Off The Croft Stories #004
The Cultural Crofter's Digest - August 2025
Hello friend / Halò a charaid!
Each month we cast both a lìon mòr1 story and shorter lìon beag2 digest into the digital waters.
So, here’s this month’s cultural catch for the latter.
It’s a full boat of ten fresh finds hauled in from the islands and beyond, some hooked from familiar waters, others snagged on more distant tides.
Art, music, film, oddities, things worth landing.
Look to the horizon and hold fast, and do support the creators you connect with where and when you can.
Mike
PS If you enjoy this issue, you are very welcome to buy me a dram!
ONE / AON - HARVEST
Released last month, Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Harvest is a fever-dream of a film which blurs folk tale, allegory, and slow rural horror.
Based on the novel by Jim Crace, the story sees an old, strange and superstitious village unravel under the weight of impending modernity and capitalism. There’s enough Gaelic-singing, Hebridean sheep-shearing and tweed weaving on show to hint at the fictional location too.
What makes all The Wicker Man / Midsommar vibes on show especially interesting is the involvement of young local producer Shona Mackenzie and her Roag Films, bringing a Lewis connection into the co-production, helping to root Harvest’s message in a cultural context, that of land clearances, closer to home.
Peter Bradshaw’s poor Guardian review gave me cause to pause but the strong 72% Rotten Tomatoes score and praise from other critics suggested it would be worth seeking out. And, bad accents aside, it mostly was. A free 7-day Mubi trial means anyone intrigued can stream Harvest online or just drop £9.99 and watch on Apple TV.
TWO / DHA - JEREMY SUTTON-HIBBERT
In 1992, Glasgow photographer Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert travelled to these islands to document the world of Harris Tweed. He captured mill workers, crofters, and weavers in a series of stark, intimate black-and-white portraits that revealed both the pride and the pressures facing the industry. The images ran once in a newspaper supplement, then disappeared into his archive for more than three decades.
Recently unearthed and published as a small ‘zine, Harris Tweed, 1992 brings those photographs back to light in an evocative record of craftsmanship, community, and a way of life on the cusp of change. His lens lingers on the textures of cloth, the faces of makers, and the machinery of production, creating a portrait of an island industry at once timeless and fragile.
Now part of the University of St Andrews’ photographic collections, the series ensures that this glimpse into Outer Hebridean working life is preserved and celebrated. More than nostalgia, it’s a reminder of Harris Tweed’s resilience and its enduring place in our island’s cultural identity.
The ‘zine is now sold out but I have a single spare copy here so just send me an email if you want it and I’ll pick one reader at random and be in touch next week.
THREE / TRI - RUAIRIDH GRAY
Ruairidh Gray is equal parts anachronism and maverick. Raised in Daliburgh on South Uist, he learned Gaelic songs by the hearth as a child, a foundation he’s carried into formal training as a Traditional Music student at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
His voice is steeped in centuries-old tradition, and while he often projects the vibes of an old Free Presbyterian with a dram in him, he’s only in his mid 20s and far from frozen in time. Whether on stage or television, Gray brings Gaelic singalongs into the 21st century with a self-aware wit that feels utterly modern.
He’s a serious player too. A multi‑award winning singer, Gray has numerous official recognitions that he can carry Gaelic with gravitas. Yet when stumbled upon on social platforms, his persona is playful, an unexpectedly swaggering bard in suave suit just begging to go viral.
Gray is both a man beautifully rooted in island days gone by and someone acutely aware of how that past plays out in the present. Few embody that balance so vividly: Gaelic song delivered with humour, reverence, and a knowing wink to the modern scroller.
Intriguing doesn’t even cover it.
FOUR / CEITHIR - DANIEL FREYTAG
I’ve long admired the work of Oban-based artist/designer Daniel Freytag. I actually met him years ago while he was working on a project at my croft for the luxury brand Sword Maclean which added another layer to this connection.
I knew him best for his Freytag Anderson agency output (check out the excellent Woven Whisky) but it’s his paintings that I’m loving right now, in particular his latest Made By Land collection which sees him blend aerial abstraction with emotional topography.
Built on landscapes cleared centuries ago, croft houses stripped of their roofs, field lines fading into memory, his compositions are full of history and mystery. Track roads, runrigs, and boundary walls emerge as vivid forms, as if seen from an altitude that reveals stories written in earth and stone.
This series is full of bold colour and composition, well crafted boundaries that beat like blood in veins, secret paths that wind with memory, and maps that breathe.
At some point I’ll ask him for the price list but for the sake of my wallet I’ll just enjoy his work online for now…
FIVE / COIG - UISGE BEATHA: SEA SOUNDS BY BRIAN D’SOUZA
Brian d’Souza is a sound artist, producer, curator and DJ whose work often bridges electronic music with the natural world. I first knew him from our shared Sub Club days, and it’s no surprise to see his instinct for rhythm evolve into something more elemental.
His digital-only release, Uisge Beatha (“Water of Life”), is the result of six years spent travelling Scotland’s western-most islands, recording the sound of the sea. Using a custom-built ‘Sea Synthesiser’, Brian transformed wave data - envelope, amplitude, and pitch, into maritime mood music.
Each swell, crash and ripple becomes a shifting composition, creating a journey through “sea time” where no two moments are ever alike. The result is meditative, immersive, and rather radical.
To enjoy, just press play below or buy here.
