Iona Leigh was born in Sydney Australia and moved to the Findhorn community in the north of Scotland at the age of 8 where she grew up amidst the free thinkers, searchers and individualists that are attracted to its unique way of life (Mike Scott of the Waterboys for one). The philosophy of the Steiner School she attended restricted access to television which lead to her learning the harp, writing songs and singing to her mother's alternative music collection. Music was woven into the fabric of Iona's life in Findhorn, as traveling musicians came from far and wide to perform in the community's Universal Hall.Today she lives in London and I met her in the wonderfully named InSpiral Cafe on Camden High Street.

Serendipity, the happy coincidence that taps you on the shoulder had drawn Iona to this cafe already; a woman working there had been to Findhorn where she had bought the plant essences that Iona's mother makes and sells up there. She heard that Iona was a singer and living in london and it didn't take much to get her booked to play in the cafe that looks out on the water.

Iona is a fascinating blend of influences and cultural references, when she talks of Australia her voice unconsciously takes on an Aussie lilt, and when she talks of the recording of her new album in a very cold cottage in Ardgour she revels in its natural isolation and wildness. Iona's music degree was in popular music yet she is rooted in folk and more natural acoustic stylings.

Her new album 'Beside The Waves Of Time' was recorded at Nick Turner's Watercolour Studio in the remote, beautiful and inspiring Ardgour Peninsula that you get to across Loch Linnhe via the Corran Ferry from Fort William. Nick brought long time friend and collaborator Findlay Napier into the project. Iona was understandably a tad intimidated when they listened earnestly to her demo's, and relieved when she received the thumb's up from them.

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