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PLACE AS ELDER w/ QUINIE
539 Plays1 day ago
Big personal shares at the top of the ep (preview: podcasting terrifies me) before an utterly delightful conversation with Scots folk singer Josie Vallely aka. Quinie.
Quinie's album Forefowk, Mind Me was named The Guardian's best folk release of 2025, but don't worry if you're not into bagpipes because we mostly chat about:
Not making your art your career
Tips for slow art/seasonal living in a rushing world
The mind bending differences between relating with Country in Australia versus Scotland
Minority languages and evocation of place
The right to roam
Confused white settler syndrome
When you’re a cultural mongrel
Impure ancestry
Place as a surrogate elder
Tradition in motion
Where do songs live?
Journeying on horseback
Horses as bodyguards
Why we all just want to be got
🧙♀️LINKY POOS
[album] Forefowk, Mind Me ~ Quinie
Quinie’s seasonal almanac ~ Things that happen every year in a cycle
[film] Forefowk, Mind Me
Guardian review of Quinie’s album
Cover art photo credit: Anthony Rintoul
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Transcript
00:00:03
Speaker
Race aliens!
Katie's Return and Holiday Reflections
00:00:06
Speaker
Hey there, this is Katie and you're listening to Riskillians, where we're tuning into the beauty without turning away from the train wreck. It's great to be back podcasting after a little break, and I hope you all had some good times in the garden, or in the kitchen, or by the lake, or in the bush, or on the daybed over the new year period.
Baby Blackbirds Update
00:00:25
Speaker
I'm pleased to report that at least two of the baby blackbirds from the last episode made it through the heatwave and are now following their parents around, yapping like fully grown freeloaders.
Interview with Josie Vallely
00:00:36
Speaker
Today i have a really frickin' beautiful conversation for you with a Scottish folk singer I've recently fallen completely in love with, who just so happened to be in Australia this month and took time out of her holiday to enrich Reskilliance with her stories and exquisite Scottish accent.
00:00:52
Speaker
Her name is Josie Vallely, who performs as Quiney, and I've been thinking about something she said during our interview a lot. She's said that sometimes, before getting up on stage, she panics, feeling her mind turn blank, trying to remember all the words to all the songs simultaneously, and realising that she can't.
00:01:12
Speaker
But her body knows the songs. They're stored in flesh and bone and muscle fibre and movement, and it's all about trusting that they're there. Not in her brain, but maybe in her big toe as it taps along to the beat.
Podcasting and Performance Anxiety
00:01:27
Speaker
Embodied song remembrance. Hearing Josie say this comforted me greatly because podcasting involves a similar oh shit ritual prior to pressing record. actually said to Jord before I jumped on this call with Josie, I am cooked.
00:01:41
Speaker
I'm toast. My questions have given up the ghost. My brain is feathers and dust motes. I can't do it. Most of the time, my worst fears don't come true, and I hear myself saying the words and asking the questions because it turns out my body had tucked all that research and planning away inside a cheek pocket.
00:02:00
Speaker
But it's not like I end interviews on a massive high either. I'm excited to release my guest's wisdom, for sure. I'm relieved that it's over, no doubt, but I'm often pretty jangled.
Interviewing Challenges and Reflections
00:02:12
Speaker
Sometimes after an interview, I replay the questions that I asked that turned into comments that curled up and died mid-sentence. And I replay the stutters and the almost certainly preventable technological staggers and the way that it's so friggin' hard to guide a conversation with grace and clarity so that details are revealed in a logical sequence and everyone listening gets it.
00:02:35
Speaker
I fret that my guest wasn't able to get to the heart of their expertise because I knocked them off course. And I kick myself over how fast I speak sometimes, the breakneck sprint of a prey animal running for its life.
00:02:47
Speaker
Because the truth is, when that recording light is flashing, most of the time I'm in fight or flight.
Podcasting as Personal Growth
00:02:54
Speaker
As a kid, I was a black belt at evading public speaking, able to slip the teacher's gaze as it roamed the classroom looking for the next student to call up. I would honestly go dead last every single time.
00:03:07
Speaker
At uni, when I studied film, I remember making a short film with my friends and suddenly being in front of the camera in a scene. and stiffening up like two-day-old corpse in performance rigor mortis.
00:03:19
Speaker
I am definitely not a natural front person. Yet here I am, podcasting, deliberately plonking myself into discomfort. Why? Well, look, there are lots of reasons. including all the noble ones like believing wholeheartedly in the power of honest conversations with kind, clever people. But a big personal reason i do this podcast is to grow.
00:03:42
Speaker
i had a basic bitch realisation that when you push your edge and pursue growth, it can actually feel pretty gnarly. That there's friction as old parts of you rub up against emerging parts of you, almost like going against your own grain.
00:03:57
Speaker
But if I want to learn anything, if I want to mature as a human and hone my craft and get comfortable being heard, there is no way around the terror of trying, of failing, of trying again, of the tedious middle part where you're consolidating and the lifelong ups and downs as you journey without ever arriving.
00:04:16
Speaker
There's no way around, only through. I tell myself that one option is to stop podcasting because it's too damn painful not to be Michael Parkinson or Louis Theroux or Krista Tippett.
00:04:27
Speaker
That road is actually a dead end. The other road is to just keep showing up, to keep taking step after step, to keep saying, "'Oh shit, I can't remember any of my questions.'" and trusting that it's all part of the process, that that's the nature of growth, and that even if I fuck up spectacularly, it becomes a permission slip for other people to flex their crazy, foolish, and probably excellent passions to, without having to be perfect.
00:04:52
Speaker
As you'll hear in this interview, following your curiosity can be absolute chaos, generating more questions than answers, exposing old, slumbering discomforts that it's safer not to wake,
00:05:05
Speaker
But I think a key life skill for modern earthlings is to hold this complexity, expect a bit chaos, and invite others along for the ride. So please come along for this particularly spirited ride with Scottish folk singer, amongst many other things, Josie Vallely, aka Quiney.
Josie Vallely's Acclaimed Album
00:05:24
Speaker
Quiney's album, Four Folk Mind Me, was named Best Folk Album of 2025 in The Guardian, and her music strums the vagus nerve in a magical way, performed largely in unaccompanied old Scots, striking a deeply buried ancestral chord, for me at least.
Josie's Art and Connection
00:05:42
Speaker
Josie is one of those all-terrain guests who was willing to cover lots of ground with me, including making slow art in a fast-paced world, the Scottish approach to reclaiming connection to the land, her tricky reckoning with doing that in Australia, coloniser anxiety, messy ancestry, how to make place your elder, and what it means when tradition kind of bores you. She even sings a little song about crows.
00:06:06
Speaker
I'm so grateful that Josie joined me for the first episode of Reskilliance in 2026. I really hope you give her album a spin and love it as much as I do. You'll find all of that goodness in the show notes.
