Heal & Harrow, Rachel Newton and Lauren MacColl - Heal & Harrow (2022)

Heal and Harrow brings together two of Scotland's foremost traditional musicians and composers - Lauren MacColl and Rachel Newton. The first album-length collaboration from the duo, the release also sees Lauren and Rachel deliver a wider collaborative project paying tribute to Scottish women persecuted as witches in the C16th and C17th, exploring women's traditions and beliefs in the supernatural, and uncovering echoes of the witch trials in the modern world. Recorded and produced by Andy Bell at Black Bay Studio on the Hebridean Island of Great Bernera, this is an album of empathy, of anger, of despair giving way to hope, pride and challenge. The women profiled on the album lived from Shetland to the Solway and the album draws from Scotland's diverse musical heritage. Rachel's sensitive, touching and at times eerie vocals in Gaelic and English give voice to the voiceless and her harp creates a sense of intimacy with lives lived long ago. Lauren's emotive and engaging fiddle compositions deftly evoke the sweep of Scotland's landscape and the complex heritage of its women. Spoken word, beats and blips meld with traditional idiom to bring past and present together.