Garefowl is a musical project inspired by the remote Hebridean island of St Kilda and its unique traditional music. It is a collective of six musicians (Ewan Macdonald, Chris Jones, Jess Whelligan, Nathan Bontrager, Richard O’Flynn, and Stuart Graham) who combine fiddle, viola da gamba, cello, mandolin, concertina, bouzouki, vocals, field recordings, and eerie drones extracted from seabird bones to weave a uniquely evocative, immersive musical world.

To record their forthcoming second album, Things That Vanish, Garefowl carried all their instruments and recording gear on a small boat to St Kilda, which lies 50 miles west of the Outer Hebrides in the angry waters of the north Atlantic Ocean. While recording the acoustic instruments there, the band also collected field recordings to sample, process and blend into the production of the tracks.

St Kilda’s natural and cultural significance have made it the UK’s only dual World Heritage site, being home both to a thousand-year old human settlement which was abandoned in 1930 and to millions of seabirds, who live on its rugged cliffs. The band’s focus on the island and its seabirds stems from a story from Ewan’s family history. 180 years ago, his ancestor Lachlan MacKinnon was one of four men from St Kilda who killed the last great auk (or “garefowl”) in the UK, believing the strange seabird to be a witch.

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