00:06:18
Speaker
Here's Josie Bowie. Oh, hi.
00:06:45
Speaker
know what, I wanted to issue an apology for Australia's weather because we've had like three 40 degree days in a row and I was thinking, gosh, you're a Scottish lass here. stepping into the fiery inferno. And I'm wondering if maybe you could like mop our brow with some cool stories from your homeland. Like what do you get up to in Scotland?
00:07:05
Speaker
i mean, that's a big question. But yeah, this is hard for my body to adapt to. But then i guess many of the white people in Australia are also from Scottish roots. So I can't complain too much.
00:07:20
Speaker
What do I get up to in Scotland? So... I live in Glasgow, in the centre of Glasgow, and um I have a life that is split between making music and following a kind of musical path of gigs and and kind of sharing about my work.
00:07:41
Speaker
And then I also have a pretty much full-time job where I work as like a systems or service designer and then i also have my animals and my home and my garden and a tiny piece of land. and So I kind of split myself between all of those things but then they are also all integrated. It's a kind of ah rich, chaotic and occasionally overwhelming life.
00:08:13
Speaker
You know what, it's such an affirming summary because I guess like even just asking questions about your music and then kind of severing your connection to all these other parts of your life and the livelihood that you pursue, um how you earn a crust, the animals that you tend, like all of those things are part of a whole person and it can feel really overwhelming to hold them all but in the same way like it's just it's just necessary to have this multifaceted existence if we're you know if we're showing up as we really are so um I suppose when I when you were speaking my mind was interested in this idea of like
00:08:52
Speaker
Is it your goal to do music full time are you happy to have that chaotic spread of lots of diverse yet integrated parts of life? I think about this a lot and because I think there's a pressure to kind of aim for your art to be your career um and that's something that I...
00:09:16
Speaker
I'm not interested in So not focusing on kind of doing music full time or like putting all my eggs in that basket means I maintain the freedom to make music that I want to make and at the pace that I want to make it, which for me is very slow. So ah my music is something that kind of emerges over a long period of time.
00:09:41
Speaker
um I don't kind of squeeze it out of me. it just I just see what happens. I mean, occasionally I'll push if I've got, you know, You know, when I was like two weeks before recording the album, I was like, OK, I better, get know, get practicing and I better like nail down the detail of what I'm doing. But a lot of the songs that I was going in with were songs that I've been holding and playing with for years.
00:10:06
Speaker
folk music in particular has always sat in a material world like it's a product of your day-to-day and and I think that's what makes it so interesting and powerful that it is actually integrated into life um and I guess like the the work I do with my animals and with and the land and and that's linking me into some of the activities that people were doing when they were writing some of the older songs and then the work that I'm doing now day to day and I mean I work ah in a huge organisation
00:10:46
Speaker
um looking at like how to improve systems, how to make sure that ah we keep like a kind of like humanness in very complex like digital systems. and So that, although it seems a world away from folk music, has me constantly bumping up against like how people work, what's important for them, and how to navigate things that seem very disconnected but and find the links between them and help people understand them. So actually it's much more linked to my music than ah it might seem from the outside. Like if you looked at my like music website versus my LinkedIn, you'd be like, who's this girl? Is this the new Incredibly connected to me. And I wonder how you hold yourself as that rock in the river person patient and slow in your art process when you are in a field that is rushing, you know, so rapidly towards potentially catastrophic destruction of all that we know, but also, yeah like how do you hold fast to that slow pace when you're working in a digital space as well?
00:12:00
Speaker
and Yeah, that's a good question. So just to clarify, it's like a kind of it's a government role, so it's not like a kind of I'm not like ah working in like big tech or anything. Yeah. yeah So maybe it's similar to working seasonally or like in a garden or or whatever. It's like you always have something you need to do now, just trusting that it will keep building and keep flowing. So rather than setting myself like a really big...
00:12:29
Speaker
goal with the music I just kind of I'm like right what am I doing next what's the next thing I'm doing and that's the same across everything I'm doing yeah whether it's working in the garden whether it's at work whether it's like navigating grief whether it's uh tidying my bedroom it's like right okay what's the next best step that I can make in this uh area of my life at this time so while they are at different they are moving at different paces it's still the same process I take Yeah, and it's it's such a a wise approach, I suppose, to not make your hobby your jobby and I'm constantly talking about this with people. I'm probably interacting with a lot of people who are very loosely employed and we're all garden sprites and pursuing creative projects and and living together.
00:13:17
Speaker
frugally as best we can to try and reduce overheads and then make this really grounded on economic life for ourselves. But there is definitely an elegance and a wisdom to depressurizing your passion as you have done to allow it to be what it what it is and to bloom and unfold as it will. And yeah, I wonder if you have any more thoughts around setting yourself up to be able to make the most of this life, even in the kind of ah weird space that we find ourselves where so many people can't afford to access land and are struggling to make ends meet. like
00:13:57
Speaker
Yeah. Have you really deliberately set your life up in the way that you have, Josie? um So then I guess this would be the moment where I would say like, well, obviously I'm very privileged and obviously i have had a lot of support that the way that I run my life is not.
00:14:14
Speaker
been a product purely of grit and determination but of circumstance the main like thing I would want to say to people is like don't ah don't assume when someone presents you with an image of who they are through these you know through this digital landscape of like social media and Even in kind of richer media like books or or the record or whatever it is, it it's a snapshot of some of the way that somebody wants to be perceived. So yeah, this little bit of land that we recently got, you know, it's like that's always been a dream for me to have a land. like to have a bit of land um
00:14:50
Speaker
I have a garden in my flat in Glasgow but it's it's a communal garden which is really nice because I share it with my neighbours but ever since I've been a little kid you know it's like I've been desperate to have my own little world that I can start to grow from the ground up and and Yeah, and finding land in Scotland is really hard because land ownership in Scotland is totally crazy. It's huge swathes of land owned by people who are absent from it, who don't want to split it up because it benefits them greatly to have these huge swathes of land.
00:15:27
Speaker
ah So it's very difficult to find a kind of human-sized piece of land. And and then those human-sized pieces of land are, and I imagine it's the same you know, in Victoria are extortionally expensive because there are so many humans who want a human size piece of land.
