Gibraltar from Westerfjord by Colin Campbell and the Bracadale Collective

I didn't get my driving license until I was in my thirties and the last time I saw my grandfather alive I had taken the bus to Portree, stayed in a hostel and then rented a bike the next day to cross the island and visit him. I was telling him how I'd recently walked across Spain after finishing my PhD, which led him to tell me about his time in the merchant navy where he'd sailed to Gibraltar and piped the crew ashore. I'd never heard the story before and hadn't even know that he'd travelled as far as the Mediterranean. The main chord sequence is based on an Andalusian cadence that gives it a bit of a Spanish groove and the brilliant trumpet solo makes it feel like the end of a Spaghetti Western.

I'm a scientist and musician making music at the interface between indie and Scottish traditional music. My album Westerfjord is a love letter to Loch Bracadale and melds diverse influences from indie guitars to the classical music of the bagpipes and blends them with in-situ field recording, archival sound and scientific data.