Angus MacLeod - The Silent Ones (click image to view larger version). Angus MacLeod, based in Ontario, Canada, is a descendant of the Lewis Settlers. This fine album tells the story (in song) of Bruce County, Canada's Lewis Settlers. The settlers were evicted from their crofts on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland's Outer Hebrides in 1851 by landlord James Matheson and transported overseas. Victims of Scotland's infamous Highland Clearances, the Lewis Settlers (109 families) settled together on a block of land in the centre of Huron Township, Ontario, maintaining their language and culture well into the twentieth century. Some of the families still speak Gaelic in their homes. There are lots of Lewis descendants still residing in the area, some on the land first cleared by their ancestors.

In 1998 Angus MacLeod, pictured right, established Torquil Productionsand Recording Studio on a plot of land first cleared by his great grandfather and namesake, Angus MacLeod (a native of Mid Borve on the Isle of Lewis' west side) and set about recording the album - The Silent Ones. The recording is 64 minutes long and contains a most interesting and informative 20 page booklet (with a history of the Lewsi Clearances and photo's).

The album is expertly produced (by George Graves who has worked for the likes of Loreena McKennitt, U2 and Peter Gabriel) and features a host of musicians and vocalists (14) and various instruments (including Highland Bagpipes and fiddle). The album creates an atmosphere of tranquility while plucking at your heart strings as you lie back and travel backwards into a time and place that hollywood attempts to create in films like Rob Roy and Braveheart. You can soon hear why the album has received excellent reviews and was nominated for the American radio program Celtic Connection's Album of the Year Award.

Some of the vocals are in Gaelic which adds to the atmosphere. The impetus to tell the story hit Angus while he was visiting some of the blackhouse ruins on the Isle of Lewis during a holiday with his aging father. While recording the album Angus would take long walks to the 150 year-old cemetary in a remote section of the Huron Township (the Lewis Cemetary) where he experienced a feeling "like a childhood memory". You can almost hear the hearts of the people in the music of the album and it could sometimes be described as eerie (especially the sections that include Gaelic Voice).