Brìghde Chaimbeul, Rhodri Davies, Sam Amidon and Linda Buckley discuss the roles of tradition and place in music, and what they might think about when performing.

Brìghde Chaimbeul is a Gaelic musician, composer and bagpipe player. Her music stems from traditional Gaelic material, particularly sourced from archival recordings, of songs, stories and music from the Highlands and islands of Scotland. It also explores wider musical influences, such as a variety of global piping traditions from eastern Europe, Cape Breton and Ireland. She has collaborated with artists including Ross Ainslie, Gruff Rhys, Martin Green, Carlos Nunez and Allan MacDonald. Last year she released the album Carry Them With Us in collaboration with Colin Stetson, weaving together textural drones, trance atmospheres and instrumental folk traditions.

Rhodri Davies is a Welsh musician who plays harp, electric harp and live electronics, as well as building harp installations. He started playing the harp at the age of 7 and is classically trained on the orchestral pedal harp; he also plays a range of different harps, modifying their sounds with different techniques and pushing the boundaries of how the instrument can sound. He’s released seven solo albums and regularly works with groups such as Hen Ogledd, Cranc, the Sealed Knot and Common Objects.

Sam Amidon is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from Vermont. He plays the fiddle, guitar and banjo, and is a member of the Icelandic music collective/record label Bedroom Community. He has released a string of acclaimed albums, ranging in theme from interpretations of traditional Irish fiddle pieces to old-time melodies and tales from traditional American folk history. His collaborators include classical composer Nico Muhly, experimental composer/producer Ben Frost, composer/violinist Eyvind Kang, guitar legend Bill Frisell and veteran jazz drummer Milford Graves.

Linda Buckley is an Irish composer and musician who creates electronic and acoustic music working across many disciplines, most notably film, and drone and dark ambient music. She’s worked in many collaborative contexts, including scoring films such as Nothing Compares by Kathryn Ferguson and To The Moon by Tadhg O’Sullivan. Recent collaborators include Liam Byrne and Crash Ensemble, Gudrun Gut and Andrew Zolinsky.

Caterina Barbieri, Kali Malone, Moritz Von Oswald and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe discuss the role limitations play in the creative process, and whether they can be a source for creativity, if working with limitations helps sharpen one’s aesthetics and define one’s unique artistic voice, and whether human imagination needs limits to become limitless.

Caterina Barbieri is a composer and modular synth artist whose sound draws from electronic, experimental and dance music. Her work is informed by an education in classical guitar and electro-acoustic composition at the Conservatory of Bologna, as well as the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and its famed centre for sound art, Elektronmusikstudion. She has spent a decade since her debut release, Vertical, breaking the rigid structures of electronic music and exploring how sound can induce both metaphysical and psycho-physical responses. Her most recent project, Myuthafoo, further investigates her interest in time, space, memory and emotion, and the links between them.

Kali Malone is a composer and organist based in Stockholm. Her compositions are rich with harmonic texture through synthetic and acoustic instrumentation. In 2016 she co-founded the record label and concert series XKatedral, together with Maria W Horn, in Stockholm. Over the last few years she has released the critically acclaimed albums The Sacrificial Code, Living Torch, and Does Spring Hide Its Joy featuring Stephen O’Malley & Lucy Railton.

Moritz Von Oswald is a dub techno pioneer producer and percussionist hailing from Berlin. He is the co-founder of production duo and record label Basic Channel. Prior to becoming one of the leading figures in electronic music in the 1990s, he played in one of the last incarnations of Palais Schaumburg. In a career spanning more than 30 years, he has worked with many legendary artists including Juan Atkins, Thomas Fehlmann, Carl Craig and Tony Allen.

Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe is a Brooklyn-based artist, curator, composer and multi-instrumentalist. In 1997, he joined the band 90 Day Men before releasing solo projects under the moniker Lichens from 2004. He has collaborated on projects or provided sound in a featured artist capacity for such films as End of Summer, Sicario, Arrival, Last and First Men with Johann Johannsson and It Comes at Night with Brian McOmber. More recently, Robert has scored Il colpo del cane for Fulvio Risuleo, Candyman for Nia DaCosta, The Color of Care for Yance Ford and Master for Mariama Diallo.

Ane Brun, Linden Jay and Sylvan Esso's Amelia Meath discuss collaboration, navigating between genres and lyrical inspirations.

Ane Brun is a musician hailing from Norway but based in Sweden, who also runs the label Balloon Ranger. Her music is rooted in folk pop and she's released 11 studio albums; her most recent is Portrayals, which came out last year. It is a collection of covers, including a previously unheard version of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s Blue Moon, to celebrate 20 years since her debut album Spending Time with Morgan.

Linden Jay is a Grammy-nominated musician and producer from London. In addition to releasing music as a soloist, he is one half of the band FARR, a transatlantic duo described as a crossover between soul and alternative pop. As a producer and songwriter, he has also worked with artists including Stormzy, Sampha, Kelis and Loyle Carner.

Amelia Meath is a Grammy-nominated musician and dancer based in North Carolina. She sings in the electronic pop band Sylvan Esso and alt-folk group Mountain Man, and has collaborated with the likes of Real Estate and John Cale.

Audio for this episode was updated on 27th March 2024.

Bill Ryder-Jones, Anna Calvi and Poppy Hankin discuss the first piece of music that really affected them, how their writing has changed as they’ve grown older, and how much they’re willing to give people control over their music.

Bill Ryder-Jones is from West Kirby, Merseyside. He co-founded the Coral, playing as their lead guitarist from 1996 until 2008. Since then he’s pursued a solo career, writing his own albums and film scores, as well as producing and playing on records for other artists including the Last Shadow Puppets, Graham Coxon, Paloma Faith, the Wytches and Hooton Tennis Club. He’s recently released his fifth solo album Iechyd Da (which translates as "good health" in Welsh).

Singer-songwriter and composer Anna Calvi is known for her operatic singing voice and virtuosic guitar skills. She’s the only solo artist to have received three consecutive Mercury Prize nominations, going on to become a judge for the awards, and her other work includes everything from scoring seasons five and six of the acclaimed TV series Peaky Blinders to a stage production of the opera The Sandman.

Vocalist and guitarist Poppy Hankin leads London-based indie-rock trio Girl Ray. Their sound has taken them on a journey from C-86 style indie-rock to uplifting pop music; their third album Prestige, released last year, sees them reclaim disco music as a celebration of sexuality and outsider culture.