00:15:46
Speaker
I'm not sure how much detail to go into in terms of like my financial journey, because that is a kind of whole other question that I guess I've never really like chatted about publicly. Although I have had interesting, not regular, but interesting pushback from people in terms of like, I think um the horses for example,
00:16:05
Speaker
are obviously a big part of my life, but we haven't touched on them yet. But I have two horses and I think people understand horses to be a status symbol of wealth and and they are an expensive hobby. There is no getting around that. and So that's been something I've had to kind of ah navigate a little bit in terms of how do i communicate who I am unapologetically in a way that lets me share the things I want to share with people and the feedback I've had is that people want to have those things so it's a positive thing to share those things ah but at the same time how do i kind of maintain a humility around the conditions that have allowed me to produce that music I have thought about like putting on my website or whatever like
00:16:51
Speaker
Hey, here's the like financial breakdown of this project, just to like get really transparent, because I did get some arts funding to support my record as well. And that money was really great because what it meant was that I could pay the people I was working with. So the musicians on the record. They're all friends. and But there's only so much you want to ask of your friends who, and they are all professional musicians, so they are working as musicians full time. So i wanted to pay them properly, but there was no way I could afford to put a record out that where I was paying all them all properly. So that's where the arts funding comes in. And that's the point in those kind of funds is that then you can distribute across...
00:17:32
Speaker
creative people and that money. Ah, here's my coffee. and So yeah, I guess i'm I'm kind of like thinking live, like I don't know how much to share on the topic, which is interesting because that in itself, I think is part of the problem, isn't it? Is that people are uncomfortable talking about money and getting really clear about money.
00:17:56
Speaker
and But certainly for me, like being a musician full time wouldn't allow me to keep my horses. So they are one of the driving factors in me needing and wanting a kind of regular and stable income. Because i I was freelance for quite a long time. When my older horse retired, I was like, okay, if I want to kind of like keep journeying with horses, which is one of my passions,
00:18:25
Speaker
then i i will need a younger model.
00:18:31
Speaker
And that means i will need, ah yeah, to know where my income is coming from because I keep them as cheaply as I can. They just live like on land outside of Glasgow. They don't live like in a stable or anything or there's no one else looking after them or anything. But still, it's a big commitment. Probably less of a commitment than having a child. And I don't have one of those. So I'm like, well, maybe. They're also very expensive to run, I hear.
00:18:57
Speaker
yeah sure I'm really excited to speak about the horses and your travels with Maisie in particular. But first of all, just touching on something that you brought up in your beautiful response to my very, very sizable question there. I loved reading about your experiences in Australia. The first time you came out, which I believe was a couple of years ago now and how you were confronted with a very different way of relating with country and with land via your desire to collect objects. And I wonder if, Josie, you could tell us that story as a way to really illustrate this quite a different relationship and response to land in Scotland versus here in Australia.
00:19:44
Speaker
So I came to Western Australia, Noongar country, Fremantle Arts Centre. When was it? 2004. 23 it was, and it was to do a project looking at and minority language and how minority language helps us navigate places and kind of fosters our relationship to place. And then also what it uncovers in terms of our own personal histories. And we were working with an Indigenous and settler artists in Fremantle. Well, for start, I was totally disorientated because we had come from summer solstice, which is like my
00:20:25
Speaker
peak Josie time. That's like when I feel most myself, you know, I'm like, the days are long, you can do so much, you can be outside all the time. There's this feeling of like kind of connection with people, people maybe moving around a bit more.
00:20:40
Speaker
and it's a really rich time for me. and And it feels really precious in Scotland because you get these long days and it's like, we don't get loads of sun, obviously. So it's like the time when you're maybe most likely to see the sun. So it was a big jump for me to then come over here into the winter and the short days again. so we arrived in in um in Fremantle and it was like dark and it was kind of cold and mean, it wasn't really cold, but, you know, it was colder than we thought because we were going to Australia.
00:21:11
Speaker
And yeah, I was like, I was homesick and I was a bit like, ah I don't like it here was my kind of real first response. I want to go back. I think I was looking for kind of like ways to soothe that. um And one of the ways that I do that and have always done that is to kind of like build ideas a little world around me um and that involves collecting things and often that would be natural things so I started kind of going down to the beach and like collecting shells and then it's amazing when you come to Australia from somewhere else because everything's so outrageous like the seed pods are so flamboyant and the The feathers are such amazing colours and the shells are so abundant. And, you know, so it's this kind of real sense of like, wow, there's just so much for the taking here, you know. And I think that was the thing then when I was getting to know
00:22:09
Speaker
the artists I was working with who were from Australia or Tasmania, Therese was from Tasmania, you know, they were kind of saying I'm not sure you should be doing that. and I'm not sure that that's an appropriate way for you to be interacting with this place, like to be collecting. That really kind of shook me a bit.
00:22:28
Speaker
And it took me a while to kind of work out how I felt about it. At first I was super defensive and I was like, that's stupid. I'm honest, I don't like to, ah you know, air the the less developed bit of thinking. But yeah, that was definitely how I felt initially. i was like, look, I need to do this. And also, I guess I had this sense of like...
00:22:54
Speaker
I'm a nature girl, but I love nature. i have a right to interact with nature in the way that I want to interact with it because it's so important to me. And it was only through kind of like being there for longer, listening more and kind of understanding and getting it a bit more that I started to understand what they meant and how the kind of taking of things from the environment echoes that violence of taking the whole environment away from the Indigenous people who were here before Scottish people arrived. you know And it was accepting that like just because I don't live in Australia doesn't mean i'm not part of this colonising force that take things from that don't belong to them.
00:23:39
Speaker
It was really eye-opening and it helped me find other ways to start appreciating and orientating myself in this new place.
00:23:49
Speaker
and But yeah, it is very different from how I feel when we're in Scotland because in Scotland we have, well, we have the right to roam for a start. So we have legislation that means that we have a right of access to the countryside. We can go where we please as long as we follow basic code around, you know, not destroying things or endangering farmers' crops or harassing livestock or whatever it is. you know If we follow this code, we can go where we want unless it's ah somebody's like private space, so their home and immediate garden.
00:24:23
Speaker
Obviously rich people have very large gardens and they pretend that gardens they need all of these gardens, but we just ignore them. um In Scotland, it's like a really important part of our folk culture to gather and and create from the landscape. So I make baskets. So I'm very used to being like, oh, look at that willow. I'll cut some of that or... ah you know, i love collecting rocks or and I'll be like, oh, these are really nice and I take them back from my garden or and there's this kind of like a distribution of natural materials from one environment to the other in a way that feels like part of reclaiming your connection to land that has been severed.
00:25:09
Speaker
and And I guess in that context, the land in in a kind of conceptual way, has been taken from me. Whereas here I am now in Australia where I'm reading about how they're spraying the brambles and poisoning the foxes and I'm looking around being like, ah there's kind of one invasive species here that we that feels quite dominant. And yeah, and it's just it's just a kind of crazy ah kind of flip of the dynamic, um which then, well, it was super informative for me. And it was also combined with this appreciation
00:25:50
Speaker
of what has been lost for people who have left their environment. Well these people who weren't Indigenous to Australia but live in Australia. I guess I just saw that it was difficult for them to know how to interact with this place because it is home and you know it's their childhoods are here and their their roots are here and they feel really connected to the bush and like They know all the names of the birds and they and they love the plants and just felt like there was this kind of a disjoin between the kind of like richness of interacting with the environment to make things. It was like, if you can't do that, it's that you can't know the environment truly.
