This week we caught up with traditional folk musicains Arthur Coates following the release of his album ‘Trapdoor To Hell’. The 20 year old from Insch in Aberdeenshire, grew up surrounded by his parent’s love of folk music from their native Shetland. The in-demand session musician studied fiddle and piano at Aberdeen City Music School where he realised his calling for Québécois traditional music. He released his debut solo album Focus in 2019 and toured the UK with English guitarist Kerran Cotterell earlier this year. You can listen to the brand new album Trapdoor To Hell here.

Your brand new album Trapdoor To Hell is out today. Tell us a bit about what has inspired this album

Music from Quebec is a huge part of my life so being able to travel there for the first time qnd collaborate with my heroes was a huge inspiration.

Tell us about the process of working between your own studio CloudN9ne in Aberdeen and Studio de la Côte June in Quebec

Infact the process was incredibly simple. Before leaving I made a demo of every track to help guide the recordings in Quebec. And I returned to Scotland with a pen drive and the prospect of a few Dropbox emails.

We note that in this album, you perform on just a small number of instruments including fiddle, vocals, foot tapping, guitar, bouzouki, bass, electric guitar, synthesiser and percussions. Do you have a favourite instrument?

Yes of course! My favorite is my native fiddle. But recording Electric Bouzouki is always a treat 😉

You mention working with some of your musical heroes on this album including Eric Beaudry, Pierre-Luc Dupuis and David Boulanger, collectively known as De Temps Antan. What are the benefits in collaborating with other artists? What did they bring to this project?

They bring experience and vast knowledge of the music I'm trying to make, and of course incredible musical skill. But, equally working with them was such fun and I hope that this joy has worked its way into the album.