Restored by Patricia Clark

The initial planning for this album started way back in 2014, when I began getting tunes together from collections with a view to recording. Since then, I had multiple concepts of what I wanted it to be. Finally, after a few lockdowns and a new chapter in my fiddle’s story, this is the result! I wanted this to be a representation of live performance, and it’s all about the tunes!

On 11th September 2019 I returned home to find that my house had been broken into and my fiddle stolen. On 30th September, the fiddle was found by a neighbour in a local wood, smashed to pieces and covered in mud, having spent three weeks in the elements. He retrieved all of the pieces he could find and returned them to me in a shoebox. One piece, to the right of the front of the fiddle, was never found despite multiple searches. I gave the shoebox full of pieces to Paddy Tutty, who did an incredible job in repairing and restoring the fiddle – complete with an entirely new section to replace the missing piece. The story of the fiddle is the inspiration behind the album - the mixing of the old, unusual and brand new, and the photos throughout the sleeve were taken by Paddy during the restoration.