[Cover photo credit to Louise Bichan]
Fiddler Louise Bichan is set to release her second album The Lost Summer on April 5, 2024, via Adhyâropa Records, nearly eight years after her debut release under her own name, Out of My Own Light.
The USA-based Scottish musician and photographer uses both mediums to tell stories. Bichan composes “in response to her roots and the world around her; weaving through stories of connection, to people, nature, the past and the possibility of the future.”
Bichan is joined by Conor Hearn on guitar, his brother Brendan Hearn on cello, and Ethan Setiawan (who Bichan collaborates with in duo Hildaland and with Corner House) on mandolin, octave mandolin and octave tenor guitar.
Setiawan produced, engineered, and mixed the record. Special guest appearances come from Dan Klingsberg on the double bass, Simon Chrisman on hammered dulcimer, Brad Kolodner on claw-hammer banjo, fellow Orcadians Jennifer Austin on piano and Alice Tait (Bichan’s cousin) on fiddle, and Ali Levack on whistle.
Bichan says:
Since the release of ‘Out of My Own Light’, I have completed a degree in performance at Berklee College of Music, studying with the likes of Bruce Molsky, Darol Anger, Matt Glaser and Joe Walsh. I’ve had the opportunity to travel and perform around the States with Corner House and more, met and played music with so many inspiring people and broadened my musical horizons. I felt it was high time I took all of these new experiences and inspiration and created a new record.
The title track was composed in 2020, while Bichan was missing home and her family.
She says:
I was being melodramatic, all certainly was not lost, despite everything 2020 threw at us, it was a great summer.
After buying an old Volvo, Bichan embarked on a cross-country road trip, taking in the sights of National Parks such as Badlands, Yellowstone and Grand Teton, Olympic, and Bryce Canyon. Taking along her fiddle, Bichan played and filmed videos under her Fiddlecam moniker, at many beautiful viewpoints, creating videos for album songs “Deltingside” and “Rhena’s 80th.”
The Lost Summer was recorded in Setiawan’s home studio in Maine, as well as in an Orkney living room, where Bichan set up shop along with Austin and Tait, to record Jennifer Wrigley tune “The Watch Stone” and “Arnie’s 80th”, a collaboration between Bichan and Tait, as well as “Tune for Claire”, written in memory of a young Orcadian from a musical family.
An Orkney native, Bichan has taken part in performances with talent like Orkney group Fara and award-winning singer-songwriter Rachel Sermanni, before a scholarship to Berklee College of Music, Boston, where she developed her style further.
Album Release Tour Dates include:
April 5: Old Songs, Voorheesville N.Y.
April 6: Blasty Trad, Concord, N.H.
April 7: The Gem Theatre, Bethel, Maine
May 8: The Burren Backroom, Somerville, Mass.
May 10: The Cape Cod Cultural Center, South Yarmouth, Mass.
May 11: The Foundry, West Stockbridge, Mass.
June 10: The Deane Center, Wellsboro, Penn.
July 18: Old South Church, Farmington, Maine
