This album is the latest dispatch from one-man Mull tourist board Colin MacIntyre aka Mull Historical Society. A vivid and passionate promoter of Mull’s history, culture and place in the world, here he enlists a glittering, largely Scottish, literary cast (Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Nick Hornby, Jacqueline Wilson and others) to broaden his description of place to that of 14 different rooms. Each room is described by a contributing writer, with MacIntyre then turning their words to lyrics for 13 of the 14 tracks. The final track, fittingly, is an old recording of MacIntyre’s grandfather Angus (the ‘bard of Tobermory’) reciting a ‘Memories of Mull’ piece.
Although for the first time a MHS album with words contributed by others, the tracks on this album continue MacIntyre’s themes of memory, nostalgia, and the power of a location, to great effect. The theme running through each track, as the album’s title indicates, is the importance of rooms in being capsules of people’s lives. Fittingly, its recording took place in a room in Tobermory that once belonged to Angus, which is now a recording studio.
Liz Lochhead has two tracks, ‘1952’ and ‘Anaglypta’, both wonderfully evocative of time and place, with the latter spoken by Lochhead, accompanied by what sounds like a distressed station piano. And, while the tunes, hooks and arrangements are as strong throughout as you’d expect from MacIntyre, it is the other piano-based tracks (‘The Red Flame Diner’, ‘Somebody’s Else’s Life’, ‘Seeds’ and ‘Meltwater’) which prove to be the most powerful accompaniment to these thought-provoking lyrics.
MacIntyre has been producing great records for over 20 years now, and this one is up there with his first two, Loss and Us. He is performing live at various book festivals, culminating in the Tobermory Book Festival at the end of October, which sounds pretty special. Reckon I need to consult the CalMac ferry timetable…
The Mull Historical Society website is here
Mark Beaumont-Thomas
