Bristol – an obvious choice for Lau-Land 4

How did Lau-Land come about?

This’ll be our 4th Lau-Land. The idea came about when we were asked to curate a weekend of music at King’s Place in London in 2012. We enjoyed it so much that we decided continue it as a moveable musical feast. The second was at The Sage, Gateshead, then in our musical birthplace Edinburgh in November last year and the next is in Colston Hall, Bristol in May.

Why Bristol?

When planning the festivals we chose cities which we’ve most enjoyed playing in and where the best audiences are. Bristol audiences have always been totally up for a night out and that helps! A theme through all the Lau-Lands has been cross-genre collaboration and Bristol is a prime example of a city that thrives in this way. Also we partner up with venues in the cities and we have a lot of respect the good people at Colston Hall so Bristol was an obvious choice for our fourth Lau-Land.

Curated lineups are all the rage – are there any you’ve been particularly influenced by?

Festivals like Punkt in Norway and All Tomorrows Parties are an example to us all.

Tell us about your emerging music stage…how important is that and who should we look out for?

We put out an open invitation through our newletter and social media for musicians to apply to our Emerging Music Stage and we’ve had great responses over the last three Lau-Lands. We all listen to the acts and select performers over the weekend, It’s become a really important aspect of Lau-Land. We grew up playing music in an environment where people were occasionally kind enough to us us be heard before anyone knew who we were and it feels good to be in a position to help others out now. It’s incredibly encouraging for us to hear the amount of talent out there. Makes us feel a little old at times though! The year we have: 4th Project, Kate Young, Cardboard Fox and Dan Whitehouse. All excellent.

It’s not just about performances but workshops too – what can people expect from those?

Kris and I will hold guitar and fiddle workshops which we really enjoy. We also invite some of the performers to do a class. And sometimes this isn’t in the traditional workshop form. For example Sam Lee will hold a session on song collecting and Rayna Gellert and her partner Jeff Keith will will discuss and perform traditional gospel music styles from the southern Appalachians and beyond. We love getting people together to talk about music as well as playing it so there’s various discussions over the weekend. There are further workshops from Rayna on Appalachian fiddle, Sam Sweeney on English fiddle and the legendary John Kirkpatrick on accordion. And Farmer Glitch from Hacker Farm will hold a synth building workshop from which you can bring home your own self built synth!

What’s your favourite whiskey? How does whiskey fit into Lau-Land?

Ha! I’m from the West Coast of Scotland so I love the peaty whiskies like Lagavullin and Ardbeg. Full of character. Warm and highly intoxicating. We actually have an installation in Bristol from the Scottish sound gurus ‘Found’ which is interactive and involves drinking whisky. Good eh!

What do you think the main difference between Americana and UK folk is?

I think Americana is much more song driven than UK folk. Though there are totally great tune players out there too, like Rayna Gellert who’s opening for local band Spiro on the Sunday night. Genre labelling can be quite confusing at times though I know it’s kinda necessary. ‘Folk’ now covers such a wide range of music. The wonderful Sun Kil Moon who’s in the main hall Sunday night is classed as folk rock in America but over here I think we’d label it slightly differently. We like the quote from Louis Armstrong ““All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard a horse sing a song.”

If all goes well, would you take Lau-Land on a world tour? And where else would you most like to play?

We’ve spoken about a Lau-Land Tokyo, again because we love playing there and have a good audience. We like the idea that Lau-Land isn’t fixed in time or space and that we don’t have to do one every six months. That’s quite relaxing. To be honest all the cities have been great so far and we’ve been welcomed with open arms. I’m sure it’ll be the same in Bristol.

Lau-Land takes place at Colston Hall, Bristol, on May 29-31, 2015, and features a range of artists, including Lau, Sun Kil Moon and Tinariwen. More info at: www.colstonhall.org/shows/lau-land/