00:26:31
Speaker
But then equally, you don't want to cosplay other people's cultures and take craft and skills that belong to other people for your own. So I was like, wow, this is...
00:26:42
Speaker
This is, yeah, I could see how tricky it was for people, you know, and I could see why it was safer to say these ways of being and these skills are not for us. They're for they're for other people and and we'll respect that they're not for us.
00:26:58
Speaker
i was like wow I don't know if I could cope with that long term I'd be itching to make a basket you know oh my goodness yeah I feel like you've just touched on so many unspoken and felt reasons why I was so excited to speak with you because for one when I listen to your music like my question is why the fuck am I crying like why am I crying I'm so moved and touched and it's like isn't okay It was the sweet sweet, salty tears of something very old. And so for one thing, I think what you're alluding to there is this this deep wound and disjoint that you know not only humans, I think, collectively feel in our severance from nature, but then you know culturally being a white person on you know in this sunburnt, fire-lit land that is
00:27:49
Speaker
ultimately foreign to my my body in so many ways but so deeply familiar like hearing your voice it's almost like calling me to my old home you know but like this is where i live now so um ah just in response to yeah, these beautiful questions that you're posing and ah to which I have many more for you. It's like, as someone who loves crafts and loves herbal medicine and foraging and being of place and being a creature in the land, it's like, how can I put my emphasis on, you know, dominant species that have come with us settlers? I mean, they're there for me to work with if people are going to just slash and burn and poison
00:28:35
Speaker
Why not make them my focus in terms of foraging because they're wonderful food and medicine. So it's like starting there because I can relate with these European species that are here with me too and also take the pressure off the the land and the originals.
00:28:53
Speaker
And then also, yeah, this delicacy of really, don't know, extending curiosity and also not placing all of our expectations on on first peoples to kind of like bring us up to speed with how to be here and also to teach us the ways and you know like it's it's really delicate and it's probably a question mark rather than a full stop yeah i imagine it will always remain a question mark yeah yeah so i suppose this big thread of of ancestry and tradition and how we connect with and practice those things is is something i'm so interested in hearing your perspective on
00:29:28
Speaker
and And it's beautiful that you've got, you know, a perspective on Australia too. Like how fabulous is that? We're not just speaking, you know, from separate, from opposite poles here. So, yeah I wonder like what your relationship with your ancestors is. Like are you on good terms with with your old people?
00:29:47
Speaker
So, yeah, that was the other thing i I took from being in Australia was like I'd grown up in a culture where first and foremost I was Scottish like and that was my identity and I was determined to be perceived as Scottish and it always really hurt my feelings when people were like you don't have a very Scottish accent I'd like oh please I'm trying so hard And I don't have, ah I mean, I do have a Scottish accent. And sometimes I'm like, you just don't understand Scottish accents. I'm not from Glasgow. So maybe that's what you're expecting to hear if you've watched Trainspotting. Except for no, Trainspotting's from Edinburgh. um my So my relationship with it was to kind of like avoid questioning it and just go with the Scottish line, which didn't hold up really for very long because...
00:30:43
Speaker
my Both my parents are from England and their parents are from Ireland. And, you know, it's like many people, it's not a consistent thread that runs from one place right through to me through generations. And and being in Australia and being kind of confronted with this in terms of first people of Australia, this like unbroken lineage of history from tens of thousands of years. I was like, okay, I can read this on a bit of paper or I can look and you know in a museum and read that this is the
00:31:24
Speaker
this is the fact but i I can't really absorb it as like a truth, ah I can't really get my head around what it means. So like the first few days that I was in in Australia on that residency I just watched YouTube videos about like the history of mankind and like how we evolved and like where we came from because I was like I don't understand this.
00:31:46
Speaker
Then I went away and like tried to get my head around the Scottish history and um like the deep history of sco of Scottish people. And i was like, ah, okay, no wonder I don't know this because it's quite complicated and it's quite messy. like We had a lot of ice ages, so there was like a kind of like approach and retreat of ah very early peoples. and And then Scotland, such a small island, actually...
00:32:14
Speaker
There has never been like one continuous line of Scottish people. There has always been a kind of flow of people from elsewhere coming in and out. You also, you have this like split in Scotland of like the East Coast being close to um Scandinavia, Norway, and then even like ah Holland and then you have on the west side you have the relationship with Ireland and the other Celtic nations once I started to kind of get my head around it I started to think you know what it's okay not to be quote unquote purebred Scottish because actually I'm not sure there are many people that are in that kind of more ancient sense yeah that kind of like loosened me up and let me think it doesn't need to be simple
00:33:06
Speaker
Like it doesn't need to be straightforward. That's okay. It can be a complex mess. It freed me up to, i like complexity. Like I love and problem solving. I love ah on unexpected connection and a richness of like a web that you have to piece together. yeah,
00:33:25
Speaker
I kind of felt like after spending time in Australia, I was like, hey, like, actually one of the most important things is to, like, get comfortable with that story, get comfortable with the complexity. I felt in in Australia with some of the newcomers, it was like there was a kind of reluctance to go further back into history. you know, what does it mean to be of Polish heritage? What does it mean to be of Scottish heritage? what Like, there's so much richness in there and it's only by embracing the fact that it's complicated that we're able to bring out the richness. So yeah, it definitely kind of geared me up to be more open to and accepting of my history.
00:34:09
Speaker
But also, on the other hand, I feel personally quite devoid of like elder influence. and like I don't have like strong elders in my family who've passed on... like certain like My Nana loved Marks and Spencer's trifle, you know? So I have inherited that.
00:34:32
Speaker
I also love trifle, but that which is in itself, things like that are easily overlooked as like not culture because they're so ordinary, but they are, of course, like not every culture in the world layers like ah sponge on top of custard, on top of jam, on top of cream. You know, that is... that is an expression of ah of culture. But ah yeah, I didn't inherit folk song or story from them. And I think that's because they had gone through their own process of severance with their cultures as well. So it was a kind of
00:35:08
Speaker
and I came to accept that there had been lots of gaps and and it wasn't just one gap that could be filled with a renaissance, ah you know, or a revival. and It was ah a kind of jigsaw with lots of missing pieces.
00:35:24
Speaker
That's why I started to play with this idea of place as ah as a surrogate elder. So rather than saying that I need a person to be an elder, which is something I was seeing modeled here, you know, because on the residency in Fremantle, we were, you know, we had our welcome to country. We met elders, Noongar elders. And there was that real sense of like the older person holding the knowledge and passing it down. And that isn't something i have naturally found to be comfortable for myself. So one of the things I do do in Scotland, which I guess was the kind of what I thought I should do in inverted commas, was go to these traditional singing events, which are...
