing specific syllables that act as analogous to the bagpipes’ notes. The results are compelling and wholly unique. Her voice is both robust and vulnerable, and both sides are evident on the unaccompanied Generations of Change, an unusual and highly specific song about the many generations of a Fife farming and fishing family. In Quinie’s hands, it speaks eloquently of the strength of family ties, the importance of place and home, and the inexorable nature of time. She somehow manages to strike a perfect balance between hope and melancholic nostalgia.
On Sae Slight a Thing, an old Uilleann pipe tune is married up with a song based on the poetry of Marion Angus, another of Quinie’s biggest influences. It is a stirring performance and an incredibly haunting melody, said to have been discovered by fishermen on the whistling of the wind or in the song of whales. Health, Wealth A Yer Days is an improvisation around a salutatory snippet gleaned, once again, from Lizzie Higgins, with what sounds like a bouzouki (Oliver Pitt) taking centre stage in the first half. The tune coalesces around a repeated motif played in the strings. It’s these moments, floating freely somewhere between trad and experimental or free folk, that show just what a singular artist Quinie is.
The brief and confident The Seasons started life as an old Scots poem with a tune tacked on. Quinie strips it back to its clear, simple vocal melody. It is reminiscent of some of those short, early Anne Briggs songs, where she takes a traditional tune and inhabits it so successfully with her voice that she seems to give it new life. Cam A Ye Fair, a Scots version of Let No Man Steal Your Thyme, takes a familiar piece of music and imbues it with a strange, droning beauty, with Górski-Brown’s pipes once again at the forefront. Throughout the album, Quinie’s collaborators take on important roles: as well as Górski-Brown and Pitt, she is joined by Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh on viola and prolific upright bassist Stevie Jones.
Although originally from Edinburgh, Quinie traces her recent family history back to Ireland, and the cultural and artistic cross-pollination between Ireland and Scotland plays a noticeable role in her music. Sallow Buckthorn is based on an Irish sean-nós tune called An Cailín Fearúil Fionn, but its lyrics are adapted from two poems originally in two very different languages: the first half is from Sea Buckthorn by Scots poet Helen Cruikshank, and the second is Quinie’s own translation of a Theresa Gall Saintie poem in Palawa Kani, a reconstructed aboriginal language of Tasmania. The tender and moving closing track, Craigie Hill, which has its roots in Ulster, further cements Quinie’s links to her heritage.
As part of her preparation for recording this album, Quinie journeyed on horseback through Argyll, soaking up the wild beauty of the landscape and acquainting herself with the area’s unique culture via conversations with its inhabitants. Many of her songs originated in the traveller tradition, and her own travels (along with the blessing of her traveller friends) convinced her that she should bring these songs to a wider audience. This gestation feeds into the communal feel of the album, the shared experience of old and new ideas that is so important to the future of folk music. Forefowk, Mind Me may have been several years in the making, and it may draw heavily on the songs of the past, but it feels like the perfect snapshot of a type of folk music that is unapologetically and gloriously present.
Forefowk, Mind Me (May 23rd, 2025) Upset The Rhythm
Digital/LP + Book and Risographic Lyric/Art Print: Upset the Rhythm | Bandcamp
London Album Launch: St Pancras Old Church on Friday, 30th May 7:30 PM (Tickets)
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