SIX / SIA - RODEL HOUSE
Rodel House, perched on the southern tip of Harris, isn’t just another rip-out restoration; it’s the reclamation of island style. Built in 1781 for Captain Alexander MacLeod, the Georgian residence had long been stripped of its character, its colourful life buried beneath blank, unremarkable interiors.
Enter Anderson “Burr” Bakewell, founder of the Harris Distillery, who in collaboration with architect Lachlan Stewart of ANTA and designer Maria Speake of Retrouvius, has reawakened the house not as a museum piece but as a living, breathing Outer Hebridean home from home.
The resulting aesthetic feels like the emergence of a new Outer Hebridean interior design language. It channels the raw honesty of the coastal location with materials like Harris Tweed, ash wood, crushed sea-shell pointing and limewash, a Nordic-meets-North-west Scotland ethos where simplicity and craftsmanship effortlessly combine.
The house is available to stay in as a lavish and catered for retreat, best enjoyed with close friends and family and I can confirm the atmosphere is immaculate. Booking remains deliberately personal, handled by a friendly ‘guardian’, with pricing on request, set on the fairer side of super-exclusive.
SEVEN / SEACHD - FAODAIL
Faodail is the project of young Scottish producer Callan Marchetti. Inspired by Stornoway family connections, he takes the name from the Gaelic word for “a lucky find.” His music lives up to it with some lush, atmospheric electronic soundscapes that feel like wandering the land, equal parts intimate and expansive.
His early releases, including the debut EP Untethered in 2019, blended ambient and techno influences, quickly gaining traction on tastemaker platforms and BBC Radio 6. But it was Madainn, Gaelic for “morning”, that became a minor breakthrough. Written in tribute to his late mother, a Gaelic speaker, the 2021 EP carried grief and renewal in equal measure.
Since then, Faidail’s reach has grown, yet despite wider acclaim and recognition his work remains grounded in the emotional geographies of home and heritage. What makes Faidail so compelling is this balance: lovely electronic production steeped in memory, mood, and place.
A lucky find indeed.
EIGHT / OCHD - SIF NIELSEN
Sif Nielsen, a young artist and ceramist based in South Uist, creates work fixed firmly in island life. A fine art graduate and apprentice crofter, she brings together clay, moving image and sound to explore themes of landscape, memory and belonging.
Her pieces often draw directly from the Outer Hebridean environment. Works like Dead Sheep, made from porcelain-soaked wool, antlers and wire, are both tactile and uncanny, balancing fragility with strength. She experiments with local clay and distressed surfaces, producing sculptures and installations that feel at once organic and otherworldly.
Sif’s practice is as much about place as it is about material. Every piece seems to carry the imprint of Uist, whether through textures, colours or the quiet sense of endurance they evoke. There is an honesty in her work, a dialogue with the land that feels both ancient and modern.
In essence, Sif Nielsen is shaping an emotional map of Uist. Clay becomes story, surface becomes memory, and art becomes a way of holding on to the fragile, powerful ties between people and place.
NINE / NAOI - ORASAIGH
Published in 2024, Orasaigh brings a small tidal island off South Uist into sharp, poetic focus alongside beautiful images. The book weaves 80 pages of poetry and photography into a layered meditation on a landscape that is delicate and defiant.
In it, Steve Ely’s poems explore themes of rising seas, ecological crisis, culture, class and memory. Alongside them, Michael Faint’s photographs stand as powerful works in their own right while resonating with the text, capturing the rugged lyricism of the land.
“Orasaigh, the double-humped tidal island
on the beach off the edge of the Boisdale machair,
still moored to her mother by the sand umbilicus
she fashions herself from the silts of the longshore drift.”
In its quiet intensity, Orasaigh feels like holding both place and time in your hands. It is a collaboration that speaks across art forms, offering both wonder and warning, and invites the reader not simply to observe the island but to take time to inhabit it.
TEN / DEICH - DANIELLE MACLEOD
Danielle Macleod is an Isle of Lewis photographer whose work captures both the land and its stories. Working with medium-format film, she snaps the raw texture of her island home while reimagining its folklore in bold, contemporary ways.
Her series Guardians, the above pic from which I’m proud to own, has always tickled me. Using masks and sculptures made from foraged island materials, Danielle sets her superstitious figures against wild backdrops.
The photographs feel alive, as if the landscape has conjured up its own legendary characters. They are playful and unsettling, deeply connected to myth yet unafraid to reinvent it.
The grain and depth of film, the unsettling quality of the masks, the elemental settings… all combine to create images that feel bizarre but sort of fun too. Her photography doesn’t just record the Outer Hebrides, it summons its tribal oddness into the everyday, and I like that a lot.
Lìon mòr - Gaelic for the old ‘great line’ for fishing off-shore with almost 400 heavy hooks and horse-hair snoods attached at fathom intervals.
Lìon beag - Gaelic for the old ‘small line’ used mostly inshore.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far!
If you enjoyed this issue, you can buy me a dram with a cheeky £3 donation to help support and inspire my writing 🥃
And, if you have something you think I should be turned on to, just drop me a link or a line via mike.thecroft@me.com
Until next time, tioraidh an dràsta!
Air an àrd-ùrlar, èiridh draoidheachd...
You've just reminded me on a project I had in the pipeline, which was a curated, and certainly subjective events site for at the very least Glasgow/Edinburgh, as it just doesn't exist at the moment.
www.urlar.net
Watch this space!
Hi Mike, Paul Duke completed a project in Lewis a while ago and it will be published soon. I met him recently, a wonderful person and amazing artist who captures the essence of people and communities. Worth talking to or simply following https://paulduke.me/this-land-we-share