00:36:08
Speaker
um run by an older generation um and they continue to meet socially and share these songs in a very traditional way. So unaccompanied song at the forefront, no instrumentation. But initially I was like, I'm here to sing. to absorb the tradition and keep it alive and make sure it passes down to young people. And then i halfway through, I'd be like, I'm bored. And then I'd be like, what does this mean? Does it mean I will never be ah connected with my own tradition? Does it mean I'm not an authentic folk singer? It's like, no, it just means you're a bit bored, Josie, because normally you're doing five things at once and you're being forced to listen.
00:36:42
Speaker
So that's what led me to start thinking like, okay, how do i connect with my past? how well Who am I? If I was to create like an elder for myself, who would it be? And that's why I started using place as a surrogate, because in a place, I can do five things at once. I can speak to somebody from that place and learn about their connection with it.
00:37:06
Speaker
I can look at the plants ah and animals or the waterways that are there and I can learn from them. i can be with companions that I choose, whether that's the animals or whether it's friends or like chosen family or whoever it is that I want to be in that place with. And then you also have in Scotland, there's lots of evidence of, you know, early people's So, you know, our standing stones or we've got old buildings and and ruinous buildings and place names that connect you back to stories and things. So there's so much richness to be unpacked from a place. And for me, it feels like a more natural route in because you can combine this like web of of information and work out what is important to you and what's relevant to you. And
00:38:01
Speaker
I guess if I'm really honest as well, it's like there's fewer gatekeepers. You know, there's no one I have to kind of cozy up to, ah to access that information. I can do it in my own way. And that is something I found i find difficult about the...
00:38:19
Speaker
yeah relationship to elders is that like I have this terrible attitude towards authority so I hate being told what to do I hate being told what to think and um i guess some of my experience of working with elders is that there's a culture of telling you what to do and what to think and that didn't really suit me because if I don't have the space to like fully be myself I really shut down and i I lose all interest. And I think, you know, that was maybe a in my younger life seemed to be kind of like, I think probably the words would be things like bossy or unable to pay attention when anyone else has decided what the task is. And then as I've grown into myself, I'm like, hey, this is a strength because if everyone did this, we would have really rich worlds. And I'm just going to persevere following the thread of what interests me and what feels good for me. And I'm not going to wait for somebody to give me permission. Yeah, gosh, I feel the loosening as you speak about this way of practicing meditation.
00:39:25
Speaker
practicing tradition, acknowledging that it's a process as opposed to this pure and holy thing that must be preserved. It's quite a revelation, at least to me, to be okay with tradition in process, tradition in motion. I think I've read that from you before. And then still honour people who've come before. And I mean, you sing in a lot in Scots. And I mean, I don't even really know what that is. But it's obviously you're leaning into a rich and existing heritage there. But I'm wondering if we can maybe like sidle up to your album for Folk Mind Me because that has been in my ears all week. Can you tell us a little bit, Josie, about, yeah, the way that you you have used Scott's language in that album and also the precursor to that, travelling on your beautiful steed?
00:40:13
Speaker
Yes. Yes, I can. Scots, just to start with what Scots is. Scots is one of our three official languages in Scotland. So obviously, almost everyone in Scotland, maybe there's like a few old ladies on the Western Isle, speak English as their primary language.
00:40:31
Speaker
language for life. But we have Gaelic, which is well known as another language in Scotland, and that's very linked to other Celtic languages. And then Scots is another language that is spoken in Scotland, and but it's only recently been kind of fully acknowledged that it is a distinct language and not a dialect of English. And Scots has a Germanic root, so it's kind of based in Old English. And it was the language of like Scottish legal systems and courts and, you know, it was the the kind of common language of large parts of Scotland until it was replaced with English. And the thing about Scots is that's really interesting is that many, many people speak Scots day in, day out in Scotland, but very few people would speak it like entirely separate from their English. So it's like very interwoven with English often.
00:41:32
Speaker
I think a lot of it is what people assume to be like a Scottish accent. But it's a super interesting language because there's all this bleeding. So like, for example, the word loch, which people might be aware of for a lake or a body of water.
00:41:45
Speaker
ah So a loch is ah understood to be like Scottish English. It's used within Scots language, but its root is Gaelic. So it's there's this kind of flow of these words. There's not like a kind of a set line where like one language is spoken in another language is spoken.
00:42:02
Speaker
and And similarly, there's Scots words. So like we use a word for tries as briefs and that and links to the Gaelic as well. So it's like a very kind of messy picture, the like the kind of minority languages in and Scotland.
00:42:19
Speaker
And then you throw in also that there's a big class dynamic. So a lot of ah Scots has been maintained by working class or rural communities. When I was growing up at school, like we would...
00:42:30
Speaker
We learned a lot of Scots at school. We sang a lot of Scots songs at school, which I think is probably where I first started really getting into it. I loved the Scots songs at school. And they were really simple. There was one about some crows falling off a wall. Three crows sat upon a wall, sat upon a wall, sat upon a wall. Three crows sat upon So it's like there was Scots words in English.
00:43:02
Speaker
ah The crows have a terrible time. They all like fall off the wall and have injuries. but um But you know, so it was just part of day to day that you'd be saying crow instead of crow. And that was not never like kind of pointed out that that you'd be actually speaking a different language.
00:43:17
Speaker
And then, you know, I would get home and like say to mum, like, I would say a, which is like a a very common East Coast thing that you kind of use it as an affirmative, like a, a. And she'd be like, stop saying a. You know, that's not the right way. That's not the way we speak. So there's very much a kind of like, especially for someone like my mum, who is a kind of a grown up from a family who didn't have much and she'd gone to university. she'd She'd become a doctor. She was very aspirational. You know, she was like, we need to speak properly, you know, and that means not speaking Scots.
00:43:54
Speaker
That's not something she did like consciously. You know, once I actually started singing and in Scots and things, it was there was ne she she never worried about that, you know, it was but it was more like ah when she was trying to help me navigate, like growing up in Scotland kind of thing. I didn't, you know, I didn't know what Scots as a language entailed and how different, how much it diverged from English because I'm listening to you singing and it's like this weird dream state where things are making sense in an unusual way. Like I can hear, yeah i can hear phrases and words that are landing with me and then I'm being swept in some other, you know, semi comprehensible direction. And it it feels like it's, it's a really interesting experience. i I wasn't sure like how different Scots was. And if you had to learn this kind of whole
00:44:39
Speaker
thing from scratch, but what you're saying is it it was integrated in your life from a young age. Yeah, it is integrated in my life. But what I would say is that, like, I would never say I'm a Scots speaker.
