Forsaken by Sue Mara

for•saken (fɔrˈseɪken) adjective
abandoned or deserted, "a journey into forgotten and forsaken places"

This EP started life in short-edition CD-only format, as an integral part of Forsaken - an art exhibition of photography, poetry and music first shown in Stromness, Orkney, and later in Bristol. I’m delighted to now launch the digital online version.

The Forsaken EP includes two tracks (Tide pool, Ghost) written during a Rackwick stay (see below). Fiddlers at the wedding is created from George Mackay Brown's poem of that name. Solace was composed during a turbulent trip to Cornwall. Michael is my re-written translation of a traditional Scots Gaelic song.

The Forsaken exhibition explored aspects of abandonment through images, poetry and music, initially focusing on abandoned buildings and shore artefacts found in Orkney Mainland and the isle of Hoy.

Old buildings and communities can sadly become lost forever to ruin and disintegration. Yet often time and the elements endow them with new life, colours, shapes, spirit, purpose. Silent machines and broken-down byres shelter new creatures and life-forms. Flowers flourish unrestrained before forgotten windows. Rust and lichen and decay have their own often extraordinary beauty.

The exhibition also touched upon the cycles of abandonment and return inherent in nature's rhythms, such as tide and sun, and forsaking as an element of human relationships.

Rackwick, Hoy

In summer 2012 I’d stayed for two weeks in Rackwick, a tiny community at the north end of the Orkney isle of Hoy. It touched me like no other place: that odd bursting into bright space after the eerie gloom of the mountain drive.... the valley's thick luscious silence, laced with curlew whoops and sea surgings.... the light and colours....a sensation of being softly cradled by the cliffs that embrace the bay...a faint clamouring of ancient echoes in fading tracks and fallen stone, plus some odd mix of melancholy and peace that felt like both a haunting and a homecoming.

I think George Mackay Brown sparked my first glimmers of curiosity about Orkney. I came across one of his poems in a concert flyer. I wanted more, bought the book, and was hooked - especially when I discovered George had deeply loved Rackwick - his Tir Na Nog, he called it. My Rackwick evenings were often spent dreaming and reading by the fire, absorbed in his poetry’s intensity and passion.

By day, I wandered beach, track and hill, absorbed by water, sounds, colours and wind, and finding images in pools, rocks, landscape and croft ruins.

This EP is dedicated to Rackwick, its community, and spirits past and present.

My love and thanks to those - Paul Cooke, Henry Sears, Davide Ariasso, Janet Russell, and Rob Williams - who helped me realise this project.

I sing a mix of my own songs, traditional folk, and occasionally another’s poem made into song - sometimes acapella, and often with the lovely Paul Cooke as One Star Awake. I’m drawn to the melancholic and the undertow, and the richness of their mirroring.
I currently live in Orkney, though Bristol is also my home of the heart.
I also love to make photography and little books.

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