If you preorder the CD you get BOTH the CD and the digital album download.
The CD also comes in a truly stunning 3-fold digipack (6 pages), containing:
- an epic 28-page, 6000-word booklet with native tree facts & Highland folklore
- a beautifully detailed drawing of the Caledonian forest by Somhairle MacDonald
- stunning landscape photography by David Russell at Highland Wildscapes.
- you INSTANTLY receive one album track download: Track 9: "Forest Folk"
....all in all: you get an album, a piece of art and a tree book!
Includes unlimited streaming of The Woods
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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Streaming + Download
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
This piece features a mutual exchange between melody and accompaniment to echo the symbiotic relationships that naturally form between trees and mychorrizal fungi. These life-long bonds are mutually beneficial and have existed for 450 million years. ‘Fàs na h-aon oidhche’ is a lovely Gaelic name for ‘mushroom’. It translates as ‘growth of the one night’. These toad-stools are spore-spreading fruiting bodies that spring up overnight from something much larger and more impressive beneath the soil. The bulk of the fungus is made up of an underground network (mycelium) of thin thread-like fibres (hyphae) that stretch over several square metres below ground. This way it can maximise the nutrients it extracts from the soil as it breaks down fallen leaves and other dead organic matter. But it does not work alone. It hardwires its mycelium to the roots of a nearby tree hereby establishing a mycorrhiza, a symbiotic relationship between fungus and tree roots. The tree receives a great deal more nutrients than it would from its roots alone, since the fungus covers a far greater soil area. The tree returns the favour by passing some of the sugars it creates, from photosynthesis in sunlight, back to the fungus. It’s a great trade. When multiple fungi and neighbouring plants and trees connect in this way, a vast and complex ‘wood wide web’ develops. There is a huge honey fungus in Oregon, USA, with a continuous mycelia map that covers almost four square miles. Its nicknamed the ‘Humongous Fungus’ and is the single biggest living thing on earth.
Lichens definitely win when it comes to symbiotic relationships. The lichen is produced by a fundamental partnership - a fungus joins with an alga or cyanobacteria in a relationship that benefits both individuals. A third organism is now thought to be involved too - a type of yeast.
Abernethy Forest is a very important site for lichens, with 370 taxa found so far. Common Scots Pine tree lichens are heather rags, tree moss, old man’s beard, horsehair and frilly lettuce - great names!
credits
from The Woods,
released March 21, 2020
Musicians:
Scottish mega piper Ross Ainslie. awesome self-penned tunes, banging arrangements and all-round dynamite production! Ross and I have been collaborating for years on each other's gigs and albums! Hamish Napier
supported by 100 fans who also own “Mycorrhiza / The Tree of Life”
My father was born in Glasgow, yet somehow I have never visited Scotland. This lovely music sounds like my ticket of return to the country of his birth. Philip Graham
supported by 87 fans who also own “Mycorrhiza / The Tree of Life”
Just the most fun. Every set is one I want to sit down and learn, and they play with so much ENERGY and STYLE. Crunchy, tangible sound. I'll never get tired of listening to Kinnaris Quintet play. andpersand
Old-fashioned fiddles harmonize with rippling synths on the Scottish singer-songwriter's latest collection of original folk songs. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 30, 2022