00:44:50
Speaker
And I think that's what I love about the singing is that, like, I found a place to use this language, which is really brings the landscape alive for me and makes me feel really connected with home. But it it was in a way where I didn't feel like I was part, because I i have been to kind of like Scots language classes and things. But the problem is, because it is so ah related to place and class, it's really hard to speak Scots.
00:45:20
Speaker
ah like in a full Scots and not for me not feel like I'm kind of parodying somebody else which is always a kind of problem I've had with language and I'm not very like i wouldn't know I'm not a very like linguistic person like I don't I can't speak any other languages I've always really struggled with trying to learn languages it's something I've wanted to do But never kind of been able to navigate it. So the Scots was like, I was learning more about it.
00:45:47
Speaker
And then I was suddenly like, hey, like I can kind of understand this. And I know what these words mean. and it was like I had this little private space where i could embrace the language and express myself without having to like talk to anyone so it was like it was like the freedom to explore language in a in a way that was super meaningful for me and also very private and quite structured yeah so like how I make my work is like The root is basically the very close studying of this woman, Lizzie Higgins, songs. And she did she was like a full Scots speaker.
00:46:23
Speaker
And she probably also spoke cant, which is a language of Scottish traveller people, which is has lots of Scots and Gaelic and Romany words like integrated into it. So I study the way that she sings and I learn her songs. And on the album, there are a number of her songs. And that's the kind of thread that I have kept through my work for the last 10 years. it's just like This one person has enough to teach me for like my whole life. I don't think I need to go beyond her. I can just study her. And if I keep doing that, like a kind of martial art, I shall become black girl. and
00:47:01
Speaker
She died very young. and she yeah So I've never met her anything. I just study her recordings. So I always stress that like I haven't been given her like special bidding to dedicate my life to her work, but I hope she doesn't mind. Yeah, so I start with her songs and I study how she sings. And her mum was a ballad singer and her dad was a piper. So she kind of brings these two traditions together. And that is a kind of line of inquiry that I have kept going. I'm like, okay, Scots song and the pipes, like how do they work together in the voice?
00:47:34
Speaker
So I start with her songs who that embrace those two worlds. And then I take the kind of idea of those two worlds and create new songs. So I work a lot with a poet called Marian Angus, her work, she writes beautiful poems in Scots. And she often uses like nature motifs um to kind of express universal emotions and feelings. So I love her work and I put that to song. And then sometimes I take songs in English or in Gaelic and translate them into Scots. And I'm not by no means like a professional translator or...
00:48:14
Speaker
have any kind of qualification that would allow me to do that in any official manner. But I guess that's the beauty of making your own creative work that like, I've just decided it's okay for me if I get stuff wrong.
00:48:28
Speaker
Like maybe it might not be okay for other people. And they might come to me and say, hey, you're getting this wrong. and which would be super interesting conversation and would probably influence my practice. But so far, I haven't had that feedback. And I kind of have always at the back of my mind being like, oh, at some point someone's going to turn around and she doesn't speak the Scots. And I'll ah!
00:48:48
Speaker
But actually, people are just like, oh, it's great to hear these old songs. Like, you know, i think it's easy to assume that people will be more alarmed by what you're doing than they than they really are. Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:01
Speaker
I wonder if you can say a little bit more about how Scots is that connection to the landscape? Like, is it the the metaphors that are in there or the way the words are formed and sound that connects to the landscape?
00:49:14
Speaker
what do What do you mean by that? I just find it to be more descriptive and immersive. So for example, the the the three cras, like a crow in my mind doesn't say crow, crow. It says, clock ah yeah so it's like, for me, in my understanding of the world, the Scots,
00:49:35
Speaker
is more descriptive or um it it taps into my understanding of the world. And like I think you you see that when you come, when I come to Australia and I see like first people's place names, it's like,
00:49:47
Speaker
There's something in the consonants, the sounds of the words that echo the place in a way that's quite hard to put your finger on. But you're like, yeah, this really is that sound. like That makes sense that this is called that.
00:49:59
Speaker
Which is so weird when then you're driving around it's like someone somewhere it's called Livingston. And you're like, no, no, no, this is not Livingston. Like I know what Livingston. My boyfriend works in Livingston. You know, it's like, this is not Livingston. This is...
00:50:12
Speaker
definitely got different consonants associated with it related to the sound that the water makes coming down a river or the sound that the birds make or whatever it is there's something about the kind of actual just the the way your body uh makes the sounds of Scots that brings them like for me it just conjures a world in a way that ah feels really connecting and rich for me it's like and There's like a song on the album, Sea Buckthorn.
00:50:44
Speaker
When I was singing that song, like I'm in such a specific place. like I know exactly where I'm standing on this coastline east of Edinburgh, where there's like a little path that winds through these sea buckthorn bushes. And I'm there. I'm just totally there. It's my place.
00:51:04
Speaker
no one can disturb me there. I'm in the song, I'm in the place and, you know, the world can just continue on around me. Although often when I'm learning the songs fresh, it doesn't feel like that. It takes a while for that, like, for me to be able to like relax into it and like trust that the song is in there somewhere. I have this thing before a gig, right? And I have a panic because I'm like, I can't remember all the songs at once, you know, because you're trying to like, do I know the songs? And you try and bring them all up at first. once and you're like no I don't know any of them there's nothing in here that we're doomed um and then yeah so part of it is just like building this faith in your body to remember the songs like not your brain your body and and I love that and I think the Scots it just feels right in in in my body when I'm singing it um which is not a very illuminating statement but it's
00:51:57
Speaker
it's the best I've got. Words definitely fall short sometimes. And yeah, a question I have for you is where do songs live? And what I'm hearing is that they live in different parts of us and also in the landscape and it's actually then quite interesting to perceive how we consume music at the moment kind of like without earbuds in severed from the rest of the world in any old place at any speed it's so intriguing to me this concept of collecting songs which was a part of your process like taking this pilgrimage and collecting songs and it's like well
00:52:33
Speaker
Where are the songs? Like how do you collect them? Are you like waving a blank record around and they kind of glommel? Or do you have a butterfly net or like are you listening for them in the creeks? and Or how do you enjoy music then when you know that songs are so inextricably linked to all of these like real real parts of us and the land?
00:52:52
Speaker
Yeah, I love the question about collecting songs because it's one, again, it's something I think about all the time. I guess it helps us understand intangible cultural heritage to kind of suggest that it exists as unique artifacts. So it's like, okay, a song exists and you can record it and you can put it in an archive and there it there it will be safe from harm and someone can come along and they can revitalize it by learning it and singing it again and that's not to underplay the importance of archives because i listen to a lot of archival footage and i have learned a lot from our archives and I have a lot of admiration for the people with very different brains from me who sit and catalogue all of these things and put them in order and make them accessible to people like me.
