MARTYN WAS brought up in Newfoundland, where his mother was researching Gaelic immigration, until he was six, when they returned to Scotland. He now lives with his wife on the Isle of Mull.
 

“Mull was the first place I came to with my mum when we came back from Canada, as it happens, although we weren’t here long. We actually stayed a mile or so from where I am now. It feels as much like home as anyplace I can imagine. I don’t think anywhere would really feel like home now.”
 

Martyn is hardly a grizzled veteran (he is only in his early 30s), but he is greatly encouraged by the current growth of interest in traditional and folk music among youngsters, and especially by the number of genuinely talented young singers and players that are emerging.
 

“I have other things in front of me now that are not necessarily tied to my skill as an instrumentalist,” he said. “Not long after the smashing instruments incident I went to Celtic Connections in Glasgow, and I found that to be great therapy. They gave me a pass to go and see whatever I wanted in the festival, and I went around a lot of things. I didn’t stay more than half an hour at anything, and I picked out the events with the younger singers and players.
 

“I was bowled over by the amount of skill out there – honest to God, it’s amazing what’s going on out there with the younger folk now. I went and spoke to many of them afterwards, and they all said that they had my albums. I wasn’t there for an ego massage, but that was the most wonderful thing I could have heard at that point, because interesting the younger generation in traditional music was always very central to my aims in music.”
 

While the young musicians he met knew and loved his work, not all of them were ready to follow him down the crossover route, a fact which perversely gave him a great deal of pleasure.
 

“I spoke to people like Jenna Cummings, who is a wonderful Gaelic singer [and the Gold Medal winner at last month’s centenary Mod] and Ross Ainsley, who is a fabulous piper, and a few others. I asked them if they wanted to work with me in a Grit-style project, and they all said no! You might think I would be upset by that, but I was actually tickled pink. They all wanted to find their way in traditional music at this point, which I thought was wonderful, and absolutely the right thing for them.
 

“When I look back on my first album, I feel that it’s only now that I’m really getting to grips with it. What I’d like next is for someone to come along and do it better than me. I think there does need to be a separation between pure traditional music and the kind of crossover that me and a number of others are doing. For me, the danger is that lots of people jump in and try to emulate what the likes of myself or Shooglenifty are doing, and make a mess of it. I know traditional musicians who are dabbling with this, but haven’t got the immersion in the club culture that would allow them to really understand what they are doing.
 

“That makes me determined to keep carrying it forward, and I think my next project will be based on Psalms. I was up in Lewis in October for a wonderful event with a congregation of 500 people and 24 different precentors, and we recorded all of them over two nights. It’s an extraordinary thing. I don’t agree with their doctrine as far as religion goes, but they are lovely warm people, very humble and very aware of what they are about. I felt completely humbled being around them and speaking Gaelic again and singing these psalms in the congregation.

“I think it would be a wonderful project to take these songs out and sing them around the world where religious conflicts are going on, because the religious divisions which exist between Christian and Muslim and Jewish cultures is all nonsense. I believe that music is a great way in. I know that is naïve in many ways, but I’d love to do it.”
 

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