Britain's most popular Christian band have a brand new album out any time now. Mike Rimmer spoke to IONA and went to the island of Lindisfarne to do so.

Iona

Where do good ideas come from? Ever pondered that? I mean, which inspired person first thought about filming lona playing a gig on Lindisfarne Island? I mean, imagine if the creative wires had got crossed? Lindisfarne on the island of lona doesn't have quite the same level of anointing in the ideas department does it? But lona on Lindisfarne? Phrases like "pure genius" were invented for ideas like this. The BBC approached lona and invited them to be filmed performing in the north of England. The band had stopped off at the island whilst on tour in 1994 and had felt that one day they would like to play in the Priory so when the BBC made them the offer, they immediately knew where they wanted to be filmed. And the rest, as they say, is history!

Talking of history, Holy Island, as Lindisfarne is now known, is off the coast of Northumberland. It was one of the most important centres of Christianity in Anglo Saxon Britain, the community being founded by St Aidan in 635. However, by the end of the eighth century the monks tended to be regularly raided by Vikings (an occupational hazard of living on the Northumbrian coast!) so moved inland.

The monastic community was re-established in the 12th century and a small order lived there until King Henry VIII decided to invent his own church and steal all the land from the existing Christian community. It was during the 12th century that a priory was built on Holy Island and after the dissolution of the monasteries, it fell into its present ruinous state. As you may guess Holy Island is steeped in the history of British Christianity. Spookily, the history of Britain's finest Christian band also began here but more of that later!

A Saturday afternoon in July sees the island succumbing to raiders of a different kind. 750 lona fans follow the footsteps of pilgrims throughout the ages to make their way across the causeway. Tickets for the performance had stressed that the island could only be reached at low tide and carried warnings about leaving the island before 10pm or be marooned by the high tide! In such historic surroundings the sun shone, a breeze blew and under the remains of a giant archway lona played their music to an appreciative audience.

There is no doubt that this is no ordinary concert. The complications of having a TV crew capturing the performance means that this does not flow like a normal concert. There are starts and stops; there are retakes as the band plays some pieces more than once. What they do perform is a mixture of lona favourites and a smattering of new material from their newest album 'Journey Into The Morn', including, fittingly, one song called "Lindisfarne". I couldn't help smiling as the sun fell on my face. I enjoyed lona's music and somehow this place of ancient faith puts the songs into an even more poignant perspective. For a band who take as a major part of their inspiration the lives and faith of the early British saints, this really is a perfect place to play. Somehow the songs come alive in the sunshine and the breeze. It's a spiritual experience. I take time to look through the ruins down the length of the island to the castle at the end and I can't help sighing and thinking that this is one of life's Kodak moments!

Later, I have the opportunity to talk to Dave Bainbridge and Joanne Hogg and discover that Holy Island figured large in the formation of lona. As Dave explains, "The inspiration for the band came from a visit to Lindisfarne that Dave Fitzgerald made back in 1988 on route to a gig in Glasgow. He was feeling pretty burnt out from doing loads of gigs and God met powerfully with him when he was there and told him to look into the roots of the Christian faith in England which he knew nothing about at the time. He shared all this with me a bit later and that was when the group was formed."

Having experienced the concert at Lindisfarne Priory as a punter, I wonder how Dave Bainbridge had enjoyed performing. "I really enjoyed it, it was an amazing thing to eventually play here. It was really tiring. We came up on Thursday night and spent all day Friday doing camera rehearsals then on Saturday from nine o'clock we were rehearsing as well. There is something special about the island; in fact this week I've been reading a book about why the Celtic church from the fourth to the eighth century is so relevant today. A lot of the early Celtic Christian saints were based on or had connections with Lindisfarne."

'Journey Into The Morn' is the fourth lona album. The title comes from a poem written by a Canadian friend of the band Cindy Spear-Polley. After lona's debut album, Cindy wrote to Joanne Hogg. They became friends and began corresponding and found they had a lot in common. Cindy is a very gifted poet and two of her poems have been used on the album. So what's it about? Dave describes it: "Basically, it's about looking forward towards Heaven. Quite a short lyric but poignant and it was made even more poignant in that the night we recorded the vocals, a friend of Jo's, who was the wife of the curate at her church, died in childbirth so her journey on the earth came to an end that very night. We've dedicated that song to her."

