The Scotsman Sessions #424: Roddy Woomble with Sorren Maclean and Hannah Fisher
When the Scotsman Sessions launched as a lockdown creative outlet in March 2020, Idlewild frontman Roddy Woomble was one of the first artists to contribute, beaming in from a barn at his home on Iona.
Since then Idlewild have toured to mark their 21st birthday and Woomble has released two electronica-tinged solo albums, Lo! Soul and the self-titled debut of his side project Almost Nothing.
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Hide AdHis second Scotsman Session offers a typically cosy taste of his latest outing. Sometime During the Night We Fell Off the Map is a return to the folkier textures of his early solo albums and his intimate rendition of first single Break Up the Sun with regular collaborators Sorren Maclean and Hannah Fisher in their Mull cottage is entirely redolent of what Woomble describes as “an album to get close to.”
“Most of the album was written in my living room with Sorren and Hannah in a similar way to what you see in the Scotsman session,” says Woomble. “The idea was to record like this, but we ended up adding drums and piano to the recording in the studio. The whole record is very much a fireside record to me though.”
The studio where the album was recorded is also on Mull, a converted 19th century Baptist church building in Bunessan also used by Tide Lines to record their most recent album An Ocean Full Of Islands.
Woomble has been a longtime resident of the Inner Hebrides, relocating from Glasgow in the late 2000s to bring up his family. His 16-year-old son Uist is now following in the family business, and contributes guitar to the album. It turns out that his onetime teen screamer father, renowned for his frenzied fronting of Idlewild in their early years, might be feeling his age.
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Hide Ad“Themes of this record include reflection, memory, meaning and meaninglessness, ageing, irrelevance, change,” says Woomble. “The idea that you spend most of your life up until 45/50 collecting the information and experiences that you spend the rest of your life reflecting on.
“That’s not to say you can’t have wonderful, rich experiences after this age, but certainly for me in the past decade my songs have taken on a much more meditative quality. I guess the album also being written in winter, the most reflective of seasons, contributed to this contemplative feel for both the lyrics and music.”
Another consequence of its winter composition is that the album includes Woomble’s first ever Christmas song, the lush melancholic Christmas Without You, which is garlanded with Matt Carmichael’s mellow saxophone and (naturally) soft sleighbells. It is definitely more Driving Home For Christmas than All I Want For Christmas in musical spirit. Woomble plans to invoke that festive feel at two December shows in Glasgow when he will play some other seasonal numbers with his full band.
Sometime During the Night We Fell Off the Map is released by Assai Recordings on 11 October. Roddy Woomble tours the UK from 16 October, playing The Venue, Dumfries, 25 October, MacArts, Galashiels, 27 October, The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen, 29 October and The Hug & Pint, Glasgow, 20 & 21 December
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