00:53:46
Speaker
and So it's not to downplay the importance of that work, but it's definitely not the whole picture, you know. I yeah i don't think of myself as a song collector because I think of myself as a rock collector and that process looks like every beach I go to, i obsessively look at the ground until I've chosen at least 10 rocks, possibly more than I can carry to take home and then put in my house and then over time, not really know what to do with and inevitably they end up in a plant pot. Like that's what that's what collecting is for me. It's this kind of compulsive gathering.
00:54:21
Speaker
of things. So whether that, would I guess, like, going back to like, why we're driven to do is like, I guess, collecting food from the environment, for example, like, yeah, you, you're acting in a moment of scarcity, you're gathering as much as you can, you're preserving it as best you can, because it will keep you alive, you know, keep your community alive.
00:54:42
Speaker
When it comes to tradition, You know, there's so much richness in the world. Like there's so many people and they all hold things of value. And we just have to choose what's relevant to us in a moment and not be too worried about preserving everything at once. Or at least that's my approach to it.
00:55:05
Speaker
The collecting songs on horseback thing has really... and During that release of the record, like I had to do press releases and things, like talking about the work. And I remember sending my first press release, and the press guy I was working with was like, Josie, this is...
00:55:24
Speaker
this is not going to work. Like, this is like a PhD proposal, not a press release. And I was like, what do you mean? He was like, you can't be talking about like radical reverence for the tradition. Like you need to write, she's Scottish. She's got a horse. like I was like, really? Is that what need to write? Because that kind of seems self-explanatory to me and also like quite boring. was like, no, no, that's the hook. i was like, okay, cool. Well, I'll trust you to go with it. So so out of that and yeah emerges the kind of like wandering Argyle collecting the songs. That process of ah wandering around Argyle with Maisie was super important for making the songs.
00:56:10
Speaker
Did I like find a song on that journey? No. But the way I try and explain it to people is like, Like the songs are an expression of me and the traveling with the horses is also like one of the purest expressions of me that I have identified in my life. um And it's kind of like those conditions connect me with myself in a way that
00:56:48
Speaker
supports me to create music which kind of sounds a bit abstract but if people are kind of interested in um that process i have a a short film that i recorded um with my friend lizzie um so yeah that film kind of explores what comes out of journeying with a horse more and i guess it's like you have different conversations with people, you navigate the landscape in a different way, you're often accessing like older routes and because those are the accessible routes for horses. um
00:57:24
Speaker
You are talking with people about like older ways of doing things of like, oh, you're traveling with a horse. Oh, that's amazing. like you know Everyone would have traveled with a horse before. Oh, that's so interesting. like I've got old harness in my shed and I'm not sure what to do with it. Or you know you start to kind of like... have different conversations with people.
00:57:42
Speaker
But yeah, it's not like being with the horse suddenly gives you a key to like a different box of songs or anything. it's it's It's just more that it's... I mean, maybe it's partly related to this idea of like folk song being connected in with um work, because actually traveling with the horses is not like a leisurely activity. It's quite a challenge. and and it's a physical challenge and it makes you exhausted. It's an emotional challenge because you are often frightened. You have highs and lows, you know, you have these like moments of wonder and joy and it all flows really beautifully and then suddenly like the wooden walkway that you're on like cracks and you're like, fuck, get the horse off the bridge, you know, like...
00:58:32
Speaker
the horse is gonna die you know and then you're like I think I'm kind of like an adrenaline junkie with a really low uh stress threshold so it's like what a combination so I was like I like activities that you know give me like one second of fear and then I feel then everything's fine again and I'm like oh that really that cleared the system you know um So if you're like that, then working with horses is perfect. Yeah, I've got all these beautiful, beautiful mind pictures from hearing you speak. And I'm just thinking of when I'm wandering in the wild, there's some element of
00:59:13
Speaker
tuning I'm tuning in a tuning and all of the magpie warbles and the golden whistler songs and that the temperature of my body and the the dappled light I mean all of these things are feeding into me and then kind of pouring back out as something and surely that's that's all sculpting and shaping and moving in the things that I draw and the words that I write and the songs that you sing, like we're being tuned by the land in that way. And, in yeah, I mean, we can't reference every single one of those influences, like the words that you wake wake up to every single morning, like surely they're they're part of the music that you make.
00:59:58
Speaker
Totally. And i I think the tuning thing is a good analogy because the thing about horses is they are so tuned in. You know, their hearing is so much better than ours. Their nervous systems are set up to be totally aware of what's going on. So when you're with them, in order to stay safe, you have to kind of stay at their level of engagement with the environment. So like, I want to know there's a tractor coming.
01:00:26
Speaker
hopefully earlier than Maisie does which for a human to be able to like get to that level of perception is a lot of effort and a lot of focus um yeah I can't really imagine what else would keep me in that state for such a long period of time so yeah it definitely does like attune you new to what's going on around you and then there's also this weird uh thing as well of like while kind of working with a horse is probably one of the most dangerous things you can do, it also gives you this incredible sense of safety as a woman
01:01:03
Speaker
to be out in the world alone, but with this like being that is with you. Like, and I guess it's kind of like uncool now to say like, oh, I sometimes feel a bit nervous when I'm out in the wilderness on my own. Like I'm gonna be like, yeah, I'm an independent woman. I'm connected with the land. I can go wherever I want. i can I'm not scared of anything. It's like, well, actually like if I'm in the woods at dusk, and sometimes I feel bit nervous that there might be someone else in the woods at dusk that I don't want to meet. And yeah, being with the horses, it gives you this kind of sense of invincibility or something um that is super freeing. And like, I think I definitely felt that when when I first got Maisie, because I've always been obsessed with horses. Like I've got diaries and diaries of like me pining over
01:01:56
Speaker
all of these horses at the local stables that i got to like touch once or something. And I've got these lists of like all these things I want to buy. and you know, it's like one day I'll have a horse, but before that I could have a grooming brush and a hoof stick. So it's like, it's always been this intense drive in me.
01:02:21
Speaker
I'm not sure why. And it i it wasn't until i was 26 that I actually got Maisie. So yeah, those, like that ah building of that relationship was super informative to me and just completely changed my relationship with the outdoors, but also changed my relationship with movement because I think up until that point, i had never found I'd never worked out how I was meant to be moving in the world. i was told, oh, you've got to exercise for your health. And I try to exercise and I hate it.
01:02:59
Speaker
You know, it's just, it's, it doesn't work for me. Like I just find it boring or, or difficult or unpleasant or, and it was like, suddenly i had this horse with me and we were walking miles and miles and miles and miles and,
01:03:12
Speaker
and you know it was just a totally different experience because I was doing it for a reason I was like moving with purpose um and then it was after that that I found like working on the land as well and like having these practical I basically need things to do I don't want to just like move my body for the sake of it you know so it yeah really ah changed my relationship with myself and with the world Yeah, yeah. I can't believe you're not inspired by an arbitrary number of reps, ah a static lump of something or other. Like, come on, that's the funnest thing ever.