A lot of the album is based on David Adams' book The Eye Of The Eagle, which is a series of meditations of the eighth century Irish hymn "Be Thou My Vision". The album contains a Gaelic version of the hymn which was translated by the grandfather of Clannad singer Maire Brennan! The story of how the music was written is a little more unusual. Dave laughs as he explains, "One morning I woke up at five o'clock with this tune in my head. I had to dash out of bed and write it down on the keyboard in the next room. When I was thinking about the lyrics I thought it would be quite nice if there could be some connection with the past because in the original eighth century version, it would be written in Gaelic. I wondered if we could get hold of a translation. We had actually approached Maire Brennan to guest on the album on vocals and Celtic harp. Her first language is actually Gaelic so we asked her if she could do a translation and it turned out that her grandfather had already done one years ago!"

Singer Joanne Hogg takes up the story: "I don't actually think it had ever been sung, I don't think she (Brennan) had actually heard anybody sing it until we did it and we had already written the piece of music that we wanted the lyrics for and it was amazing because when she sent us this translation, we were able to sing it line by line, word by word to the melody that we had and didn't have to change anything." Recording the song was a new experience for Joanne. When I enquire how well she spoke Gaelic she laughs, "I grew up in a part of Ireland where nobody speaks Gaelic. I'd like to have learned it because it's a very expressive language. What we did was that she went through the pronunciation with me word by word and we recorded a rough version of me singing it once I could pronounce it and then Maire told me to go away and listen to that for a day and really get it into my head so that when I went into the studio I could sing it from the heart. And that's what I did and she was there when I recorded it and whenever I came out of the studio she was crying and Dave was in tears so I think the Gaelic was okay!"

Often lona have been compared with Clannad in the futile attempt to pigeon hole their music. Now that Brennan is singing with them I wondered whether that would happen even more. Dave responds, "I think there are certain bits that sound a bit like Clannad but I think on this particular album there's a lot more that doesn't. I think there is a lot of affinity. I personally like working with other musicians whose music I like or who have the same sort of outlook on the music. Maire became a Christian about seven years ago, after she was brought up a Catholic and rededicated her life. Her husband was already a Christian brought up in the Brethren church. I knew that she was a Christian. We actually met up when she came to see us play in Dublin at the end of last year and we kept in contact. It was particularly good knowing that she was a Christian and she understood what we were trying to do on the album."

To Joanne Hogg, comparisons with Clannad are a major compliment as she explains, "When I was going through school and University, Clannad's 'Magical Ring' was one of my favourite albums. It was a privilege to work with Maire Brennan." So with her Christian faith, was Brennan excited at working with lona? Joanne replies, "I got the impression she was very happy to do it and I think the fellowship we had in the studio was really lovely."

On Holy Island, I watched as the various cameras from the BBC swooped into focus on individual band members as they played a very apt piece entitled "Lindisfarne". This was inspired by a previous trip to Holy Island where the band were walking along a steep cliff behind Lindisfarne Priory. Dave describes the inspiration for the song, "We had just been looking over at the abbey and a friend showed us this place where there were some clefts in the rocks which are known as the prayer holes. We spent some time there just looking out to sea and Jo suddenly said, 'Has anyone got a pen and some paper? I've got an idea for some lines.' And she wrote down some lines for the song which soon afterwards became the song 'Lindisfarne' which was one of the first pieces we did for the album. It's fantastic that we had the opportunity to play it on Lindisfarne."

lona played with a new line up. Aside from Joanne and Dave and drummer Terl Bryant, Mike Haughton is still in the band playing a variety of woodwind and entertaining the crowd with Australian humour. For this series of concerts, Troy Donockley has joined lona to broaden the sound by playing Irish pipes, assorted whistles, guitars and keyboards. One face is however missing and that is Nick Beggs, so Tim Harries is playing bass.