Fiddler Aidan O’Rourke on Lau-Land: 'we believe this music is for everyone'

Following a pandemic-enforced hiatus, Lau are back with one of their participatory Lau-Land mini-festivals. As fiddler Aidan O’Rourke explains, the two-day event is designed to draw people into their musical world. Interview by Jim Gilchrist

In February 2019, the musically adventurous “power folk” trio Lau released their fifth studio album, Midnight and Closedown, its title, along with a teaser press release that suggested it could be either the band’s “swan song or the opening of a bright new chapter”, prompting speculation as to whether it might be their last. At the time, I interviewed Lau’s fiddle player, Aidan O’Rourke, who assured me that it was “definitely not the end of Lau”.

Closedown, however, came to pass shortly afterwards, pandemically enforced, and not a lot has been heard from the multi-award-winning trio, although its members, fiddler O’Rourke, accordionist and electronics wizard Martin Green and guitarist and singer-songwriter Kris Drever, all keep busy as individual artists. The weekend of 14-15 October, however, sees Lau reconvene joyfully in Edinburgh for one of their Lau-Land mini-festivals.

That term “Lau-Land” has a kind of mythic resonance: one might think Shangri-La, or Tír na nÓg with accordions perhaps. In fact, Lau-Land combines performance and community – concert, ceilidh, workshops and sessions.

Lau PIC: Genevieve Stevenson

A Queen’s Hall concert features the trio with award-winning singer-songwriter Kathryn Joseph. But just down the road at Summerhall, the weekend will embrace a multitude of events, with all three Lau members giving workshops on fiddle and guitar technique, song arranging and much else, while fiddler and educator Amy Geddes teaches simple tunes for players wishing to delve further into the Scottish tradition.

Skills acquired can be put into spontaneous practice with the Lau-Land Instant Experimental Orchestra for Everyone, led by Sid Peacock, while banjo player Ciaran Ryan heads an informal trad music session.

Other workshops include cellist Simone Seales on improvisation for beginners while singer-songwriter Rachel Sermanni leads a yoga and relaxed music session. Rather less relaxed will be the Lau-Land Late Club (in the former veterinary college’s ominously titled Dissection Room), featuring BBC Radio 6 Music DJ Gemma Cairney and a young Glasgow jazz contingent led by trombonist Anoushka Nanguy. To calm things down, a Sunday family ceilidh and trad session will be led by pipes and fiddle duo Fin Moore and Sarah Hoy.

Four and a half years on from that Midnight and Closedown release, at home in Edinburgh, O’Rourke stresses the importance he and his trio-mates put on the participatory side and says: “I think Lau-Land is a great way back in for us.”

“We speak so much about the social aspect of traditional music and its inclusive nature. The gig’s one thing, but drawing people into this world where playing traditional music opens up so many connections – we believe this music is genuinely for everyone and we try to encourage that.”

Recently returned from Finland where he was involved in a project with conductor and fiddler Pekka Kuusisto and the Helsinki Philharmonic, O’Rourke says that further Lau recording and touring are definitely on the cards, but they’re in no rush. “Lau in some ways feels like a family and it needs nurturing. We all have young families and individual careers, but we’re all dedicated to and have a care for this thing we created, even though we maybe don’t have the same energy to be on the road 100 days a year that we had 15 years ago when we first got together.”

He doesn’t want, however, to fall back into “the old trap of spending a fortune making an album then you have to tour it. We needed to find a new model and that’s partly what Lau-Land is all about. “We’re still kind of re-emerging … but we’re still eager to do stuff.”

Inveterate collaborators, they have recorded and/or appeared with everyone from the late Cream bassist Jack Bruce to string quartets. For their concert with Kathryn Joseph, the first half will see both doing spots, but the second half, says O’Rourke, will be “more immersive. She’ll envelope into our unplugged show and we’ll do hardly any talking, just draw the audience in to the experience.”

For details, see www.lau-music.co.uk

More October Folk Highlights

Edinburgh audiences can experience some additional notable forthcoming folk events. On the evening of 15 October, the Queen’s Hall hosts the Celtic, Nordic and Appalachian dynamism of fiddlers Aly Bain and Bruce Molsky with multi-instrumentalist Ale Möller. On 6 October, meanwhile, piper-saxophonist Fraser Fifield joins renowned fiddle-harp duo Chris Stout and Catriona McKay at St Cecilia’s Hall as part of Fifield’s traditional artist residency at Edinburgh University’s Department of Scottish/Celtic Studies.