Andrew Heath - Scapa Flow (2023)

Full of majesty, fragility and darkness, Scapa Flow explores our complex relationship with the sea and its pivotal role in our sense of identity.

The album continues Andrew’s endless explorations with piano, guitar, and electronics, his love of the e-bow to create organic and constantly changing tones, as well as with more unusual instruments like the zither, an instrument that he has refashioned and used on “We are Shipbuilding Again”.

Scapa Flow is a shallow body of water in the Orkney Islands whose name is derived from Old Norse - Skalpaflói. It's waters have played an important role in trade and conflict throughout millennia. If ever there was a part of the sea where ghosts dwelt, it is here.

The album reflects Andrew Heath’s fascination with this wild and often unforgiving place as a working environment with an industrial past and an environmental future. From divers and submariners to sailors and wreckers, this immense and unyielding domain imposes itself upon the people who have both lived by, and died by, the sea. A sea that can always be beautiful but cruel.