This June, composer and pianist James Ross will release his new album, featuring the Maxwell Quartet, on Phenotypic Recordings

This Phenotypic Recording, out on 21 June, marks a rare opportunity for listeners to experience Scottish literature, folklore, and the natural beauty of Caithness and the Flow Country, through a classical music lens.

The album is made up of Ross’ original compositions for piano and  string quartet, performed by Ross  and the renowned Maxwell String Quartet, and produced by Calum Malcom. Ross and the Maxwell Quartet, both based in Scotland, draw on their folk music heritage and classical training.

The album invites listeners into Ross’ homeland of Caithness, the northernmost point in the Scottish mainland, and evokes the spectacular but fearsome power of the sea, the legends of fairy mischief passed down through generations, and the landscapes depicted by Scottish novelist, Neil Gunn.

The Caithness and Sutherland peatlands and wetlands comprise the Flow Country, the most extensive blanket bog system in the world, which is critical for biodiversity and combating climate change but is facing threat; it is currently being considered for designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site to emphasise its global importance.

The latest third single, “Grey Coast”, is a sonic tapestry that evokes the sublime, rugged beauty of Caithness’ coastline, conjuring a sense of awe & humility as one contemplates the majesty of the natural world.

Each track of this musical storybook is about an aspect of Caithness life and lore. Ross conjures up both the natural and mystical worlds, and the wonder and tragedy in them; the album themes include portraits of the sea, shore, moorlands and more; a hymn for lives taken by the sea; and folktales of a blacksmith’s battle with fairies, and a farmhand who becomes a piping superstar.

The album’s namesake track Landscape to Light paints in music the writings by author Neil Gunn, also from Caithness. The track will be accompanied by a video by Minttu Mäntynen which surveys the spectrum of wild beauty of Northern Scotland.

Ross’ recently released second single, and title track, “Landscape to Light”, was inspired Neil Gunn’s evocative descriptions & vivid pictures of land, sea & nature.

“Throughout my artistic life, the grandeur of the far north of Scotland is something I have often tried to verbalise to others, but words so often fail to capture the temperament of the North Coast. These compositions, each wordless, are a series of portraits evoking both the natural and mystical worlds, and they bring full circle my career of melding classical music together with the Scottish traditional music of my upbringing.” shares Ross.