Jo Mango & Friends – Wrack Lines EP

A wrack line is the word for the trail of washed-up detritus the tide leaves behind upon the beach. In the context of Jo Mango’s project, it also describes the impact of a touring musician; in the time it took to record the EP, the artists involved racked up 118,000 passenger miles and 19,314kg of CO2 emissions. Wrack Lines explores and documents the wake left by musicians visiting city after city, stage after stage, measuring the weight of a song against very real carbon emissions.

Mango’s friends turn out to be an all-star cast of Scottish songwriters; The Pictish Trail, Rachel Sermanni, RM Hubbert and Louis Abbott (Admiral Fallow). Opening song Loneliness and Rhythm (w/ Abbott) sets the pace for this record of the road, rising and falling with the hush and whisper of the tides.

Over five bittersweet, co-written collaborations, Mango and pals offer distinctively composed snapshots of different lives in motion: airplanes, motorways, “miles on the clock”, from Scotland to Spain to Arizona. Serene and heartfelt, Wrack Lines feels like a souvenir, a physical imprint of paths taken and memories made.