01:03:49
Speaker
I think the Scottish version is hill walking. You know, everyone's like, oh, I'm going to go up a hill. And I'm like, okay, like been good at last weekend. Yeah. Oh, thank you so much for normalising that completely real and relevant anxiety that women can and do feel. um and also I'm wondering, like, have you trained Maisie to fly kick?
01:04:12
Speaker
people in the face roundhouse cake to the face but i imagine that it would be slightly intimidating to come across a woman a dog and a horse and all the chaos that surrounds them um it might put you off yeah you might pick an easier target There's the real danger, which is real.
01:04:34
Speaker
And then there's the perceived danger, which is ah a social construct that prevents women from realizing their potential. So it's like the horses probably don't really do much to protect me from the real danger, but they do a lot to protect me from the social construct of the danger that would keep me out of my wild places.
01:04:56
Speaker
Yes, because a risk of not living our lives is maybe greater than the risk of being attacked, though there is still a risk.
01:05:07
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. yeah So I have three, ah maybe snappy or snappy as you want to make them wrap up questions that are maybe deceptively non-simple. But my first one is, are you trying to prove or change anything with your music?
01:05:27
Speaker
That's not a snappy question. What's the snappiest response you can possibly give? I'll give like a three sentence response, which would be like, I'm driven to do it.
01:05:38
Speaker
I'm not entirely sure why. i think it has an impact, but I'm not entirely sure what it is. So I just need to do more in order to understand what the purpose of it is.
01:05:50
Speaker
Thank you. That was super well done. And it also answers... answers undercurrent questions around why we do the things that we do. And I think being compelled to do something without too many clues as to why is a perfectly great reason and maybe something that in this time of a very rational response to a very ah wicked problem being intersecting crises, ecologically, socially, all of those things, like we kind of have these rational calculated responses. And I wonder if
01:06:21
Speaker
what moves us most beyond reason can be a beautiful answer to those things, even if it doesn't quite make sense. I agree. I don't know if that's stretching it too far, but... um I think the thing is like, like it we can only do what we are what we are passionate about, can't we? Like, we can try and do other things, but then we burn out and we we lose interest or we can't keep it going. or So I think if we can find the things that we can really connect in with and that flow from us,
01:06:53
Speaker
with the most ease, even though it's not necessarily easy to do them, then those are things worth spending your little short life on. Hopefully not too short, hopefully not too little. for you know yeah wall who yeah yeah Okay, so I'll try and remember these ones that i was these questions I had in my little pocket here. I think, okay, another one was,
01:07:16
Speaker
Do you think that songs, music and singing are just as important as say fresh air and fresh water and kind of hard skills that we might think we need to be resilient?
01:07:31
Speaker
Well, the thing about songs is that they're almost not skills. They're like innate to us, like breathing or something. So it's like we don't need to rank them against hard skills because they are just a natural accompaniment to our hard skills.
01:07:49
Speaker
and Okay, you have people who dedicate more time who become, you know, more adept at singing or they they know the songs by memory or but I was reading that humans' vocal cords developed to sing before we could talk.
01:08:06
Speaker
So we like birds in that we shared song before we spoke in language. So I think, you know, we can't help but make noise. So, yeah, I wouldn't pit it against...
01:08:22
Speaker
pitt it against in a hierarchy of skill, but I would say it's part of the ecosystem of ah developing and passing on skill as part of the ecosystem of living day to day life.
01:08:37
Speaker
here And I wonder what you love most in the world. ah ah Cheesy wrap up question.
01:08:48
Speaker
What I love most in the world. I'm going to be an absolute nerd here and just be like, My partner. Aww, that's not nerdy. Yeah, my partner, my social connections, ah my people, my animals, my places.
01:09:05
Speaker
That's lots of things. but I think for me, like and this is probably one of the big driving forces about my music, I'm desperate to be seen and understood. you know So the music's like, here I am, this is who I am, like please get me.
01:09:25
Speaker
And like obviously that's a gamble because lots people won't get me from what i put out and it's a constructed world and persona that I put out in order to like have boundaries around like my personal and professional world but but yeah and I guess that's why partnerships and friendships are so amazing is because they they give you that sense of like being known and and there's this there's a ah horse a horseman called Warwick Schiller and he talks about how horses are desperate to be getting gotten and so it's like they they they
01:10:02
Speaker
They thrive in an environment where you're constantly trying to understand what they're really thinking and feeling. And I think people are the same. You know, it's like, we just want to be got. And that's probably the most important thing to me. Oh, amazing. yeah i mean...
01:10:20
Speaker
this is why I podcast. It's like, what's it like in there? What's, what's happening there? Am I so weird? or easy but what yeah god i Well, it it's just so delicious getting a little glimpse of you today, Josie, and hearing from you. and i I know I'm just going to keep enjoying your music. It's just like this super radical kind of left of field thing in my life at the moment that's um an absolutely glorious foil to their searing hot temperatures, like this Scots music. and
01:10:54
Speaker
ah Yeah, come meet me, Zee. Oh, my goodness. Come down on a fence post into softer ground with me. Oh, stop it. I'm there.
01:11:06
Speaker
You guys have rocks, you have like bog. and we get front I'll get me to the bog. Well, yeah, thank you so very much. And um I'm going to link the good people of the podcast to your goodly things in the show notes, which is always a fun place to romp around for people after the episode.
01:11:25
Speaker
And enjoy the rest of your time down under. Thank you.
01:11:35
Speaker
This podcast is entirely listener funded. Woo! Because I hate ads, and I know you do too. So if you listen to Riskillians and think it's a bit of alright, you can donate, say, five bucks a month to help me do this work and be part of our Patreon community, which has over 120 good eggs, or members, and is cranking with conversations and camaraderie.
01:11:57
Speaker
We connect seasonally to track each other's wins and struggles and cook up collective resilience. And I'm really excited to be offering live panels with past guests starting this year too. They're open forums where you can ask the guests anything.
01:12:11
Speaker
Our first saloon will be with Jo Nemeth from episode 61, who's lived without money for over 10 years. I'm sure you can think of plenty of amazing logistical questions for her. That's on January 29th. And more details are in the show notes and also on my Patreon.
01:12:27
Speaker
All of my gratitude to new patrons of the show, Ryan, Soph, Jess, Lee, Pooja, Jean-Marc, Kelly, Lisa, Chloe, and Polly, for supporting independent podcasting and literally my life.
Thanking Patrons
01:12:42
Speaker
Thank you so much. We're all hanging out at patreon.com forward slash reesegilliance.
01:12:48
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening this fortnight. I'll catch you in a couple of weeks' time.